The Naturalists' Notebook

It was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and bright sunshine, but there was an autumnal chill in the air, reminding us it was the day before the equinox. Summer is definitely over.

We had intended to go to Chester for several Heritage Open Day events, but Merseyrail had engineering works and rail replacement buses for part of the route, which made it impossible to get there in time. This is the second year running they have done this on the crucial day. So we chose a church that we hadn’t visited, located near the north end of Sefton Park and not open until after lunch. Time in the morning for a walk in the park. We entered at the “obelisk” path, hoping for some autumn colour. Most of the trees were still green, but there were some trees like the Cherry above and this Persian Ironwood, that were starting to turn.

The open fields were scattered with Crows, Wood Pigeons, Magpies and occasional Herring Gulls. Parakeets were squawking. Near the Palm House someone was feeding Pigeons and had attracted a small flock of Crows.

We headed for the Fairy Glen where a Kingfisher was said to be back for the winter. We didn’t see it, sadly. There were just Mallards and Moorhens on the little stream there. We heard several Nuthatches but didn’t see one.  On the bank of the stream near the stepping stones was an interesting tree. It had many bunches of red fruit, looking almost like red currants, hanging in unbranched bunches on long stalks. Definitely not a Cherry, as their fruits come in pairs, and the tree bark was wrong. Was it some kind of crab apple?  According to the experts on the Facebook tree group it might be a Siberian Crab Malus baccata or a Chinese or Hupeh crap Malus hupehensis, but there are several dozen other candidates. “A lot of precise work would be needed to be sure of what it is.”

We did a quick circuit of the lake before lunch. There were Coots, Moorhens, Canadas and two Mute Swans. No Little Grebes or Great Crested Grebes. No interesting storm-tossed migrants. But there were two Cormorants on the posts.

At the south end was a mixed flock of Gulls: Herring Gulls, Black-headed Gulls and one Lesser Black-backed Gull.

As usual, we lunched by the Aviary. The sunshine brought out one Speckled Wood butterfly and many insects foraging through the Himalayan Balsam. Is this a Honey Bee?

It’s a popular picnic spot, staked out by a Robin and a Blackbird, and possibly two House Sparrows which dived into the shrubbery as we approached. The availability of lunch crumbs there probably also accounts for two rats, which were very skittish, hiding away at the slightest noise or movement.

Then on to Christ Church, Linnet Lane. It’s a big Victorian church with beautiful stained glass, a splendid wooden ceiling and innovative roof design. However, the roof eventually leaked and it cost about a quarter of a million pounds to fix (via a Heritage Lottery Grant) a few years ago. Like many churches nowadays, the congregation has fallen to under 50, and the big church is too expensive to heat, so they have made a sort of insulated square yurt at the back of the church, and hold services there.

Public transport details: Bus 76 from Queen Square at 10.02, arriving Sefton Park Road / Croxteth Road at 10.20.  Returned on bus 82 from Park Road / Gredington Street at 2.05, arriving Liverpool 2.30.   Next week will be Taylor Park, St Helens. Meet 10 am Queen Square.

Anyone is welcome to come out with the Sunday Group. It is not strictly part of the MNA, although it has several overlapping members. We go out by public transport to local parks, woods and nature reserves all over Merseyside, and occasionally further afield. We are mostly pensioners, so the day is free on our bus passes, and we enjoy fresh air, a laugh and a joke, a slow amble in pleasant surroundings and sometimes we even look at the wildlife!
If you want to join a Sunday Group walk, pack lunch, a flask, waterproofs, binoculars if you have them, a waterproof pad to sit on if we have to have lunch on the grass or a wet bench (A garden kneeler? A newspaper in a plastic bag?), and wear stout shoes or walking boots. We are usually back in Liverpool City Centre by 3pm at the latest.
If you are interested in the wildlife of the north-west of England and would like to join the walks and coach trips run by the Merseyside Naturalists’ Association, see the main MNA website www.mnapage.info for details of our programme and how to join us.

Light rain had been forecast but it turned out to be a much wetter day than we expected. We walked up Long Lane from the station, crossed the A59, and walked up through the ploughed fields to the reservoir. Black-headed Gulls, Crows, Jackdaws and Wood Pigeons were foraging in the freshly-turned earth.

We walked around to the right, skirting the outer edge of the reserve on a woodland path. It started to rain steadily. All the autumn berries are forming well, such as Rowan, Hawthorn, Sloes (Blackthorn) and Rose Hips.

The Blackberries formed early this year but the very dry summer has left them small, withered and dried up, although there is a second flush of flowers.

Although we knew the visitor’s centre didn’t open until 1pm we had expected Cabin Wood to be open earlier. Nope, that was still gated off, too, so we had to find some drippy shelter for lunch under the trees in some of the outer woods. As we made for the reserve at 1pm we came across one path that was full of small birds. Blackbirds, Robin, Dunnock, Greenfinch on the ground, Various small birds flitting back and forth across the path. We couldn’t see what was different about that particular spot. As we passed the gate to the heritage orchard, a Red Admiral flew past us. Amazing to see one on the wing on a gloomy wet day.  The apple trees were laden with fruit.

One we got into the reserve, we walked around Cabin Wood. To amuse children they have recently added lots of little “twigs with eyes” to the edges of the paths, that they call “Woodlins”, together with a story that they are refugees from other woodlands that have been cut down.

Before we left we went to look at the shrubby cluster of Wayfaring Trees Viburnum lantana on the western edge of Cabin Wood. Although it is a British native tree, it might be the only one in Lancashire. Its natural habitat is on the dryer chalklands of Southern Britain. It was planted here because it supports the caterpillars of the moth called the Orange-tailed Clearwing, Synanthedon andrenaeformis. No idea if it has worked yet in attracting the moth. We spotted only one cluster of berries, which were still not ripe. (Picture’s a bit fuzzy in the rain, I’m afraid.)

As we walked off towards the station, the rain stopped! It’s always the way, isn’t it.

Public transport details: Ormskirk train from Central at 9.55, arriving Aughton Park station at 10.25. Returned from Aughton Park station at 2.40, arriving Sandhills 3.05. No Sunday walk next week, we will be on the MNA Saturday walk to Pex Hill instead.

On the last day of meteorological summer we headed for two local private gardens, open for the day under the National Garden Scheme. The scheme is run by the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society), and many of Britain’s ordinary suburban gardeners are members. They charge a small fee (£4 today for both gardens), and the money raised (£3.5 million in 2024), supports health charities, community gardens and botanic gardens.

Our first call was 146 Mather Avenue, a small tree-ringed town garden run by a single lady. She has a wildlife pond, and colourful borders grown in home-made compost. She keeps a nettle patch for butterflies, then makes fertilizer when she cuts it down. There are many bird feeders and several visiting hedgehogs, which she feeds and tracks with little trail cameras. I liked it because it was very real, not fanatically neat, as some open gardens are.

The second garden, 33 Greenhill Road, was quite a contrast. It is owned by an enthusiast for tropical exotic plants. It is another small urban garden, this time walled all around, with no lawn, no ground soil, just paths lined with pots of exotics at different levels. He grows cacti, lemons, a pollarded Foxglove tree, and many weird and wonderful brightly-coloured plants. This yellow spike is a ginger, Heydichium sp.

These hanging red-and-yellow flowers are Datura, also known as Devil’s Trumpets or Jimson Weed. It is very poisonous in all parts.

We went into Calderstones Park for lunch. In the Ornamental Garden we looked at the Katsura tree, whose leaves are supposed to smell of burnt sugar or candy floss in the autumn. This one didn’t, although we have smelled one in Arrowe Park. Just through the gate in the wall is this lovely young ornamental tree, very weeping, very golden. It has been planted as a memorial to someone. There was no nursery label and we didn’t recognise it, but someone from the Fb tree group has suggested it might be a Weeping White Mulberry. That looks right to me – we saw a couple of them at Otterspool on 23 April 2023, part of an experimental “global warming” planting scheme.

On the edge of that field a young tree had fallen. It was one I was keeping an eye on because I thought it might be a Butternut. Each compound leaf is about 18 inches long with eight pairs of leaflets, plus one at tip. But there is hope. More than half of the roots are still firmly in the ground and the crown hasn’t wilted. It may survive as a series of shoots from the fallen trunk.

The Golden Rain tree by the pony field seems to have loved this hot summer, bearing very many seed pod “lanterns” all over it, especially higher up.

Around 2pm it started to rain, right as the weather forecast said, so it was time to go.

Public transport details: Bus 86A from Elliot Street at 10.02. arriving Mather Avenue / Booker Avenue at 10.35.  Returned from Mather Avenue / Storrsdale Road on bus 86A at 2.30, arriving Liverpool 3.05.
Next week we plan to go to Gorse Hill. The train is at 9.55, so we meet at Central about 9.45.

Festival gardens are not as smart as they used to be, but we came across some of the Friends of the park, valiantly clearing and planting in the heat. The big lake was almost dry and the smaller shaded lake was also down to a large puddle. The birds all seem to have deserted it, and we saw just two Moorhens in a shady overhang. Later on some scruffy-looking Mallards flew past. There were some unidentified dragonflies and damselflies around the remaining water, and a white butterfly (Large white?) foraged on a Buddleia.

There wasn’t a lot of wildlife interest, just the autumn seeds and berries coming along. We noted big bunches of seeds on Sycamore and Ash and lots of Alder cones forming. There were occasional apple trees with lots of small apples about the size of a tangerine, too big to be crab apples. The weather must have suited all of them in early spring when they were flowering.

Hawthorn is doing well, too.

The softer berries seemed to be sparser, probably due to the summer drought. Guelder Rose and Dogwood both had rather small and scrappy bunches of berries.

After lunch we walked northwards along Otterspool promenade, part of the way towards Liverpool. There were no birds worth noting on the river, just a few gulls bobbing about. We hoped to see Turnstones along the edge, but no luck, although they do like it along here at low tide. It was too hot to go any further than the Britannia Inn.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.13, arriving St Michael’s 10.20. Returned from Riverside Drive / Britannia Inn on the 500 bus at 1.22, arriving Elliot Street at 1.40.
Next week we plan to go to some open gardens from the National Garden Scheme. Meet Elliot Street 10.am.

Another warm and sunny day with a clear blue sky. New Brighton was having its first Scarecrow Festival, arranged by the residents of the Magazine Lane Conservation area. It’s a little lost village amongst the urban sprawl. (Magazine, by the way, does not refer in this case to brightly-coloured reading matter, but to its earlier meaning of a place to store explosives and ammunition. The original building here kept the shot and gunpowder for the Napoleonic Fort Perch Rock.) One of the gatehouses remains opposite Fort Road.

We spent the morning looking at the Scarecrows in people’s front gardens. They were numbered in situ, but the separate name list was a puzzle intended for the kids, to decide which was which.  

We sat in Vale Park for lunch and on the way out we inspected their Mulberry tree.  It’s fruiting well, with squished ones on the ground beneath, but no ripe black ones to pick. Either the local foragers are arriving early in the morning or the birds are eating them before they are fully ripe.

It became very hot in the afternoon. The tide was out, leaving a much larger expanse of beach than we usually see. There were the usual three types of Gull in amongst the pools, HG, LBB and BHG, several Oystercatchers, and also a dainty Little Egret.

From a distance we could see lots of birds on the pontoons, more than we expected at low tide. Birds usually gather there when the feeding grounds are covered at HIGH tide.

As we got nearer we could see they were about 200 Turnstones, still in summer plumage, and many were preening energetically. Had they just arrived from their breeding season in eastern Canada and Greenland?

Public transport details: Bus 432 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.02, arriving Magazine Lane / Stanford Avenue at 10.29.  Returned on bus 432 from King’s Parade / Morrison’s at 2.30, arriving Liverpool 3.05.
Next week we plan to go to Festival Gardens. Meet 10 am at Central Station.

It was a morning of fine rain, lending everywhere a misty look. Greenbank Park was quiet and we spotted a Jackdaw on the grass and a Robin on a fence. There were only a few common waterbirds on the lake: Coots, Mallards, Canada Geese, Black-headed Gulls and Herring Gulls.

The walled garden was particularly pretty in the damp haze. The flowers on the Wisteria arch had gone over, but there are still some seed pods hanging under the pergola if anyone wants to try growing from seed. The small trees on the lawns are all rather lovely. There’s a young Gingko and something with variegated leaves, and flower buds that look like Privet. Possibly a Ligustrum ovalifolium ‘Argentum’, said to be late-flowering and bigger than a hedge plant.

They have a Tamarisk tree. There are two species, early-flowering and summer-flowering, and this must be the latter, Tamarix pentandra.

We found a tree known as a Box Elder, but it’s really one of the Maple family, Acer trifolium. The leaves don’t look maple-like, but have three leaflets (as in the Latin name), and the seeds are obviously Acer-type wings. This will be a female tree of course, and there must be a male tree nearby, but they are hard to find.

One new planting was labelled Sorbus x thuringiaca ‘Fastigiatum’  I thought the name rang a bell, but it wasn’t until I looked it up at home that I found it was a Bastard Service tree, a hybrid between Whitebeam and Rowan, and a lifer for me. It has interesting leaves, partly broken up into leaflets as if it can’t decide how they should be. Sadly I didn’t take a picture of them because I didn’t realise they were so interesting.

Then we headed down Greenbank Lane for a brief visit to Sefton Park for lunch and loo. The rain had almost stopped, and we noted Carrion Crows, Wood Pigeons and the noisy Ring-necked Parakeets flying overhead. Then up Greenbank Drive to Sefton Park Allotments Open Day. The produce table was well-patronised. Not much on it at any one time, but the plot holders kept on bringing more bags of stuff.

We met two other MNA members there. Chen B, who is a plot holder and was volunteering on the produce table, and Mike T, just visiting, who had found a clump of little fungi. Possibly in the Boletus genus. Were they Penny Bun Boletus edulis? But I think these were too small for that.

There was a Scarecrow competition

There were a few butterflies on the wing when the weak sun came out, mostly Whites, but this Meadow Brown was resting on some netting.

The man on the allotment dedicated to the SSFA (service veterans organisation) got talking about wildlife and said that on good sunny days there are clouds of butterflies over the vegetable plots. He also told us of a huge caterpillar he had found that morning. Jet black, maybe short hair, no spikes or horns. He had it across his palm and it overlapped on both sides (So 4 inches? 10 cm?). John got out his FSC caterpillar ID card, and the man said the one he found was bigger than all of the ones pictured. He had no specimen to show. He had been slightly horrified by it, and threw it into the woody hedge surrounding the allotments. From his description it might have been either a Goat Moth or an Elephant Hawk Moth, although neither is jet black all over.  Any suggestions?
       
He also had my favourite scarecrow, “Just checkin’ my spuds”.

And here are some of the interesting things that were growing. Grapes, Globe artichokes, Tomatoes, large round Courgettes.

Public transport details: Bus 86 from Elliot Street at 10.02, arriving Smithdown Road / Borrowdale Road (the Brookhouse) at 10.20. Returned on bus 86A from Smithdown Road / Nicander Road at 1.35, arriving city centre at 1.55.
No Sunday walk next week. On 17th August meet Queen Square at 10 am and we will decide on the day.

We walked into Southport from Birkdale Station, along Weld Road, then turning right into the south end of Rotten Row. It’s one of the country’s longest herbaceous borders (750m), now maintained by a Friends group of volunteer gardeners.

I always hope to see all those flowers humming with insects, but it was surprisingly silent. The sun wasn’t shining, which would have brought more flying beasties out, but all we saw were two or three honeybees, a few worker bumblebees, no hoverflies or anything smaller, and just three kinds of butterflies, one large White, one Red Admiral and three Gatekeepers.

There weren’t many birds about, either. We spotted Wood Pigeons on house roofs, a Swallow over the park, a Blackbird under shrubs and Jackdaws and Magpies on the grass. We stopped at Morrison’s supermarket, then lunched in King’s gardens. Several Herring gulls and Black-headed gulls came to fight over scraps of bread and we noticed two of the BHGs bore blue Darvic rings on their legs. I reported them later in the day. BHG number 230L was ringed as adult at Southport on 1st December 2023. Four subsequent sightings were listed, three at Southport and one at Ainsdale. It seemed to be absent from the area from March to September last year and had not been reported anywhere this year until today.

BHG number 2V93 was ringed as adult at Southport on 8th December 2020. Since then it has been reported 11 times, 10 times at Southport and once at Ainsdale. Most of the older sightings were just in January and February each year, so it may have wandered in other seasons, but last year it was seen five times at Southport.

On the Marine Lake were the usual flocks of Herring Gulls, Black-headed Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Plenty of Mute Swans were loafing about, and also Canada and Greylag Geese. One young Moorhen swam near the bridge piers, while far out on the northern arm of the lake was a dark diving duck, hard to identify. On the balance of possibilities, it was probably a Tuftie. There was nothing else exciting going on. They rent out pedal boats here, shaped like Swans or Flamingos, with just one of them painted up as a Black Swan. We were amused to see that they all had punky anti-gull spikes on their heads to keep them clean.

Public transport details: Train from Central Station at 10.02, arriving Birkdale 10.45. Returned from Southport Station at 1.36.
Next week we are going to Greenbank and the Sefton Park Allotments Open Day. Meet at Elliot Street at 10 am.

Thundery showers were forecast, so we picked New Brighton as a place with lots of shelter from the rain. As our bus emerged from the tunnel on the Wallasey side, our trepidation was increased by the sight of a snow plough stored by the side of the road!  In the event we only got occasional sprinkles, barely enough to wet the roads.

The tide seemed very low, still going out, with low tide due at about 2pm. The breakwater between Fort Perch Rock and the lighthouse was fully exposed and the Stena Line ferry to Belfast sailed out. There were hardly any birds on the beach, just a lone Lesser Black-backed Gull, with a few sundry gulls flying overhead. No waders on the pontoons. A couple of Pied Wagtails foraged around the seaweed and, unusually, there were Feral Pigeons on the sand. The best birds were on a navigation marker – two Cormorants and a couple of Carrion Crows.

A shower sent us into the Floral Pavilion where there was a small exhibition of paintings by local artists. The best was “Through Seagrass” by Marcus G J Cotton. Spot the Black Restart!

Soon after lunch we headed home. At Queen Square bus station there was a very bold urban Lesser Black-backed gull surveying the traffic from the roof of a bus shelter.

Public transport details: Bus 432 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.05, arriving King’s Parade / Rowson Street at 10.30. Returned on bus 432 from King’s Parade / Morrison’s at 1 pm, arriving Liverpool at 1.30. 
Next week we plan to go to Southport, meeting at Central Station at 10 am.

It was another very hot day, perhaps not the best day for going out in the sun and sand, but there was a refreshing breeze off the sea, so it only got to 25°C (77°F).  We arrived at Waterloo later than expected (see travel details below).

Crowds of birds on the small Boating Lake as usual. Black-headed Gulls, half a dozen Mute Swans, many juvenile Herring Gulls, one Lesser Black-backed Gull, Coots and Canada Geese. One Swallow flew over. In the far distance was a female duck with eight little ducklings. She wasn’t a Mallard, her plumage was too dark for that, and she had a light beak. The tiny black fluffy ducklings were all diving for their food like pros. (Mallards don’t dive). She was a Tufted Duck I think, and with that white edge at the base of her beak, perhaps she has a Scaup in her ancestry.

A patch of rough grass and Creeping Thistle at the seaward end of the road separating Crescent and Adelaide Gardens was alive with butterflies and day-flying moths. There were Gatekeepers, a Six-spot Burnet Moth, and something medium-sized, all dark brown or black, which just wouldn’t sit still for a second. Was it a Chimney Sweeper moth Odezia atrata? That is day-flying, all black, said to like bright sunshine and rarely settles in one place. If so, it’s a new one on me. The only butterfly I was able to catch was this Meadow Brown.

The Buddleia in Adelaide Gardens had the bigger butterflies, Comma, and this lovely Peacock.

Later, also on a Buddleia, a splendid Red Admiral.

After lunch, we wandered northwards into Beach Lawn Garden to look in the pond, hoping to see those rare tiny creatures, the Small Red-eyed Damselfly. They were reported here a few years ago, but only seem to have lasted one summer. But we did see a mating pair of dragonflies, probably Common Darters. The male (at the front) was red and was clasping the female near the back of her head. She was fawny-yellow. He was swooping her down so her tail repeatedly touched the water to lay her (and his) eggs.

Flitting around the reeds were some blue Hawker-type dragonflies which didn’t sit still, but the star creature of the day was this male Emperor Dragonfly.

Some little girls were pond-dipping with nets and buckets. I asked if I could take a picture into one of the buckets, which they allowed, and found three nearly-grown tadpoles with arms and legs forming, but which also still had protruding gills. That eliminates frogs and toads and makes them Newt tadpoles. I have no idea which species.

We walked along the beach briefly. It was hard going over the sandy dune hills, but we got there and said hello to one of the Iron Men. They had celebrated their 20th anniversary on the previous day.

In the dunes, we found specialist plants everywhere. Marram grass, Ragwort, great stands of Evening Primrose, Sea Holly and Sea Rocket.

On the was back we looked again for the Tuftie mother and her eight little ones, but they had disappeared. But now there was a Mallard mother with a flotilla of six ducklings.

Public transport details: We intended to get the train from Central at 10.17, but it flagged up as cancelled. Staff said “shortage of trains”. When the 10.32 was also cancelled we gave up and went for a bus. Perhaps some drivers had called in sick to go to the Orange Lodge Parades in the city centre. Bus 53 from Queen Square at 10.50, arriving Waterloo Station at 11.35. Bus back from Waterloo at about 2.30, but I can walk home from there.
Next week depends on the weather, so meet Queen Square at 10 am and we will decide then.

We entered the park at the southern side and decided to keep to the cooler, wooded area along the Allerton Road edge. A Song Thrush was calling.  The edges of the woodland have been left unmown, and we spotted both Meadow Brown and Small Skipper butterflies in that area, which was thick with Meadowsweet.

They have also planted many new young trees there. We spotted Tibetan Cherry, Prunus serrula, with its lovely mahogany-coloured bark;  Golden Grey Alder, Alnus incana ‘Aurea’; a Katsura, Cercidiphyllum japonica. We searched in vain for the young Golden Rain tree reported in this area, but did see a young Mulberry Morus nigra, perhaps intended as a replacement for the old one between the lake and the Mansion House, which appears to be dying.

Most birds were hiding away, with only Magpies and Wood Pigeons on the lawns and Mallards and Moorhen on the lake. One distant white duck had a mixed brood of ducklings, some yellow, some brown. Other trees that we stopped to examine included a young Plane tree, which we thought might be an unusual variant, but it was just the ordinary London Plane Platanus x hispanica. We had never seen a young one before! A young Judas tree, still in its cage and leaning alarmingly, had produced a huge crop of pea-type seed pods.

A delicate Japanese Maple had produced its “helicopter” seeds, in bunches hanging below the leaves.

As well as this year’s profusion of young seeds and nuts, high summer is also a time for parasites.  The leaves of the Horse Chestnuts are starting to show their infestations of Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner. They are the caterpillars of the tiny moth Cameraria ohridella. New to the UK, they were first seen in 2002. I first saw it locally in Reynolds Park in 2014.

A young oak tree bore Marble galls, about the size of an old-fashioned glass “ollie”. Each contains a single female larva of the wasp Andricus kollari.

The large Walnut tree at the entrance of the flower garden was producing many young walnuts, but some lower leaves were marked by the blisters of the Walnut Leaf Gall Mite, Aceria erinea. The mites live in the corresponding depression on the underside of the leaf.

Along the wall of the toilet block, opposite the Japanese garden, the roots of the Ivy support a parasitic plant called Ivy Broomrape, Orobanche hederae. It is entirely dependent on the Ivy, having no chlorophyll of its own. It is commoner in southern England and Wales, but there is a cluster of reports in the Merseyside area, and it isn’t often seen further north than here.

In the trees over the Japanese garden, a Blackbird was calling repeatedly, possibly to its nest or mate as an announcement that food was on the way. But it had food in its beak. How did it call when its mouth was full?

Public transport details: Bus 86A from Elliot Street at 10.04, arriving Mather Avenue / Ballantrae Road at 10.35. Returned on bus 86A from Mather Avenue / Storrsdale Road at 2.35, arriving city centre at 3.10.
No walk next week. On 13th July we plan to go to Crosby seafront, meeting 10 am at Central Station.