Pennington Flash

Here is a blog post I wrote about a week ago following a trip to Pennington Country Park between Wigan and Manchester.

About a fortnight ago I had the privilege of spending an afternoon birding at Pennington Flash Country Park near Leigh, Greater Manchester, during a foray up North to see my dear friend Tom, getting out birding for the first time in a few days.  The site, which sits on the fringe of the great conurbation, between the City of Manchester and Wigan, was created in part by mining subsidence, where collapses enabled the formation of several large pools. An expansive lake, used by boaters, birders and the inevitable duck feeders armed with bags of bread, greeted us when we arrived. A scan of the water revealed distant goosander and Tufty among the Mallards, which was promising, but it was the nature reserve which adjoins it that we were interested in. A number of hides overlook a range of smaller pools, all home to interesting waterfowl.

Shoveller and Goosander at Pennington Flash.

Confident Reed Bunting, close to the appropriately named Bunting Hide. 

The first hide we visited revealed Shoveller engaged in their rather fascinating and rather mesmerising courtship dances, the male and female swimming in close circles, matching each others’ speed while often beak to beak, forming pair bonds that would presumably travel North with them onto their summer breeding grounds.  There were also several Goosander,  which typically winter on inland waters, especially in the North, where they seem to be growing more common.  They are among Britain’s prettiest ducks, the green-headed males sporting bright white flanks, while the females crests are endearingly punky.

Blue tit from Bunting Hide. 

Stock Doves from Bunting Hide.

The highlight of the visit had to be the experience of sitting in what is called the bunting hide, just watching so many birds around the feeders. Mottled and wintery Reed Buntings, smart hen Chaffinches, gaudy male Chaffinches, and fascinatingly pink Bullfinches landed on the tables. A grey squirrel, apparently blind in one eye but seemingly none the worse for its disability, enjoyed the seeds it could pull from behind the bars.  Little, noisy parties of Long Tailed Tits came and went from the hanging peanut feeders, accompanied by Blue Tits and a Coal Tit with an unusually long beak, perhaps regrown following some injury.  A pair of handsome stock doves, in beautiful slate grey plumage with their deep metallic green neck flashes, not dissimilar to woodpigeons but so much (even) more beautiful sat eyeing each other in the trees at the back of the clearing. The clearing was dotted with bird tables and feeders, bringing all the passerines so close. The scarcest bird in this little clearing was a beautiful female Brambling, a winter visitor from Scandinavia and other more boreal climes. It resembles a Chaffinch, with pale orange on the breast and mottled black and brown on the back and crown, with similar wing markings to its cogener, but suffused with orange, and a bright white rump. It fed on one of the bird tables, sadly the one furthest from us but still close enough for a photo for the records.

Partially blind squirrel

After we had sat in the hide a few moments, the birds scattered, and a Sparrowhawk flew through the clearing at speed. The mallards and moorhens which did not flee suddenly paddled or swam into the vegetation, apparently still nervous. The bird of prey disappeared, maneuvering between the trees, and we could not tell whether it had caught anything, but it took the passerines a long time to return, with the feisty blue tits appearing first, and the shy bullfinches taking their time to return to the clearing.

Brambling

This grey day was just the night after the latest round of storms which had affected the country, and especially the North West, and a few trees were down, including one close to bunting hide. Crack willows by the main lake had been snapped, their jagged edges reaching skyward, and elsewhere smaller Birches lay uprooted across the paths. The clouds were coming over in waves, and the wind was light but chilling, a shadow of the destructive force which had brought trees down on top of cars in the town centre just the night before. Despite the sporadic greyness and showers we wandered through the diverse habitats around the pools, adding a pair of kingfisher to our day list, the two bright little birds pursuing each other at speed, zigzagging close to the water surface. We saw a very windswept moorhen picking its way among the patches of gravel which formed islands in the pools, its breast feathers caught in the breeze.

Windswept moorhen

We saw a handsome Goldeneye out on the water of the main lake, and plenty of little grebes and scruffy, first winter grey herons.  Herons seem to have a roost in a cluster of trees beside one of the scrapes, to which the huge, broad winged birds were returning as we watched.   As the sun began to set, the sky cleared and we spent a few moments trying,  fruitlessly, to pick out a Mediterranean gull reported on the sightings board among the confiding, black headed gulls which had gathered amongst the motley collection of wild and feral mallards.

Motley mallards. 

Pennington Flash sits among major conurbations and is well used and much valued by a range of people. As a country park it represents a popular local day out. Despite the breeze we saw a range of dog walkers and other members of the public wandering around the site, but nevertheless it held a range of remarkable wildlife habitats and a surprising array of wildlife, and has become, in  my mind, something of a gem in the Greater Manchester area, and I look forward to seeing it again!

Sunset Gulls.

Falls of Clyde

On Thursday I was lucky enough, while North of the Border, to visit Scottish Wildlife Trust's reserve at Falls of Clyde. It sits beside the New Lanark UNESCO World Heritage Site, designated for its industrial history. Mills were established by Richard Arkwright in the 18th century beside the river Clyde's only waterfalls. Arkwright was certainly not noted for his philanthropy, but his successor at New Lanark, Richard Owen, a reformer and philanthropist turned the mills and the town into something of a social experiment and example of Utopian Socialism, a philosophy which he helped to found. Today the only industry there is a hydroelectric power station.

Today the site is largely a tourist attraction, and reached by a steep set of steps from the public car park, which sits between the village and the car park. Here several crows were mobbing a Buzzard, the only raptor I saw that day. Falls of Clyde is famous for its Peregrines, which are best seen in summer when they are nesting.  I passed among the stone mill buildings to the River Clyde.

In the shallow water where the river is relatively wide through the village of New Lanark itself, a Dipper was bobbing about on a moss covered rock. Throughout the wooded valley could be heard the roar of the waterfalls, ever present, continuous. The Corra Linn falls are the largest on the Clyde, and the riverside path offered views of the falling, churning white water.

Corra Linn on the Falls of Clyde.

The woodland which fringed the river seemed to be mixed in composition, featuring birch, oak and pine trees. When the open country outside the deep gorge could be seen from the path, snow capped peaks looked in the far distance. The woods echoed with passerine contact calls but they seemed reluctant to be seen, although ubiquitous friendly robins, and early singing great tits were seen, as well as a wren, busy in the undergrowth. On the river itself a single female and three smart male Goosander were about, the males resting on the bank yards from the cascading water.

A beautiful place.