I will keep it short as I could write a book on the subject, but they were totally different times in the 1970s/1980s . When I was 12 in 1976 , I would come home from School, grab my bins , jump on a bus to Leigh then walk down the canal to Pennington Flash spending most evenings until dark down there , end up at the plank lane end were I would catch 2 buses back home. Can anyone imagine any parent allowing any child to do that these days? No chance , but without that freedom the birding part is not the same . 

 These days kids in primary school have electronic games by the time they are 6, by 7 they all start carrying phones which they stare at , during any free opportunity. The idea that they willingly go walking in the countryside is so alien to them they would think you mad to suggest it. Its not just birding that has less youngsters, were are the people fishing these days , when I was a kid you couldn't get a peg on the canal from Pennington Flash to Astley, again parents would not allow their children these days to go fishing on their own, so they don't bother. 

 Sadly its more appealing to children to sit in a bedroom , watching nonsense on face book, or you tube than actually go out doing some outdoor hobby. 

 Also don't have this vision there were hundreds birding in the late 1970s and 1980s for much of that time there were probably half a dozen regulars actually birding penny and finding the birds. There may have been another 20 you saw once or twice a month , but the core was very small and in reality 3 or 4 young birders who went day in day out.

There is no point harking back to those times they will never be repeated, and also to add there was no social media , letting birders know down to the foot exactly were birds were seen in those days unlike today were armchair birders can look on watts app and decide whether to go to see a rare bird hundreds of miles away or not. In those days you went out and found your own birds ,you only found out about rare birds in the LOS(Leigh Ornithological Society) newsletter when the birds had already moved on and the thought at that time of leaving Pennington Flash to go to wigan flashes because a rare bird had been seen there , was unknown. Frank Horrocks wouldn't go to Wigan Flashes even when a Pratincole was recorded there, so totally different times that cannot be compared with the watts app generation of today.  

Two good points Simon, especially regarding the lack of birds. Take waders as an example, in 1983 I saw a flock of 110 little stints at Frodsham. I bet there's not a site in Britain gets such numbers now. Double figures seem exceptional anywhere. Birdguides reports little stints from all around the country even when there's just a single bird at a site. Wader numbers have crashed in recent years. So wader passage was bound to be a lot better back then because not only did places like the spit at Pennington Flash provide good habitat, there were more birds generally. A combination of much reduced wader numbers and the spit no longer providing good habitat means that the chances of a good wader now really are much reduced. These days it's a good day if I see a dunlin or a redshank. What is there to make a young birder want to spend time at the flash?

In some ways the lack of older birders at a place like Pennington Flash worries me more than the lack of younger people because I know that younger birders are out there but just birding in a different way to the way I started. When I was in my late teens, I went to places like Pennington Flash and Horrock's hide was packed and the spit looked great for attracting birds. There were younger and older birders in the hide who I could learn a lot from and I was happy to sit there for a while talking to them, waiting and watching. It felt exciting.

I go in Horrock's now and often I'm the first one in and the windows are all closed and it's dark, even at midday. Before fully committing to going in I have a nervous glance inside to make sure that there are no unsavoury character's inside, because sometimes there are and I beat a hasty retreat. I open the windows and the spit is overgrown, it doesn't look loved. There's a few mallards in front of the hide but most birds are only on the very end of the spit and if it's been raining often even that is covered by water. There's nobody in the hides these days. Even the few regulars who do still go don't go in the hides, in fact most visit the flash outside of hide opening hours. So if a young person goes into Horrock's what he / she now finds is an empty, dark, cold, slightly scary place with very poor habitat in front and little chance of seeing many birds. Nobody to ask "what's about?". If they go for a walk it's the same story at all of the other hides, and they almost certainly won't meet another birder. Nobody to learn from, no incentive to stay, no incentive to come back. And a young mother who says to her child "lets go in here to see the birds" has the same experience. Why would the child ask "Mummy can I have a pair of binoculars?". 

The problem isn't just young birders who are AWOL at the flash, it's actually a whole birding community of all age groups that has vanished. All that remains are the remnants of that community, most of whom visit at dawn and dusk and are not really around to help or mentor new birders. And I could say the same of other places, even Martin Mere has lost it's birding community. I used to go in Ron Barker / Millers Bridge hide every Saturday and sit there most of the day and knew virtually everybody in the packed hide. These days I go in and there might be one other person there.