The Naturalists' Notebook

Sudley House is a Victorian merchant’s house and grounds in south Liverpool, built in 1821 by people with connections to the slave trade, but bought in 1882 by ship-owner George Holt, who was also an art collector. When his surviving unmarried daughter Emma (a pioneer of women’s education) died in 1944 she left the house to Liverpool on condition that the grounds were to be used as a public park, and her father’s art collection was not dispersed.

It was a showery day, more wet than dry, but we were able to look at some of the old trees in the gardens. The two huge old beeches have been lost to storms, but the imposing Tulip tree remains, with just one branch missing.

There are good younger trees, too. Near the Tulip tree is a baby Monkey Puzzle, and opposite the front of the house is a Sweet Gum, Liquidambar styraciflua, known for its spectacular autumn colour.

My nearly 50-year-old Mitchell’s Field Guide (of 1976) says the spiky fruits of Sweet Gum are “Not often seen”, but we are finding them more and more often nowadays, probably as a result of climate change.

A heavy rain shower drove us indoors. George’s Holt’s pictures are now the only surviving, intact collection of artworks once owned by a merchant family. He had a couple of Turners and works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney, Millais and more. Behind a curtain is this lovely “Angel playing a Flageolet” by Edward Burne-Jones, which you probably know well from Christmas cards.

We lunched in shelter on the south-facing covered terrace. In front of it are some small plants I know as Cordyline Palms, but they aren’t palms, they are member of the Asparagus family and more properly known as the New Zealand Cabbage Tree Cordyline australis. They are endemic to New Zealand, and the first specimens known to Europe were collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the ship Endeavour, during Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific in 1769.

I am used to seeing plumes of mystery flowers high up overhead, but these plants were low enough to see they had ripened to white berries, each with two seeds.

After lunch the rain cleared a bit and we ventured along the southern edge, passing a solitary Larch tree. They don’t do well this far south, and there aren’t many of them, but this one looked better than most.

A volley of squawks alerted us to about five Ring-necked Parakeets which were coming to a bird feeder in the hedge. After they flew off we spotted a Nuthatch, and some Blue Tits and House Sparrows, coming to feed after the green thugs had gone.

Public transport details: Bus 82 from Elliot Street at 9.55, arriving 10.15 at Aigburth Road / Chequers Gardens. Returned on 61 bus at Mossley Hill Road / Elmswood Road, changing to an 86A at Mather Avenue / Rose Lane and arriving city centre 2.15.

High tide today was about 11 am, just around the time we arrived. The sea comes right up against the sea wall and creeps up the boat slipways.

When the beach is covered, some of the shorebirds come to roost on the pontoons of the Marine Lake.

Today there were only about 200 birds, dozing Redshank and Turnstones. We sometimes see Dunlin in the flocks here, and even Purple Sandpipers, but not today.

There were no unusual birds around.  Cormorants flew past and others perched on the gantries marking the shipping channel. Pied Wagtails bustled about,  Herring Gulls and Black-headed Gulls mooched along the prom, keeping a look-out for discarded crumbs or even fish and chips. We checked them for leg rings, but no discoveries today.

A small flock of Starlings whirled about, cheeping and whistling from occasional perches and looking lovely in the right light with their winter-flecked, bandit-masked plumage.

As more visitors arrived, the busy life of the Marine Promenade on a sunny day developed, with buskers, a ventriloquist in one of the shelters, and troops of little girls from dance schools (and one boy) crowding the foyer of the Floral Pavilion, apparently for auditions.  As the tide receded happy dogs chased balls into pools and a lone metal detectorist started working the high water line.

Just to the side of Fort Perch Rock there is a place among the sea defence boulders where the highest water must never reach. Various uncommon and specialist plants have a foothold there, including Marram Grass, Sea Beet, Tree Mallow, and (still flowering) Sea Mayweed and Sea Rocket.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.20, arriving New Brighton 10.40. Returned on bus 433 from Kings Parade / Morrisons at 1.45, arriving Liverpool 2.15.

What a change after Storm Babet! It was dry and sunny with no wind, and the air was clear and sharp over the Dee Estuary to Wales. High tide wasn’t due until about 4pm, but it doesn’t come up high nowadays, not since the RSPB dug out some pools to cure the mosquito problem. It used to overtop the low sea wall at high water and flood the road. Some of the old houses on the front seem to indicate the size of flood they were once prepared for.

Within 20 yard of the bus stop we could see six Little Egrets, but we are getting blasé about them nowadays. They bred at Burton this summer, just down the coast, and this might have been that family. A man and his dog ventured onto the marsh and flushed a female Pheasant. Further out we spotted a Heron and possibly a Great White Egret flying by. In the pools were Mallards, a Moorhen, possibly Teal, Widgeon, Shovellers and some Geese, but they are just too far away to be sure. Many more birds are deep in the long vegetation, only visible when they fly up, like Lapwings and Starlings.

The advantage of the long grass and scrub growing up is the smaller birds it attracts. We spotted both male and female Stonechats and several Reed Buntings.

We lunched at the picnic tables at the Old Baths, pausing to admire the recently-installed hazel sculpture of a Short-eared Owl.

Just behind picnic area was a small broad-crowned tree with lots of red fruits. I think it’s a Broad-leaved Cockspur Thorn Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’, a North American species, usually planted in parks and gardens and rarely found growing wild. Had it been planted here, or had a bird dropped a seed?

There appeared to be a Hawthorn growing through it, sticking out at the top and on one side around the back. The Hawthorn had the usual single seed in each Haw, while the fruit of the Broad-leaved Cockspur Thorn had two. None of my books says how many seeds there are supposed to be, to confirm the identification.

It was too nice a day to go home on the 1.30 bus, so we decided to stay until the 3.30. We walked up to the Wirral Way and then southwards, all around the back of the village. A few times we thought we spotted butterflies, too fast moving, but possibly a Red Admiral and a couple of Speckled Woods. The path was lined with new shoots of Alexanders and Cow Parsley, and this year’s Hogweed and Herb Robert were still in flower.

Despite the path being in an old railway cutting, it was dry underfoot, the old railway drainage system still functioning efficiently. Little waterfalls were babbling off the surrounding fields, into ditches and culverts, and flowing away who knows where.

We had time for a cup of tea in a corner cafe before the bus home.

Public transport details: Bus 487 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.40 (10.25 but late), arriving Mostyn Square, Parkgate at 11.22. Returned on the 487 at 3.30 from Mostyn Square, arriving Liverpool 4.25

It was a lovely bright and sunny day, with the first feel of autumn. From Bootle Strand we took the canal towpath northwards, with the sun behind us.  John’s Weeping willows were looking good after their severe pruning a few years ago.

Canal birds were Coots, Mallards, Canada Geese and Moorhens, just the usual, with none of the surprises we sometimes see. We were amazed at all the new house along the east side, which have sprung up since last time we were along here. Many of the occupants have taken advantage of the canal at the bottoms of their gardens by making decks to catch the afternoon sun. Overhead, we were riveted by the sight of five blokes painting the tall radio mast at Marsh Lane, swinging from ropes. Eeek!

Apart from occasional cyclists and a few dog walkers, we had the towpath mostly to ourselves. Near Linacre Lane bridge there were big billows of Ivy coming into flower, attracting lots of hoverflies and three or four Red Admirals.

All alongside Mellanear Park were lots of kids games painted onto the towpath surface, like hopscotch and other counting games.  There are no new houses on THAT area because it is contaminated land. From the 1930s to the 1950s it was the site of what was known locally as the Arsenic Factory – the William Harvey & Co Ltd Mellanear Tin Smelting Works. The firm originated in Cornwall, but when the tin mines gave out they moved to Bootle and started importing tin ore from Bolivia. There was arsenic in it and several local workers died from Arsine (arsenic trihydride] Poisoning.

Just past the 4 miles marker (measuring from Liverpool) a brambly hedge on the opposite side was the source of a cacophony of bird cheeps and whistles. It really was noticeably noisy. We suspected a thriving House Sparrow colony, and we saw some of them hopping about within the hedge, but I have never heard them whistle before, so maybe there were Starlings in there too.

We had our lunch break on the terrace at Tesco Litherland. It is built on a the site of the old lead works. Other noxious businesses formerly lining the canal in the area were Litherland Tannery, the Sausage Factory and the Liquorice Toffee Factory. Happily those days are gone, and now the Canal and River Trust proudly advertise their Green Flag award. The fishermen say they catch Perch, Roach and Pike and we even saw a dragonfly speeding through the reeds, but we didn’t identify it.

After lunch, we carried on along the canal, spotting a pair of Mallards which head-bobbed then mated. What season do they think it is?  A dying Dragonfly was caught on the surface of the water. It was still alive, vibrating occasionally, and once we saw it struggle hard to break the surface tension. I think it was a female Migrant Hawker Aeshna mixta. They are said to be found in “well-vegetated aquatic habitats, and on the wing July to early November”. That looks right. It used to be a migrant to UK before the 1940s (hence the name), but is now a well-established resident south of Scottish border. We looked for a long stick, hoping to rescue her, but she was too far out to reach so was destined to be Corpse of the Day, sadly.

We left the canal at Brook Vale, crossed Rimrose Valley Country Park to St Mary’s Road in Waterloo Park and came out by the Five Lamps on Crosby Road South.

Public transport details: Bus 47 at 10.14 from Queen Square, arriving Stanley Road / Bootle Strand at 10.35. The others returned to the city centre on the 47 bus at Crosby Road South / Great Georges Road (Five Lamps) at 1.37 while I took a bus homewards in the other direction.

On a dry, sunny and unseasonably warm day we visited Calderstones Park, arriving at the Menlove Avenue side. For a change, we wandered to the right, through the shrubbery to the open southern field. There were at least half a dozen Ring-necked Parakeets squawking overhead and some lovely toadstools below, probably the Parasol Mushroom, Macrolepiota procera.

We stopped to look at three dead trees in the open field, which had quite upright shapes, all looking like they had been the same species. One was sprouting from the base, and the leaves were shiny green, arranged alternately, coarsely toothed and very uneven at the base. Definitely some kind of Elm. I think they were the rare Huntingdon Elm Ulmus vegeta. They may have been planted as an experiment to see if they were resistant to Dutch Elm disease. Clearly they aren’t. A very big one at Flaybrick died a few years ago, too, after hanging on longer than most Elms.

We spotted a Nuthatch on ground and two Goldcrests in a Red Horse Chestnut. A Red Admiral and a distant white butterfly went past. It’s very late for them to still be on the wing.  One dead tree stump had another interesting fungus, but I have no idea what this one was.

On the lake were Mallards, Canada Geese, Coots, Moorhen, and a Robin in the shrubbery.

Next to the island, a Red-eared Terrapin was basking on a log, below a preening Moorhen.

The magnificent avenue of American Limes (or Basswoods) passes here. There are over a hundred of them lining the main drive through the park, sweeping south east to north west. One of them is the County Champion of its species, but they are all so perfectly alike it’s almost impossible to pick out the tallest or fattest.

The autumn fruits are very abundant this year. The Sweet Chestnut trees are full, although not many of the nuts are of edible size. The Deodar Cedar had more baby cones than I have ever seen, and this golden-edged Holly was full of berries.

The Chinese Dogwood in the ornamental garden was also full of red fruits, and in the Japanese garden, the rather garish oddity, Harlequin Glorybower Clerodendrum trichotomum, was doing its weird thing.

They have a couple of Mimosa or Silver Wattle trees, which bear copious yellow flowers as early as February. They are in bud now outside the Japanese garden.

To celebrate autumn, there was a lovely display of sewn or knitted pumpkins on the mantelpiece in the Manor House.

Public transport details: Bus 86A from Elliot Street at 10.10, arriving Mather Avenue / Ballantrae Road at 10.40. Returned on bus 86 from Menlove Avenue / Storrsdale Road at 2.08, arriving city centre 2.40.

Childwall Woods and Fields is a Local Nature Reserve, originally the woodland garden of local  lawyer Isaac Green, now one of the best semi-natural woodlands in Liverpool. Isaac planted young Beeches and Sweet Chestnuts about 300 years ago, and now some have survived to become recognised “veterans”. They also have a very rare tree, a Variegated Oak, described below.

We spent the morning walking the paths in the fine drizzle and heavier, drippy showers, trying to avoid the muddiest areas. Not many birds around, but we spotted Nuthatch and Robin and heard a Buzzard. The Sweet Chestnuts have had a good year, and the fallen seeds and spiky husks were thick on the ground.

After lunch two of us stayed for a guided walk led by the Friends of Childwall Woods and Fields.   We covered much of the same ground, but learned more. The sun came out, too. Childwall woods aren’t old enough to qualify as ancient, but they have been largely undisturbed for centuries. The 300-year-old Beeches and Sweet Chestnuts are reaching the ends of their lives, but there are many younger trees growing amongst them, including Sycamore, Ash, Lime, Horse Chestnut, Holly Yew, Rowan and Hawthorn.

The woods are rich in fungi, with many puffballs underfoot, bracket fungi all over the dead and fallen wood, and this pretty pink one which might be very small young growth of Purple Jellydisc Ascocoryne sarcoides

The area has long been on my wish list because they have a pair of very rare trees. Variegated Oak Quercus robur ‘Variegata’. There are said to be only 68 of them in England. The Friends think they were planted about 100 years ago as prestigious garden features, bought as grafted trees. Sadly, one was blown over in Storm Arwen in  November 2021. It had been the Lancashire County Champion, but now the other one, still standing next to a path, has taken over that honour. Happily, the fallen tree has started to re-sprout, so isn’t quite dead. See the special page on the Friends website

This is the oldest veteran Beech, now hollow and shedding branches.

And this is their largest veteran tree, a 300-year-old Sweet Chestnut, 4.6m in diameter.

Public transport details: Bus 75 from Gt. Charlotte Street at 10.02, arriving Woolton Road / Childwall Park Avenue at 10.27. I returned on bus 81 from Childwall Abbey Road / Taggart Avenue at 3.55, then another bus north from Bootle. Long day.

We have passed the autumn equinox, and as we walked up Long Lane, Aughton, ripe conkers were falling around us. The Rowan and Guelder Roses are full of bright red berries. We thought we glimpsed either a Swallow or a House Martin over the houses, quite a late stayer. Then we crossed the A59 Liverpool Road and headed up Gaw Hill Lane and Holly Lane to Gorse Hill nature reserve for their annual Apple Festival.

They used to have their apple weekend in mid-October but now the apples are ripening two or three weeks earlier, another sign of climate change. The orchard wasn’t looking its best. A group of Roe Deer visited last winter and barked a lot of the trees. The affected trees have survived but are now protected with tree guards around the trunks. They have borne smaller apples this year. Then they had a shortage of volunteers in the spring to thin the apple buds, so even on the undamaged trees, they have more and smaller apples than they would have liked.

But there were still plenty of apples on display in the sales barn, of dozens of varieties.

We mad a quick visit into the woods to look at the rare (for Lancashire) Wayfaring Tree, which was starting to fruit. We also admired a Pedunculate Oak with its acorns forming well. It had fewer knopper galls than we see in Liverpool parks (possibly because the wasp’s co-host, Turkey Oak, hasn’t been planted here.) The little red structures in the middle are next spring’s buds.

We returned over the fields, passing the ponies from the nearby riding school, who were posing prettily as if for a family portrait.

Public transport details: Ormskirk train from Central at 10.17, arriving Aughton Park 10.45.  Returned from Aughton Park at 2.40, arriving Central 3.10.

Heritage Open Days gave us a treat: not only was Croxteth Hall open, but also the old walled garden, which used to provide flowers, fruit and vegetables for the Great House. An old photo on display showed a posed group of 28 gardeners about 100 years ago. Now there are only the students from Myerscough College to keep it under minimal control. Some areas had been tidied up for the occasion, but most are very overgrown.

One old bed had been planted some years ago by the Henry Doubleday Research Association to save traditional vegetables. This patch was also badly overgrown but there may still be some gems hidden under the wildness.

The dilapidated greenhouses hold a remnant of the Liverpool Botanical Collection, which was founded by William Roscoe in 1802 and long kept in Calderstones Park. It was one of the oldest botanical collections in the world. The radical local government of Derek Hatton had the Calderstones greenhouses demolished, and the botanical collection was broken up. Some of the remnants are now here but not on display.

There were a couple of well-tended beds of bright pink Dahlias, variety ‘Fascination’. They were hugely attractive to insects, and most of the open flowers had two bees competing for the pollen.  We also spotted a new-looking Red Admiral butterfly and a day-flying moth, too quick to catch on camera, which was grey-white, broader than deep, and possibly one of the carpet or wave moths in the geometrid group.

After lunch we toured the house, from the wine cellar and the old kitchens, to the drawing room and the Earl and Countess’s bedrooms. The volunteer in charge of the huge pedigree scroll of the Earls of Sefton, which was laid out on a table, was diverted to talk about the estate’s wildlife. He said there were now lots of Ring-necked Parakeets, which he had seen competing with Jackdaws for tree holes. As we made our way out along the main drive we saw some of the interlopers in the trees, being mobbed by Crows.   

Public transport details: Bus 13 from Queen Square at 10.03, arriving Mill Lane / West Derby Village at 10.25.  Returned on bus 13 from Mill Lane / Town Row at 2.58, arriving City Centre at 3.22.

Meols pronounced “Mells” is a village on the north Wirral coast, once a Viking settlement. From the  station we walked along Dovepoint Road, Park Road (past a house claiming to have been built in 1649), and down Bennetts Lane to the shore. Interesting garden trees on the way included some heavily-fruiting Crab Apples and an amazing pair of Beech trees, clipped almost to unrecognisability. How much effort must THAT take?

From the start of Meols Parade it is a two-mile walk south westwards to Hoylake. It overlooks an expanse of sand on the north coast of Wirral and out to the wind turbines in Liverpool Bay. The Mersey estuary was behind us and the Dee Estuary in front. High tide was due at 1.15 and it was very warm and sunny. The sand was scattered with birds. Very many Herring Gulls and Black-headed Gulls, two Greater Black-backed Gulls, many Redshank, large flocks of Oystercatchers and some Curlews. A Raven flew overhead towards Liverpool. Two Black-tailed Godwits circled then headed off. Some Carrion Crows were keeping watch from high vantage points. Two Little Egrets hunted by the pools, this one showing off its yellow feet.

TheHoylake Lifeboat hovercraft came out and patrolled the sand, perhaps making sure no walkers or fishermen were in danger at the water’s edge, because the tide flows in very fast over these shallow sands.

We lunched in Meols Parade Gardens, which was sheltered and very warm in the sun. Several very active butterflies were flitting over the Valerian and other flowers – Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells and Small Whites. There were also lots of bumble bees, some looking like quite big ones.

Even around high tide, the water didn’t come right up to the promenade, but large flocks of Oystercatchers had to walk quite fast to keep ahead of the advancing tongue of water.

Signs along the sea wall put up by the Dee Estuary Volunteer Wardens described some of the  “Wonderful Waders” and included a polite request to keep control of dogs near to high tide when the birds come near.

But there are always some who don’t heed. Several dogs were running out to the flocks of birds, or frolicking in the shallows. To our horror, one loose dog near the lifeboat station plunged into a small group of Oystercatchers and after much flapping and splashing caught one. The young man who was the dog’s owner was calling “Arthur!  Arthur!” to no effect. The dog eventually dropped the bird and came to heel, but the bird was a goner.

As we neared Hoylake we could see that Hilbre Island and Middle Eye were surrounded with water.

The Spartina grass that has been spreading along the sand has made a dry grassy area there, and people were picnicking and sunbathing. Other local residents are furious that the council isn’t sending machines to dig it all out, Canute-like, and they have banners up outside their houses. It isn’t all bad, because the new land is providing habitat for non-waders like Pied Wagtails and Rock Pipits. But I was surprised at how fast it has spread. The grassy area goes as far as King’s Gap, and it feels like only a year or two ago there was sand right up to the sea wall there.

In Hoylake Village the municipal flower holders along the road were golf bags, in homage to the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, where The Open took place in July.

Public transport details: West Kirby train from Central at 10.05, arriving Meols 10.30. Returned on the train from Hoylake at 2.34, arriving Central 3.08.

The Southern Grasslands is a new park in Liverpool, south of the Festival Gardens on the Mersey riverfront. The press release says “Over the last two years, over 400,000 cubic metres of soil and waste have been removed from the Festival Gardens development zone, which had previously served as a public waste deposit facility for over 30 years. Over 95% of this material has been recycled, including 100,000 cubic metres of earth that will become an eco-haven for wildlife. The radically redesigned 24-acre green space, which now rises more than 30 feet to provide views of the city centre and the River Mersey, also includes more than 5,700 new trees and shrubs, as well as 2 kilometres of walking paths near the shoreline.”

It’s easy enough to get to. Take the train to St Michael’s, turn right through Priory Woods, left along Riverside Drive and right at the Bempton Road roundabout.  The park is still quite young and raw, and full of tiny new trees in protective tubes, plus some older ones which must be remnants from the Garden Festival. The new trees were almost exclusively natives –  Hawthorn, various Willows, various Oaks, Birch, Scots Pine, Rowan, Alder, Holly – and shrubs Dogwood, Guelder Rose, Broom, Gorse, Buddleia, Dog Rose. Sea Buckthorn was an unusual one, and we did see the small red leaves of Purple Cherry Plum, Prunus cerasifera.

There were very few birds using those tiny trees, although we did spot a Magpie and a Carrion Crow. To our surprise a bird clinging to the top of a slightly larger sapling, then coming down to bare earth, turned out to be a Wheatear. Best bird for several weeks!

There was a huge variety of flowers along the path edges. Mostly the early colonisers (which some call weeds) – Red and White Clover, Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Yarrow, Evening Primrose, Wild Carrot, Hop Trefoil, Ribwort Plantain, Mugwort, Black Nightshade, Woody Nightshade, Scentless Mayweed, one of the Sow-Thistles, one of the Melilots, Michaelmas Daisies, Ragwort, Rosebay Willowherb, Purple Loosestrife. So far, so ordinary.

But there were some more unusual ones scattered about, like one that looked like a yellow Mugwort. I have had a good rummage, but I can’t see a wild yellow variety, unless it’s some “garden” type.

There was lots of Redleg, Perrsicaria maculosa, identified on iNature as “Lady’s Thumb”, which is an alternate name, but not from around here! Some of it was looking a lighter pink, with green stems and some were clearly the related white species called Pale Persicaria, Persicaria lapathifolia. Perhaps the seed was from a mixed hybridised source.

Then, on the berms around the car park, many of the plants were looking very garden-ish. Were the banks built up from garden compost? There were Wild Strawberries, an unusual Dark Mullein and a couple of Tomato plants, which are very definitely not wild natives.  

There were interesting views of the river and the Wirral from the top, but they will disappear as the tree grow.

When we thought about lunch a cold drizzly squall blew in, and we retreated.

So we headed back to the Festival gardens and found a dry spot for lunch after the rain had stopped. Then back up through Priory Woods, a quick look at St Michael’s-in-the-Hamlet church, then home.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.13, arriving St Michael’s at 10.20. Returned from St Michaels at 13.46, which took me all the way home.