13/12/2011 by Barbara.

It was a seriously wet day, bucketing down almost the whole time we were out. We got to West Derby Village at about 10.30, met Margaret and Howard, then trudged up the long drive to Croxteth Hall.

Near the small resident herd of Highland Cattle, one sick Birch tree had eight bracket fungi growing from it, and there may have been more around the other side.

We saw quite a variety of the usual woodland birds – Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Blackbird, Wood Pigeon, Long-tailed Tits, Robins, and some Great Tits on the ground below a Beech tree, apparently feeding on beech mast. Not seen that before. There was a Grey Squirrel and a Jay flying through the trees. On the wet fields were Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, one Lesser Black-backed Gull, several Carrion Crows, Jackdaws and Magpies. The lake held only Mallards and Moorhen.

There was a dead mouse in a shallow puddle on the edge of a tarmacked path. We fished it out and measured it. Head and body length 7cm, tail length 8-9cm, fur looked grey – so it  must have been a House Mouse Mus musculus.  What was it doing dying out in the rain? No obvious injuries, so had it been dropped by a bird of prey?

On the lawn opposite the Hall we spied a tree that looked like an Oak, but which still had all its leaves.  Was it a Holm Oak? But the leaves weren’t right. It had corky bark and bristly acorn cups.

On the following day Margaret found it in a Croxteth “tree trail” leaflet. It’s a Lucombe Oak, Quercus x hispanica ‘Lucombeana’, a hybrid between Holm Oak and Turkey Oak, which occurs naturally in the Mediterranean but ornamental ones in the UK are mostly clones of the one first cultivated in Exeter by William Lucombe in about 1762.

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07/12/2011 by Barbara.

Our usual pre-Christmas trip to Chester was on a cold and windy day, with occasional squally showers, but at least it wasn’t snowy and icy like last year.

We walked along the canal, seeing just Moorhens and Mallards, then spotted a pair of Mute Swans on the bank at the canal junction, near the Telford Warehouse. The male hissed at us as we read his green Darvic ring – C502, which means he was ringed in Cheshire in 1999 and is twelve years old.  (Added later: No it was a female, ringed 29 July 1999 at Cholmondeston Locks near Nantwich.  Seen September 1999 at Barbridge, Nantwich and in November and December 1999 at Westport Lake, Stoke. Last sighted in April and November 2000 at Barlaston, Stoke. I wonder where she had been in the eleven years since then.)

We went into Water Tower Gardens for our sandwiches and a hazy sun tried to come out, but there was still a sharp wind.  Just Pigeons, Black-headed Gulls and a Magpie. Interesting maze, though.

There is a new Riverside Promenade walking and cycling path along the Dee, but the only extra birds were some Teal. Mindful of our sighting of a Mink two years ago, we spotted some tracks the silty riverbank, but whether they were Mink, Fox, cat or small dog we couldn’t say.

The middle of the Racecourse had several hundred BHGs interspersed with crows, and we were intrigued to see a cage and net by the fence. Soon an RSPCA man appeared. He had received a report of a fox with a broken leg near the 5½ furlong marker, and had been searching, but the injured fox was not found.

In town, heading for the Christmas Market, we came across the Greyhound Rescue street collection team, and they are as suitable a Christmas picture as any. Happy Christmas to all!

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