Pennington Flash

Little ringed plover

Another showers and sunshine day boded slightly better late afternoon so I took a roundabout route to Pennington Flash to avoid the blackest clouds of the afternoon and struck lucky with bouts of sunshine. It's nice when the trick works.

Ragged robin

Even though it's still only the beginning of June the walk in from St Helens Road was a lot quieter than on my last visit. Robins, like the titmice, tended to be noises in the shadows or hinted at by leaves moving against the wind. Blackbirds, blackcaps and wrens sang fitfully to put placeholders on territories while they got on with the business of feeding hungry mouths.

Bradshaw Leach Meadow

Pennington Flash 

The wind was strong so most of the waterfowl were keeping to the banksides, a raft of coots by the near bank and a herd of mute swans over the other side. A few mallards and Canada geese lurked by the car park, kettled into one area by the fencing that's been put along the flash in preparation for the Iron Man swimming competition. It's occasionally easy to forget this is a National Nature Reserve.

Little ringed plover 

The F.W.Horrocks Hide can be a cold and windy place at the best of times, if it's a cool and windy day you definitely feel it. The spit was in one of it's quiet moods, the usual congregation of cormorants, herring gulls and lesser black-backs loafed at the end, mallards dozed, a pair of lapwings supervised at least one chick, and a little ringed plover skittered about the waterside near the hide.

Little ringed plover 

The black-headed gulls on the raft at the end of the spit were very active and made plenty of noise but it wasn't possible to see how productive they might have been being.

It was such a quiet walk to the Tom Edmondson Hide that it came as a relief when a chiffchaff started singing. A reed warbler riffed quietly from the Kidney Pool opposite the hide as though singing to itself. The pools at the hide were quiet, pairs of coots fed youngsters, a couple of gadwalls and mallards pottered about in the reeds. A young heron fished from the reed margins but seemed to be mostly catching insects off the surface and the occasional leaf. It's a rough learning curve once they leave the nest.

The Kidney Pool 

At Ramsdales 

It was quietly busier at Ramsdales, with the occasional burst of song from the Cetti's warbler in the usual corner. Canada geese loafed on the islands while mallards and gadwalls dabbled along the channels. I was surprised to see a drake teal out in plain sight, the teal are in deep cover this time of year. I very rarely see teal ducklings until they're nearly full grown. Lapwings fussed about well away from where their chicks were foraging. One pair made a big fuss of a little ringed plover walking too close to them.

Pennington Flash 

I decided I'd walk round to Plank Lane for the bus into Leigh. Scanning the flash from the North, to a background of singing reed buntings and reed warblers, there was a line of a couple of dozen great crested grebes cruising by the end of the Horrocks spit. It was a very orderly queue, I couldn't work out what it was about. Swifts swarmed low over the flash, oddly I couldn't see any hirundines whatever. It seemed good hunting weather for sand martins, perhaps it's just too far away from their nesting grounds.

Walking between the rucks and the canal, the canal bank's on the right

Willow warblers sang in the scrub on the rucks. I listened in vain for any whitethroats.

Greylag and goslings

Mallards and greylags cruised about on the canal. The greylags had plenty of well-grown goslings in tow. In contrast, the Canada geese still had downy yellow goslings with them on the towpath. A drake mandarin duck pottered my way then steamed off in the other direction when the camera appeared.

The mandarin duck didn't want to know

As I was taking photos of the yellow waterlilies in the marina another family of goslings rushed over in the expectation of a free meal. I made my excuses and left for the bus stop.

Yellow water lily