The flooded flash

Sunday 23rd July 2023

I spent a couple of hours in Horrock's hide this afternoon, in torrential rain, hoping that something might drop in but all I could manage was 13 common terns. To be honest there's nowhere really left for anything to drop in, unless it be onto the water and yachts and openwater swimmers often stop even that happening. Apart from the terns recent highlights have been four little egrets and a drake common scoter but even they were absent today.

I didn't go to Teal / Charlie Owen hide but I imagine it's impassable. Westleigh Brook had burst it's banks yesterday morning and the footpath was under 20cm of water, after this lot I don't think you'd even get through with wellies.

It's a struggle at the moment with very high water levels and over grown habitat meaning that there is virtually no shoreline, and in any case tall vegetation impedes viewing from almost everywhere. Hopefully now that the children's playground, cafe and new car park have been opened, and the hides have been painted inside and out, and Iron Man has been and gone, they will spend at least some time and money on improving the habitat at this part of Wigans "National Nature Reserve". I have at least been assured that the spit will be completely cleared of vegetation in August or September depending on water levels, and will then be kept clear. We shall see....

Monday 24th July 2023

Water levels have been high for a couple of weeks, but this is extreme. In normal years you wouldn't even know that the spit was there if water was this high, however this year due to a few years of neglect by Wigan council, we can still see the outline of the spit thanks to the tall vegetation. Notice the difference in the direction pointer in this photo as compared with the top photo. 

15:00 on 23/07/2023. 

06:30 on 24/07/2023.

19:30 on 24/076/2023. Water levels up by at least twice the height of a coot.

The golf course.

Tuesday 25th July 2023

The flash had risen slightly again this morning, though levels have receded slightly in other parts of the reserve.

The boat club.

Miraculously despite the high water levels, the flash isn't completely waderless at the moment. This morning I managed to find a  common sandpiper on the jetty at the boat club and later in the day during a period of rain, a small wader shot through heading west, most likely a dunlin though it was a bit distant for a positive identification. A juvenile little ringed plover was at the boat club in the afternoon, the first I have seen at the flash in nearly three weeks, and a couple of oystercatchers and a handful of lapwings still find places to land. 

This week also brought a female common scoter in the middle on the 25th, up to 15 common terns are here daily. Lesser black-backed gulls have built up, with about 120 at the moment, of which at least 85 are juveniles. Not a lot of other big gulls, just a handful of herring gulls now and again, but a 3cy Caspian gull was present on 26th. 

Also today a little egret put in an appearance in Pengy's, though these photos were from Saturday.