At 9.25am I received a text message from a fellow birder, BH,
informing me that he had just seen a greater scaup at Pennington Flash but
without a scope he couldn’t be 100% certain and very soon he had to leave. I
messaged him back and told him that I was nearly at Green Lane with my scope
and would check it out. On arrival it was immediately obvious that there had
been a large build-up of tufted ducks and pochard, totalling around 400
birds with flocks at the west end, off the car park and in East Bay.
However, I couldn’t see any scaup from Green Lane so I decided to drive
around to the main car park.
It wasn’t with the flock at the car park so I walked to Horrock’s hide and
viewed East Bay from there. Almost immediately I saw a scaup sp. but it
seemed obvious to me that from the head shape and size it was actually
lesser scaup. It was a bit distant from here so I walked around to East Bay
for a closer look.
Fortunately, when I arrived the bird was still present and I had decent
views at a distance of about 100m, and also managed to take a video and some
photos. The bird was an adult lesser scaup with a grey vermiculated back,
white flanks and a black head and breast. It was similar size to the
accompanying tufted ducks.
The head shape was distinctive with an obvious peak on the rear crown. The
bill was blue with a tiny black tip on the nail which seemed to rule out any
possibility of a hybrid.
At 10:42 the flock was flushed by a yacht and flew off before splitting,
some birds flying towards Ramsdales, the others to the bay off the car park.
I walked back to my car and had a look through the flock off the car park
but could not relocate the lesser scaup. It was not seen again.
I messaged BH who by this time had left, to tell him that it was in fact a
lesser scaup. His reaction was one of surprise because he said that the bird
he had seen had been clearly larger than the tufted ducks and was not in his
opinion lesser scaup. My next visit to the flash was three days later when
two 1st winter greater scaup were found at the west end of the Flash. I saw
these birds with BH and he told me that the scaup sp. that he had seen was
most likely one of these birds. He remains adamant that the bird he reported
was not lesser scaup.
This was the second lesser scaup at Pennington Flash / Greater Manchester in
2025. The first was also found by myself on 30th June and stayed for about
two weeks before relocating to Audenshaw Reservoirs where it stayed until
the end of August and then disappeared. That bird was considered to be a
returning bird which has spent the past several summers in Greater
Manchester and which historically has always disappeared at end of summer.
Today's bird will be submitted to BBRC as a different bird due to its brief
appearance so far outside the normal pattern of occurrence.
Head peaked at the back and the bird is the same size or smaller than tufted
duck.
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