The Naturalists' Notebook

It was a misty morning, and the storms of last weekend had all blown away. It turned out  to be a beautiful day, with gorgeous autumn colours everywhere.

On and around Greenbank lake there were Pigeons, Canada Geese, Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and a few Black-headed Gulls. Beyond them, with its head down and swimming in circles, was another bird. Was it a Shoveller? Then it vanished. There were also a couple of Cormorants up a tree, unusual perches for them.

In the Walled Garden, a Blackbird was eating Cotoneaster berries, while another in a verge was  tossing fallen leaves about. In this sheltered spot, there was more confusion of the seasons. Both the Mexican Orange (Choisya) and a Holly bush were in flower.

One tree I wanted to look at was the Bastard Service Tree, formerly known as Sorbus x thuringiaca, a natural hybrid of Rowan and Common Whitebeam. It’s a rare native tree, but is now usually planted in streets and parks. The one in Greenbank is the upward-growing variety ‘Fastigiata’, and isn’t much to look at, just a tall sapling still protected by its posts, webbing and netting.

Its leaves are distinctive however, looking like they have tried to divide into leaflets near the stalk (like Rowan) but the divisions become less prominent towards the tip, where it turns into a single leaf (like Whitebeam). It has recently been reclassified as Hedlundia thuringiaca.

We spotted one Coot on the lake bank with a leg ring, possibly DFO or OFO, but it was DFD. I reported it online to the Waterbird Colour-Marking Group.   It was ringed as an adult in Greenbank Park on 17th December 2025, then spotted and reported there three times since, on 19th December 2025, 5th January 2026 and our sighting today. Coots clearly find (or are hatched in) a place they like, and stick to it, unadventurously.

We went around the lake again, looking for the vanishing Shoveller and finally found three of them, a male and two females, swimming together. They weren’t in adult summer plumage, and it might just be that they had been moulting, but could they be a first-winter brood of siblings? Did Shovellers breed in Greenbank Park this year, only 3 miles from the city centre?

We walked along to the Penny Lane corner with Greenbank Road. (For those of you outside Merseyside, yes, THAT Penny Lane.)  Mistletoe is unusual in Liverpool, but there is a cluster here and it grows on trees that aren’t its classic hosts. One bunch is on a dying False Acacia or Black Locust Robinia pseudoacacia and opposite it there are four or five bunches on a Lime. (While two of us were looking at the Mistletoe, the others spotted two Fieldfares in the same group of trees!)

Down Ibbotsen’s Lane there was a Robin on a gatepost and a cluster of elegant fungi growing up through Beech leaf litter.

The Norway Maples in the hedge had turned a vivid sunshine yellow.

We entered Sefton Park at the bridge over the Fairy Glen, where we met a Liverpool RSPB member who said there was a report of a Mandarin Duck in the park. He hadn’t seen it, and although we looked in all the usual places, we didn’t see it either. But we spotted a different uncommon bird for a city park, a Gadwall. He was hanging about with Mallards and seemed to be interested in one particular female, vying for her company against the drakes.

All around us as we lunched were lovely yellow and orange autumn trees, although not many reds. The Norway Maples justified their existence by glowing bright yellow, a Tulip Tree hanging over the water had a dainty mix of leaf colours, while the Dawn Redwood with its wonderful twisty trunk was going rusty-red.

Along the path north of it was a Golden Ash (Fraxinus excelsior ‘Jaspidea’), which spends most of the year looking like an ordinary Ash, then turns golden all at once for just a couple of weeks.

Near the Rathbone statue is a clump of Caucasian Wingnut trees Pterocarya fraxinifolia which had also joined in the “going golden” game.

On the west side of the lake the young Swamp Cypress Taxodium distichum was changing colour prior to losing its foliage. This, the Dawn Redwood and the native Larch are the only deciduous conifers.

Lake birds were the usual Mallards, Coots, Moorhen, Black-headed Gulls, Mute Swans and Canada Geese. A small handful of Tufted Duck swam amongst them, while some Cormorants perched on the chain posts. At the south end of the lake, by the Boathouse kiosk, one Cormorant was swimming in the shallows. We realised he was injured, with something around his wing, stopping him from diving strongly. He was able to forage successfully for small fish near the edge by putting his head down and working his feet vigorously and seemed to be doing OK. Janet, who has connections to animal rescue, said she had heard there was an injured bird reported here but the rescuers had been unable to find it. This must be it. Meanwhile the Cormorant itself had found a small rubber ring or washer and looked like he wanted to eat it. He clearly didn’t understand our entreaties to drop it, but eventually let it go anyway. We hope the rescue people will find him (or her) soon.

Public transport details: Bus 75 from Elliott Street at 10.02, arriving Smithdown Road / Borrowdale Road at 10.17. Returned from Aigburth Road / Jericho Lane on the 82 bus at 2.30, arriving city centre at 2.55.
Next week we are going to Landican Cemetery and Arrowe Park. Meet at 10 am at Sir Thomas Street for the Heswall buses 471 or 472.

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.

We had a sunny day, but it’s starting to get a bit nippy in the north wind. There isn’t much sign of autumn colour on the trees yet, although we did see a wonderful Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) from the bus in Birkenhead at the junction of Park Road North and Laird Street. Bidston Court Gardens are on a west-facing slope, with terraces stepping down by winding brick paths. It was once the setting for a house called Bidston Court, built in 1891 by a soap manufacturer called Robert William Hudson. Then it was owned by John Laird of the Cammell Laird shipbuilders, and then by Sir Ernest Royden. In the late 1920s Royden had the house dismantled, moved and rebuilt in Royden Park, where it is now known as Hillbark. Only the grounds remain as Bidston Court Gardens.

It is surrounded by a huge northward loop of Upton Road, and the steep footpath down the gardens conveniently cuts across it. The path is jocularly known as “Thermopylae Pass”, probably named by one of the classically-educated previous owners of the old house. We didn’t walk straight along it, but instead zig-zagged down the terraces.

The gardens are full of old trees and the remains of terraced lawns. The Sycamores were liberally marked with Tar Spot fungus. The Ivy was just starting to flower, and was quite a draw for insects. We later saw a Red Admiral on it, which is quite late to see them on the wing. There was also a wasp’s nest in the ground amongst it, with all the wasps still busy and active.

We think the avenues of Lime trees were Large-leaved Limes, as they were a bit “cabbagey”. One fallen leaf had the remains of Lime Nail Galls. The galls stick up out of the leaf surface and are bright red in high summer, although these have faded. They are caused by the gall mites Eriophyes tiliae.

We didn’t hear much birdsong, although we did spot Blackbirds and Robins, Magpies and Wood Pigeons. Near some tall pines was a fast moving flock of tits, possibly also a Goldfinch and definitely a Nuthatch. Otherwise it was very quiet, apart from the ever-present traffic noise from the loop of Upton Road. After our lunch we emerged from the park at its lowest end to catch a 437 bus going back the way we came. By the bus stop near Warren Drive there was blooming Honeysuckle winding through a Hawthorn hedge.

The bus took us just a few stops to Tam O’Shanter urban farm. They have Alpacas, pigs, ponies, goats, lots of chickens, ducks and Guinea fowl.  One of the animal paddocks has been remodelled as a forest school for children, with a circle of log seats.  Surrounding them is a circle of young Horse Chestnut trees (did the kids plant a ring of conkers?). The saplings had no sign of the now ubiquitous leaf miner, and so the leaves were whole and clean, just starting to go yellow.  This is what Horse Chestnut leaves used to look like in the autumn!

In a garden near my home in Crosby I saw the best autumn colour so far, a shrub of the Sumac family, possibly Shining Sumac Rhus copallinum, which is known to turn fiery red in autumn.

Public transport details: Bus 437 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.04, arriving Upton Road / Noctorum Lane at 10.30. Returned from Upton Road / Boundary Road on the 437 bus at 1.55, arriving Liverpool at 2.20.
Next week we plan to go to Greenbank Park, entering at the northern end via Gorsebank Road. Meet at Elliott Street (Blackler’s corner) at 10 am prompt for the 75 at 10.02. Or at the junction of Ullet Road and Smithdown Road at about 10.20, near the Shell garage opposite The Brookhouse.

Many Parakeets were calling near the Sunburst Gates as we arrived at the entrance to the park. The Friends of Princes Park have produced wonderful tree maps, and our plan was to look at some in the “200” set, in the corner near Windermere Terrace. The map and key are on the Friends’ website. Scroll down to just above the cherry blossom photo for links to them.

Tree 204 is listed as a Blue Hawthorn Crataegus schraderiana. That’s a new one on me, and not in either Mitchell’s or Collins’ tree books.  The RHS calls it “A small, round-headed, deciduous tree with grey-green, deeply-divided leaves. Clusters of creamy flowers in late spring are followed by dark, purple-red fruit in early autumn.” There was no tree number post for tree 204, but we found that a tree marked 202 and listed as a type of Pear was definitely some kind of Hawthorn. It looks like a mistake was made in setting the number post.  So the one labelled 202 is probably the Blue Hawthorn. The leaves were pale green and we found a single big fruit on the ground below, dark red, with 4 seeds inside.

We checked out our favourite Golden Rain tree Koelreuteria paniculata, number 215, listed with its alternative name of Pride of India. It is now growing well out of its cage and seems to be doing well.  Then on to the Tupelo Nyssa sylvatica, number 217. Unlike the one I saw last weekend in Arrowe Park, this one is still mostly green, with a few red leaves, but should colour up spectacularly before the end of the year.

A very big, old tree next to the top path had black winter buds like an Ash, but not the usual long pinnate leaves. It had no number post beside it, but I think it was number 702, Single-leaved Ash Fraxinus diversifolia.

Near the end of the lake is a trio of unusual thorns. The Midland Thorn Crataegus laevigata (228) and the Cockspur Thorn C. crus galli (230) were both looking rather sparse and stressed but the Broad-leaved Cockspur Thorn C. x prunifolia (229) was in fine fettle, with lush foliage and large fruit, over half an inch across.

We also looked at a cluster of Rowan and other Sorbus relatives, numbers 231 to 236. Most interesting was number 235, listed by the park as “Service Tree Sorbus domestica” but that species has leaves like Rowan or Ash – long with many equal-sized leaflets. I suspect the park may have ordered one of those, but what they were sent by the nursery is a different species: 235 is a Wild Service Tree S. torminalis. I know it by those odd-looking leaves which I think are like “a hand with too many fingers”.

Two Grey Wagtails flew near the lake, and the male Coots were squabbling and splashing. We also saw Mallards, Moorhens, some Little Grebes and a single male Tufted Duck.

A small coppery tree caught our eye. It was a Sweet Gum Liquidambar styraciflua number 308. The leaves were already on the turn, looking gorgeous, and it had produced quite a few of the spiky fruit that were unknown in Britain until about a decade ago, when winters warmed up.

Along the south-eastern path towards the Belvedere Road entrance we spotted a Medlar in fruit.

After an excursion to the nearby McDonalds to use their facilities, we returned to the park for lunch. Magpies and Wood Pigeons were about, and a pair of Jays moved between the trees overhead. Some gulls were dotted about on the open playing fields, mostly Herring Gulls.

On our way back via the play area we noted two young Bhutan Pines in a glade and this old Black Poplar tree with a wonderful ribbed and burred trunk. I think it must be one of the rare surviving native Black Poplars, because the more usual hybrid trees have smoother trunks.

Finally, we admired this veteran tree near the Sunburst Gates, set back a little from the path. It’s tree number 701, a London Plane, but its number post is missing. Someone told me it was thought to be the oldest tree, possibly 220+ years old, and 40 years older than the park itself. Was it already there when the park was designed or did Paxton move it from Chatsworth?

There won’t be a Sunday walk next week as many of us will have a long day on Saturday, on the MNA coach trip to Dunham Massey.  Details of the walk on Sunday 18th tba.

Public transport details: 75 bus from Elliot Street at 10.02, arriving Princes Avenue / Kingsley Road at 10.13. Returned on the 75 bus from Princes Road / Princes Gate West at 2.08, arriving city centre at 2.20.

There is no Sunday walk this weekend, but I took the chance of a fine Saturday to go to Arrowe Park to look at some of the interesting trees marked on their new tree map. At the southern end of the bowling greens is a tree marked number 5 on the tree trail. I have previously assumed this to be a young Indian Bean tree Catalpa bignonioides, but the map calls it a Manchurian Catalpa, Catalpa bungei, a tree from China not North America. It looks very similar to the more common Indian Bean, but it is distinguished by its pink flowers. The website Trees and Shrubs Online  says “The large pink to rosy-purple flowers and elegantly tapering leaves make it a tree of great distinction, accounting for its widespread cultivation in China, particularly in temple grounds.” This is one we really have to come back to in late May or early June, when it ought to be flowering. I spotted some long hanging “beans” on it, so it is old enough to have flowered this spring.

Most of the others I wanted to look at are in the plot which used to be tennis courts. There seems to be a nursery of young trees there, many of which are notable. One is another Catalpa, a hybrid with the formal name C. x erubescens (no. 13). It may be too young to bloom yet, but the flower clusters are said to be particularly large. Another one to come back to.

The tree I was really here for was the Black Tupelo Nyssa sylvatica (no.18).  It’s a small tree, and quite uncommon, with plain lanceolate leaves, but its outstanding feature is its rich red autumn colour. The young tree in Arrowe Park seems to have lost a lot of foliage in this summer’s drought, but the leaves that remain are as red as can be. (This makes three “lifers” for me in one day!)

Before I left I looked at a tree that isn’t on the tree map. I have tentatively identified it on previous visits as a Pin Oak and this time I am sure. The leaves have little bristles on the edge, and the acorns are flat-bottomed, stripy, and have scaly cups.

Following Wirral Council’s decision to label many of the trees in their parks, and the publication of tree trail maps for five of them, we planned to look at some of the more unusual trees they had identified in Mayer Park.  The first two trees I wanted to see were in the green space on the opposite side of the road from the park. A Cappadocian Maple Acer cappadocium (no. 36) is at the north end, close to Heath Road. Its leaves are the usual Acer-type five-lobed shape, but the lobes are fat and rounded with fine tapering points. The seeds are paired helicopters, of course, with the wings widely-spread.

At the south end, near the junction with Bromborough Road, is a Scarlet Oak Quercus coccinea (no. 48). It has large, deeply-lobed leaves, which are said to turn a striking red in the autumn. I have never seen one in its full scarlet glory, but it should be visible from the Parkgate bus if we pass it at the right time of year.

Then we crossed the road to the main park. It was once owned by Joseph Mayer of Liverpool, silversmith, antiquary and philanthropist. He lived in Bebington, and in 1869 bought the building next door to his house, with five acres of land, and transformed them into a library and public park for all the people of the area. I imagine some of the older trees may be Mayer’s original plantings, possibly now 150 years old. As we crossed the park to the north-east corner we spotted a few birds – Magpies and Wood Pigeons of course, but also a tiny bird moving within a deep conifer, very likely to be a Goldcrest. Grey Squirrels were scampering everywhere, and the warm sun brought out three species of butterfly: Speckled Wood, Large White and a Painted Lady.

Hungarian Oak, Quercus frainetto (no. 25) has some of the largest leaves in the oak family, up to 25 cm long and deeply lobed. No other oak has leaves with so many lobes.

Then we looked at two species of Lime, the Crimean or Caucasian Lime Tilia x euchlora (no.19) and the Large-leaved Lime Tilia platyphyllos (no. 13). The several species of Lime are very hard to distinguish, so this was a good opportunity to see identified specimens and compare them. We noted the smallish, shiny, serrated leaves of the Crimean Lime and its dense, weeping lower branches, but we didn’t find the very oblique stems on the leaves or the five ribs on the little seeds. However, the Large-leaved Lime definitely did have the thick, dull, cabbagey leaves the books describe, and their larger seeds were definitely 5-ridged.

Our last tree was just a newly-planted sapling, a Chinese Red Birch Betula albosinensis (no. 11). This species is a new one on me (a lifer!) looking like any other young Birch tree except that the bark was orangey-red and peeling.

Wirral’s innovation is really helpful for learning to identify trees, with so many labelled and mapped. They have included many commoner trees, too, not just rarities. The only caveat is that the name plaques appear to be affixed with a single galvanised nail, which is only partly hammered in. Some of the plaques we looked at were moving in the wind, and might not stay up for very long!

After lunch in Mayer Park’s ornamental garden we headed down Ellen’s Lane, under the railway bridge and we were in Port Sunlight. Our visit to the Garden Centre to use their facilities was enlivened by the enthusiasm of some of the group for the large Indian Bean tree Catalpa bignonioides at the back of the “sheds and seats” area near the exit. The tree isn’t “Indian” (Asian), it originates from the Eastern United states, and neither is it a “bean” (not a legume). The long cylindrical pods contain winged seeds and remain on the tree throughout the winter before splitting and releasing the seeds.

We walked around Christ Church’s graveyard and noted how most of the Weeping Ashes we see nowadays are quite bare and scrawny. I think they are suffering from Ash Dieback disease. Better news on the Swamp Cypress Taxodium distichum in the Dell. It appears to be bearing cones for the first time!  It must have loved the recent hot summer, but it is, I’m sure, another sign of global warming.

Public transport details: Bus 464 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.16, arriving Heath Road / The Village at 10.45. Returned from Port Sunlight station at 14.07, arriving Liverpool Central at 14.30.
No Sunday walk next week. On 4th October we plan to go to Princes Park, and details of the meeting place will be advised.

A fine, mostly sunny day for a stroll around Southport’s Marine Lake. We were amazed to see all the Mute Swans clustered together (54 of them) where they were being fed by two local people.

I think that couple feed the Swans and Gulls every day, and the birds know and trust them. We spoke to the lady, who knew many of them as individuals. She said the oldest one had died last year aged 21, and the one she was hand-feeding was now the senior bird at 18 years old.

There were lots of other birds around, too. The usual Feral Pigeons, Wood Pigeons, Mallards, one Lesser Black-backed Gull, and very many young Herring Gulls. I think these are 2- and 3-year-old Herring Gulls on the balustrade.

A Cormorant was swimming and diving. Three Swallows did acrobatic flypasts, snatching up a drink from the surface of the lake as they swooped low. There was a small flock of Coots on the far side, and a Little Egret on the bank.

Two Greylag Geese were resting on one of the bridge islands, while a pair of Jackdaws took a keen interest in us.

Out on the water were four Great Crested Grebes. Two were clearly adults and one was a full-size but still stripy juvenile. The fourth was probably also a young adult chick, but we never had all four up at the same time to be certain.

We were struck by how few Black-headed Gulls there were. I think we saw just 4, and they all had leg rings. (Maybe they were the only ones we paid attention to.) One of them flew off, determined not to let us see its number. Another was walking on a lawn in King’s Gardens, and the grass was just long enough to hide a clear view of the ring. But we got the numbers of the other two – 2V93 and 2E63. I reported them at https://waterbirdcolourmarking.shinyapps.io/sightings2/ and the website returns a list of all the places that bird has been seen before.

The accumulated data on all the ringed BHGs we have seen shows that they live in the north-west UK (Southport, Chester, St Helens etc.) from July through to March, but in spring and early summer they all disappear to go back to their birth places to breed. The individual with ring number 2E63 was ringed as an adult at Southport in January 2022. It has been seen seven times since then, six times at Southport and once at Ainsdale Sands. There were no sightings of it in 2024 at all, so it may have wandered off then, but nobody reported it from elsewhere. But there have been no sightings of it in the last four springs in Southport, so it maybe going somewhere overseas to breed, but there is no information on that.
However, we have seen 2V93 before. It was ringed as an adult at Southport in December 2023 and it has been sighted locally 17 times since then. We, the Sunday group, saw it in Southport in July 2025 and John Clegg saw it again there a few weeks ago. This April someone spotted it outside the UK for the first time, so now we know where it goes to breed: Stadsparken, Kalmar, Sweden.

We lunched near the bowling greens, watching some of the games going on. A Buzzard soared high overhead.  After lunch went to see four places listed for Heritage Open Day, the Windmill pub, a wine bar in an old bank building, Parkinsons Books and the Temperance Institute. Near the Windmill pub we spotted our last birds of the day, a colony of Sparrows in a dense privet hedge.

Southport isn’t known for its trees, but there was a Swedish Whitebeam dropping its red berries on the path near the Venetian bridge, and I also looked at this Orange-berried Rowan near Blundellsands Station, which had so much fruit it was weighing the branches down.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.02, arriving Southport at 10.50. Returned on the train at 15.06, due in Liverpool at about 15.50.
Next week we are going to Mayer Park on the Wirral. Meet at Sir Thomas Street in time for the 464 bus at 10.16.

Despite the day starting in a fine drizzly rain, we visited several different places today. The first was the new wildlife mural off Knowsley Road in Bootle, running along a railway line on a footpath leading to All Saints Primary and Thomas Gray Primary Schools. The mural is 160 meters long, and is believed to be the longest hand-painted mural in the UK. It has been painted by Liverpool artist Paul Curtis and shows British flora and fauna commonly found along railway lines. The schoolchildren collaborated on the design, and it was funded by Sefton Council.

As we left we spotted a very big Rowan tree with white or yellow berries. It’s on the corner of Chestnut Road and Balfour Road, and think it is variety ‘Joseph Rock’.

Then we went back to the bus route and continued to Potter’s Barn Park. It’s only a tiny park and we walked straight through it to Crosby Marine Lake. Around the Lake House restaurant there were hedges of Rosa rugosa, Japanese or Beach rose, with its large and abundant fruit. It’s lovely in gardens and hedges but is invasive on coastal dunes and has to be removed.

Around the lake there were Swallows and House Martins overhead. One Oystercatcher flew off from the grass. There were five Mute Swans on the Boating Lake, also Coots, Black-headed Gulls, a few adult and juvenile Herring Gulls, and flocks of Starlings on the banks. Three Little Egrets were on the far side of the Marine Lake, and one took to flight southwards.

Wild flowers on the verges included Chicory, Evening Primrose, Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Red and White Clovers. After lunch it turned warm and sunny and we strolled through the Seafront gardens. In the houses along here there are two Titanic-related blue plaques. One is for John Smith, the captain, and the other is the Ismay family home, who were founders and owners of the White Star Line. There weren’t many birds in the gardens, just Magpies and Wood Pigeons, but we did spot a Long-tailed Tit in hedge. We noted Spanish Broom, some Fairy Ring toadstools and three Painted Lady butterflies on a late-blooming Buddleia.

We lingered at the wildlife pond in Beach Lawn Garden. There were several bright red male Common Darter dragonflies resting on the warm stone edges.

A Common Pond Skater was sitting quietly, with some legs on the water surface and some on a blade of grass.

This one is a mystery. It was under the water, crawling purposefully along the concrete pond floor. It was about the size of a dragonfly body, but it had no apparent legs so it wasn’t one of their nymphs. It may have had many little legs underneath, or it may have been some kind of worm or leech. Anyone know it?

Public transport details: Bus 47 from Queen Square at 10.15, arriving Knowsley Road / Hornby Road at 10.38 where we stopped for the mural. Then the next 47 bus from Knowsley Road / Percy Street at 11.06, arriving Crosby Road South / opp Durham Road (for Potter’s Barn) at 11.10. Returned on 53 bus from Oxford Road / Courtney Road at 2.10.
Next week we are going to Southport. Meet at Central Station a little before 10 am, in time to catch the 10.02 train.

Pickering’s Pasture is a local nature reserve on the Mersey estuary, near to the Widnes/Runcorn bridges. When we arrived the sandbanks were still showing in the river, soon to be covered by the incoming tide. They held many distant birds – Lesser Black-backed gulls, Herring gulls, Mallards, some Lapwings.

It was quite sunny as we headed northwards towards the footbridge over the Ditton Brook. Signs of autumn are still coming in. The hedges held wild Rose hips, the red berries of Black Briony, berries of Elder and Hawthorn. There is much more Aspen growing here than I remember, a native tree, but uncommon, and it’s the only place I know of on Merseyside where it is so abundant. There was a lot of Dogwood, too, with their leaves turning to that lovely subtle purple.

Young Goldfinches were feeding on thistle seeds.

As we headed back towards the café and car park area, thick mist came in off the river, then a very heavy shower. They still have a small wildflower meadow blooming near the café but it looked quite sad in the heavy rain.

It soon cleared up though, so we set off for the other end of the reserve, where there is a bird hide overlooking a pool called “The Scrape”. As we had heard from others, the Scrape was completely dry after this long hot summer.

There were plenty of birds along the river edge, watching the high water, waiting for the sandbanks to become available again. They were also at quite a distance, but we could name Cormorants, a few gulls, lots of Lapwings, and a large number of Canada Geese in the fields further back.

In the little woodland surrounding the hide there are bird feeders, currently empty, but they are still the haunt of many little birds including Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit and Greenfinch. We also spotted a Spindle Tree, which is a native small tree, and there are probably very many of them, but their leaves are plain and simple, not eye-catching at all, and its only when they put out their four-lobed red fruits that they are noticeable.

There were small stands of Aspen here too. I found one with leaf miner scars and did a bit of homework later. There are three species of tiny moths which lay eggs in Aspen, but the patterns of the mines are different, so I think these were caused by the larvae of Stigmella assimilella, the White-tipped Dot or Aspen Pigmy moth.

It is found mostly in south-eastern England and in the Scottish Highlands, but it IS known in spots on Merseyside. It is generally described as “elusive and nowhere common, but secure where its specific host plants thrive.”

We lingered later than our usual departure time, because there was a chance that the aerial display team, the Red Arrows, would be flying over the bridges at about 2.30 as part of the Southport Air Show. Sadly, the threatening weather must have curtailed their range, and they didn’t appear.

Public transport details: Bus 82A from Liverpool One bus station at 10.12, arriving Halebank / Merseyview at 11.10. Returned on bus 82A from the stop opposite at 2.57, arriving Liverpool One at 3.55.  
Next week we are going to Crosby. Meet at Queen Square bus station at 10.00

The water in Sefton Park lake is very low and the banks on either side, usually lush green grass, are now yellow and dried-up. We felt occasional spots of rain, and there will probably be some welcome proper rain later this week.  The usual resident birds were all there: Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and Canada Geese. There were just a few Black-headed gulls, Herring gulls and Lesser Black-backed gulls, and many brown juvenile gulls from this year, happy to get handouts of bread. One bold Little Grebe was swimming and diving right by the café end. They are usually more timid, sheltering in the shady overhangs by the island.

At the northern end of the main lake was a group of seven Mallards, looking like an almost-adult brood of six ducklings, still following their mother. They were possibly her second brood, as these young ones are unusually late. Six Cormorants were perched on the chain posts, and we later spotted a seventh, skulking under the trees on the island. I haven’t seen so many of them in the park before.

Corpse of the day was a Rat, recently dead and floating with its feet in the air.

There was also a dead Canada Goose in the undergrowth nearby, which was partly eaten. These deaths remind me that there is an outbreak of avian botulism, reported this week from Walton Hall Park. Angling there is suspended and dog walking near the water discouraged. Dead birds recovered are Canada geese, Mallards, Gulls, Moorhen and Little Grebes. “Avian botulism is caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and can affect populations of water birds, particularly during very hot weather. The bacteria can multiply in rotting vegetation and are particularly associated with ponds and lakes with low oxygen levels and poor water quality. Warm weather, falling water levels and increased algae can also create conditions in which the bacteria thrive.” I hope Sefton Park lake isn’t going the same way.

Away from the water we spotted Wood Pigeons, Feral pigeons, Crows and Magpies. Lots of Ring-necked Parakeets screeched overhead. The trees are starting to go brown, but it isn’t autumn yet. It’s probably caused by water stress and scorching by the hot sun. This Beech tree was badly affected.

A Silver Maple tree Acer saccharinum had black galls on its leaves. They look like Maple bladder galls, caused by the tiny eriophyid mite Vasates quadripedes. The mite species is relatively new to Britain, being first recorded in London in 2002.

A tree I haven’t spotted here before is a rather spindly Tree of Heaven in copious brightly-coloured fruit. They have separate male and female trees, known as “dioecious”, so this is a female tree.

On the bank of the stream near the Oasis café was some kind of Cypress, which we initially looked at because there was a little bird in it, possibly a Goldcrest.  The tree had some unusual “cones”.  One of the apps suggested Swamp Cypress Taxodium distichum (also known as Bald Cypress), but this tree’s leaves were smaller than that, angled closer to the stem, and I have never seen any cones on the Swamp Cypresses I know. However, in this weather, trees might be doing all sorts of unusual things. There is a rarer tree called a Pond Cypress Taxodium ascendens which has leaves like that, so I don’t know which one this is.

We lunched in the area of the old aviary. A strappy plant on the central bed caught our attention, with lots of bees or wasps coming out of the middle of it. They appeared to have a nest in the ground amongst the roots of the plant. Were they some kind of Mining Bee? But they were bigger than that, the size of ordinary Common Wasps. An app suggested the similar European wasp, Vespula germanicus. It is hard to tell the difference between them, it all depends on some spots on the wasp’s face and I didn’t want to look THAT closely! They were all busily on the move, but here is my best photo.

On the way to the Fairy Glen we passed several dozen dachshunds with their owners, walking companionably together. It is an organised event, a weekly Sausage Stroll!  We were on the way to look for a Giant Polypore fungus Meripilus giganteus on a Beech tree. It had been spotted by MNA member Daniel earlier this week, who put pictures of it on our WhatsApp group. We looked by the wrong gate at first, then found the affected tree, uphill from the stepping stones, eastward towards Mossley Hill Drive, adjacent to the railings. It had at least half a dozen fruiting bodies, some of them several meters from the trunk, growing along the root lines. The old Beech is listed by the Ancient Tree Inventory, but must now be coming to the end of its life.

As we returned to the eastern side of the lake we admired more trees. There is a lovely wide-spreading Cut-leaved Beech in the Fairy Glen and a big suckering clump of Caucasian Wingnuts near the William Rathbone memorial. In the shady shrubbery was a pair of Mute Swans, no cygnets about, so if they nested this year, they failed. One bore a blue Darvic ring, but it was too dirty to read, even from a close-up photo.

Public transport details: Bus 82 from Elliot Street at 9.55, arriving Aigburth Road / Ashbourne Road at 10.15. Returned on the 82 bus at 1.45 from Aigburth Road / Jericho Lane, arriving Liverpool 2.05.
No Sunday walk next week, as most of us are on the MNA coach trip on Saturday. The following week’s destination (30th August) is to be advised.

From Grove Road station we walked past St Nicholas’s church and the golf club to the southern end of King’s Parade. It was a warm, humid day, with a refreshing sea breeze.  At the station, we noted the first red Holly berries of the year, and along the golf course hedge there were some small ripe Rose hips, Marble galls on a small oak and ripening Honeysuckle berries. On the corner of Coastal Drive, near the Pitch and Put area, there seems to be a very low spot, probably still marshy, with reeds and bulrushes growing green and resisting the drought. We thought we saw a small flight of Linnets dive into it.

The tide was out, and there wasn’t much bird life on the beach, just a few Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. The intelligent local Carrion Crows were doing their clever trick with Cockles, collecting live, tightly-closed ones from the sand, then dropping them onto the hard pavement of the prom to break them open. Then they could get at the contents, tackling them either on the top of the sea wall, or on the prom itself, risking disturbance by the passers-by.

We lunched by the model boat club’s pool, watching the model yachts, tugs and destroyers whizzing around. A Pied Wagtail flew overhead towards the beach. As we carried on towards New Brighton, we saw both the Irish and Isle of Man ferries going out. There were a few Oystercatchers on the beach, and several Cormorants on a navigation tower.

The pontoons on the Marine Lake had no waders at all, just two juvenile Herring Gulls and an adult. In the dusty, sandy gutters opposite the Floral Pavilion theatre we spotted a couple of tough plants hanging on, despite the drought and the footfall. I thought one was Scentless Mayweed (definitely no scent in its crushed leaves), but it might have been the rarer Sea Mayweed, just because of its location. Even scruffier was a small clump of Gallant Soldier.

My Buddleia at home has been attracting more butterflies than the usual one or two. I think I have had 6 or 7 Painted Ladies at once some afternoons, at the same time as a Red Admiral and several Small Whites. Here are some Painted Ladies.

Public transport details: New Brighton train from Central at 10.20, arriving Wallasey Grove Road at 10.40. Returned on bus 432 at 1.28 from King’s Parade / Morrison’s, arriving Liverpool at 2.00.
Next week we plan to go to Sefton Park, meeting Elliot Street at 10 am or at the Boathouse café around 10.20 to 10.30.