Penduline Tit, Pennington Flash!

I was standing next to the site of the old East Bay hide at 9am talking to Bill who had his back to the Flash when suddenly I saw a small, brownish, tit like bird fly into the small willow tree in the reeds behind him. It didn't look quite right and I expected it to be a chiffchaff, which would have been a good record and the first wintering bird at the flash this year. However on raising my binoculars, the first thing I saw was the dark mask. I’m very familiar with penduline tit from seeing them elsewhere, especially in southern Europe, and it was immediately obvious to me that this is what it was. However we were not in southern Europe, we were at Pennington Flash and Bill and I had just been discussing how quiet things were. It seemed almost surreal that he should now have a penduline tit over his shoulder! I suggested that he should turn around quickly and look at the bird in the tree.

By this time I’d already dismissed the only other possibility I could think of which was lesser whitethroat, the bird was clearly not a sylvia warbler, and in any case the reddish coloured back ruled out any warbler species. It was closest to a miniature red-backed shrike.

We’d now agreed that it was a penduline tit and probably an adult due to the dark mask. The bird stayed in the tree calling for about 5 minutes, before flying down into the small patch of reeds to the left where we could hear it calling out of view. After a further couple of minutes it flew across the gap and started calling from the reeds to the right until eventually it fell silent at about 9:10am and was not seen or heard again all day, despite the arrival of about 20 other birders. Bill and I were the only birders to see or hear the bird.

It appeared to be a little smaller than a blue tit, with a reddish coloured back, buff underparts, brown / grey head with a dark grey / black mask and a pale throat. Due to the limited extent of the mask we considered it to be a female.

On examining the photos the bird appears a little dull for an adult female and the possibility of it being a 1st winter bird was discussed. 

 

This is a Greater Manchester county first. For context, there is just one record for Cheshire, from Wirral in 1986, and two records for Lancashire, both from Leighton Moss in 2004 and 2011/12. So this bird is the 4th record for North West England.

Edit 12/11/2022: This bird or perhaps another was trapped and ringed at Woolston Eyes at Warrington today, but has not subsequently been seen since release. It was aged as a 1st winter but apparently cannot be safely sexed at this age. The general feeling is that it is the same bird as that at the flash, but personally I'm not sure which is more unlikely, two penduline tits in the north west or the bird from the flash travelling 6.5 miles to be miraculously caught in the nets at Woolston. 

Penduline tit Woolston eyes 22/11/2022
© David Bowman

Edit 22/11/2022: The Woolston bird went missing for 10 days after release but was seen again on 22/11/2022 when David Bowman took this photo. My photos are nowhere near good enough for an accurate comparison, but they do look very similar especially the mask. This feature seems very variable on 1st winter birds with some having no mask whatsoever, so given that both the penny and Woolston birds had bold masks added to the extreme rarity of the species in the North West, it seems likely that they are the same bird. Thanks to David Bowman for letting me use this photo here.

Sadly no great photos even by my standards, but I'm happy enough with these. Only my third record of penduline tit in the UK, following birds in Devon 2015 and Gloucestershire in 2016. I have seen them abroad in Greece, Spain and Cyprus.

East Bay reedbed with the willow tree in the centre.