Pennington Flash

Mallards and goosanders 

It was a mild, grey, wet and windy day so I opted for a wander round Pennington Flash on the basis it's easy to escape by bus if the weather turns worse and there are plenty of hides to shelter in.

Walking in from St Helens Road 

The rain stopped just before the bus did and the wind calmed down a little. It was mizzly as I crossed St Helens Road and the rest of the afternoon was gloomy and damp. Which is fine for walking in and the visibility was adequate for birdwatching though most everything looked in grey scale. Except the car park oystercatcher.

The car park oystercatcher 

I'm pretty sure this is the car park oystercatcher by the confident way it strutted about just feet away from passersby, I had to stop and let it pass at one point. The other oystercatchers I've seen here are very skittish about people. 

Pochards 

Out on the flash the main event was diving ducks. A round dozen pochards steamed out of the brook and into open water, the drakes giving the occasional, subtle, bobbing of the head to the ladies. Further out there was a mixed raft of at least a couple of dozen pochards with a similar number of tufted ducks. And a dozen goldeneyes drifted about midwater.

Black-headed gulls and lesser black-back

Pochards

There were plenty of black-headed gulls about, most of them mingling with the mallards and Canada geese loitering round the deserted car park waiting for the tiny tots to get out of school. A few lesser black-backs and herring gulls loafed on the rocks by the bank. There were more large gulls in a raft over by the sailing club, only a few dozen of them this time of day. It seemed to be two-to-one herring gulls to lesser black-backs. Even at that distance in this light it was easy to spot a couple of adult great black-backs, I suspect there were a couple of younger birds, too, but it would have needed a telescope to be sure of the identification. As would any chances of picking out anything unusual that might have been in the raft. For some reason the buoys within easy sight from the bank were being favoured by first-Winter herring gulls and lesser black-backs, the older birds weren't interested today. A bit of a kerfuffle involving a black-headed gull with something to eat gave a common gull the opportunity to park itself on one of the buoys but it was soon evicted when the herring gulls came back.

Cormorants, herring gulls, black-headed gulls and lapwings

The spit at the F.W.Horrocks Hide was very quiet, except at the far end where the usual motley assemblage of herring gulls, cormorants and lapwings gathered. A low-flying aeroplane spooked the lapwings and about fifty of them circled the spit before settling back down again.

Coot

Lapwings

It was very quiet of people today, I can't remember it so quiet. It felt nearly as quiet of birds, the titmice, robins and dunnocks kept a very low profile in the hedgerows and a goldcrest was the most conspicuous bird in the trees. The whistling of the teals a-courting on Pengy's Pool was the dominant feature of the soundscape.

From the Tom Edmondson Hide 

Pairs of mallards, shovelers and gadwalls drifted about the pool at the Tom Edmondson Hide. 

At Ramsdales Hide

A pair of mute swans grazed at the corner by Ramsdales Hide. Across the way a great white egret stalked another corner. A mixed group of mallards and goosanders drifted about by the willows by the bight while teal, coots and dabchicks puttered about. 

Coots and a dabchick keep an eye on a passing mink

All of a sudden the dabchicks were on high alert, craning their necks to look over to the water behind one of the islands. The coots gathered and the ducks quietly drifted away from the bank. Eventually I could see what was going on: a nearly completely submerged blackish something was steaming across the water with three coots in tow. The mink beached itself and immediately disappeared into the reeds, the waterbirds keeping an eye on its progress until it had gone over the top to go and disgruntle the coots and mallards on the next pool.

Reed buntings

I was feeling the effects of the gloomy weather and a bad night's sleep so I decided I'd visit the Bunting Hide then call it quits. The feeders had been recently replenished and were being fought over by magpies, moorhens and squirrels. A couple of great tits and robins flitted in and out and a female chaffinch tidied up below the bird tables. Any time the magpies were otherwise engaged in the trees a bunch of male reed buntings would pile in and get a quick feed.

Walking back I had a scan over the flash. More herring gulls had come in and joined the distant raft. One of the gulls on one of the buoys caught my eye, a big herring gull type with some brown feathers on its wings and a long beak. The mid-grey back looked too dark for a herring gull though, even for one of the darker Scandinavian gulls. And the beak looked wrong. In fact, the whole bird looked wrong: there was a small head and a lot of chest and the primaries were all jet black. It was very gloomy out there so I wasn't getting a good look at the bird but at least the light was dead flat, always a lot of help when you're looking at gulls and trying to fathom out shades of grey. I was hedging towards identifying it as a Caspian gull or a yellow-legged gull and wasn't comfortable with either. Then it yawned and I realised there had been a lot of beak sort of merging into the background gloom. It was a yellow-legged gull, a third-Winter bird I think.

Pennington Flash 

I hadn't seen the scaup that was out on the flash, I think that must have been over near the sailing club, I noticed a couple of guys with telescopes walking over the rucks. Still, I'd seen more than plenty and was ready for the bus rides home.