New Years Eve at the Flash

Winter ducks are building up nicely at the flash, including over 20 pochard just off the car park. It's interesting to see the ratio of males and females, with the former usually far outnumbering the latter in our area, as was the case today with 18 males and 5 females.

Meanwhile the goldeneye flock has reached 57 birds, with approximately one third males. These birds are scattered all over the flash during the day but in the evening they flock together and are easier to count.

Goosanders are currently numbered in the mid-thirties, again with about one third males. These birds tend to move around quite a lot and can just as likely be seen on a brook or in front of teal hide as they can on the main flash.

This Dutch ringed black-headed gull has been hanging around the car park since the middle of November.

The most obvious rings at the flash are these blue rings with white letters on the legs of the black-headed gulls. Almost every time I read one and report it on this website,  it turns out that the bird was ringed at the flash and all subsequent sights are usually from the flash. Since the species breeds at the flash the obvious conclusion might be that they just hang around all year, however this particular bird, 2T62, bucks the trend. Ringed at the flash on 16/10/2020, there were then several further sightings at the flash over the winters of 2020/21 and 2021/22, but it was then seen at Poznan, Wielkopolskie, Poland on 16/07/2022, a distance of approximately 811 miles (1300km) from the flash. Today it was back on the car park at Pennington Flash, so I'm assuming that it breeds in Poland and visits the flash in winter.

Up to three little egrets have been at the flash recently, but it's usually two birds together and this one.

There's been about 200 lapwings roosting on the spit for a few weeks. This photo and the next were taken yesterday in better weather!

Up to 60 redwings have been feeding in the sheep fields at Mossley Hall Farm. 

In 2022 I visited the flash on 164 days, often twice, sometimes three times a day. This resulted in a flash year list of 131 birds in 2022, highlights being self found penduline tit, spoonbills and three Caspian gulls of differing ages, plus a cracking summer plumage red-necked grebe.