Runcorn Hill LNR, 19th September 2010

It was a really wet day today, not really nature walking weather, so it was a help that the bus journey was 1¼ hours each way!  We took the 82A from Liverpool ONE bus station at 10.14 and rode all thorough Hale and Widnes, past Runcorn Bus Station and got off just past the War Memorial. Runcorn Hill NR is 5 minutes walk around the corner, up Highlands Road, and we arrived as the Rangers were opening up the Visitors’ Centre. The Nature Reserve is a former sandstone quarry with fossil footprints, areas of lowland heath and some rare wildlife. Sadly, the only birds we saw today were on feeders at the back of the Visitors’ Centre – two Nuthatches, a Coal Tit and some Great Tits.  We walked through the soggy, dripping woods and spotted one Foxglove still flowering, some Judas Ear fungi and one kicked-over Fly Agaric (the red one with the white spots).  In a brief clear spell we climbed up to Frog’s Mouth viewpoint to see the views over the Mersey Estuary to the Welsh mountains. On a clearer day it would have been spectacular.
We walked back for the return 82A at 1420 and were back in Liverpool by 1545.