The Naturalists' Notebook

On a fine sunny morning we got off the bus at the southern corner of Bidston Hill Nature reserve and threaded through King George’s Way. It’s a footpath through the woodland, part of which climbs to Bidston Hill, but our section skirts the allotments and comes out by the car park of Tam O’Shanter’s urban farm. It’s a little bit of old woodland in a busy suburb.

Flaybrick Cemetery is just across Boundary Road. During the pandemic they have been doing lots more research on their historic graves, and signboards are popping up everywhere. We go there for the trees, of course. They have over 140 species, more than anywhere else on the Wirral after Ness Gardens. Many of them are original plantings from 1864, probably including their huge Chilean Pine (Monkey Puzzle), now fruiting magnificently.

As we were some of the earliest visitors on their Open Day we were accosted by the Bard of Flaybrick, Terry Briscoe, who recited some of his Wirral poems to us.

He also drew our attention to the grave of the first burial in the cemetery, of Francis Morton, a wealthy iron and steel manufacturer, whose company had provided all the ironwork on site, and who had laid the foundation stone. He died six months before the cemetery was consecrated and officially opened, so he was actually buried there twice, being the first and the second burial. His grave is now marked with an obelisk.

We looked at some of our favourite trees, and were relieved to find that the old Horse Chestnut by the Rowan avenue was still standing. It had been deemed diseased and dangerous a couple of years ago, but the park staff disagreed, and so they have compromised by lopping just the branches that overhang the path.

The labels on the trees themselves are evolving. Some have small QR codes pinned to them, saying “Scan me”, but since I didn’t have my smartphone with me, I have no idea what they lead to. A very few have proper tree labels, including one on the Fern-leaved Beech, fixed at a strange angle, but giving its scientific name, its origin, and the mysterious “TROBI Class 2”. TROBI is the Tree Register of Britain and Ireland, so I guess class 2 means it isn’t a champion, but just “remarkable”.

The third type of sign was more frustrating. Little blue plaques are popping up, probably issued by the Tree Register, saying the tree is a County Champion, but not giving the name of the tree or the reason for the designation. I suspect this is more likely to annoy visitors, rather that interest them, and it looks like a cheap and unsatisfactory project by the Tree Register.

In late morning it started to drizzle, then it came down more determinedly. What is it with Wirral lately? We hurried past some of our favourite trees, pausing only briefly at the rare Oregon or Big Leaf Maple Acer macrophyllum.

One other signboard caught our attention, marking a tragic grave. A man called Lock Ah Tam was attacked and beaten in 1918 by a gang of Russian sailors. He survived, but underwent a personality change and became a violent alcoholic. Eight years later he shot his wife and two daughters, was convicted of murder, and executed in Walton jail. Here is the grave of his murdered family.

We had another wet lunch, then a quick tour of the cemetery chapel (no shelter there – it’s roofless).  As the rain eased we looked at the animals in Tam O’Shanter urban farm, goats, sheep, and a few little fat Kunekune pigs.

Just behind the farm buildings Bidston Community Archaeology are digging the site of an old cottage, trying to find when the area was first occupied. Bidston village has pre-mediaeval origins, and some farmsteads in the area date back to the early 1500s. Finds so far include prehistoric flint tools, 17th century pottery and evidence of metal forging.

Public transport details: Bus 437 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.04, arriving Upton Road / Boundary Road at 10.28. Returned from the opposite stop on the 437 at 2.45, arriving Liverpool 3.05

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 4pm 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.

What a wash-out! I think Parkgate has a micro-climate all of its own, a wet one! It wasn’t supposed to rain until later in the day, and it was warm, dry and overcast in Liverpool, but while we were crossing Wirral on the bus its windscreen wipers started to swipe back and forth ominously. By the time we arrived at Parkgate it was raining hard.

In an attempt to find some shelter we walked up Coastguard Lane and Brooklands Road towards the Wirral Way. We noticed how the rain had highlighted all the spiders’ webs in the garden hedges.

The rain seemed lighter along the Wirral Way, although it was rather puddly and drippy.

We had to make way for cyclists quite often, but there was still a chance to look out for autumn fruits including these damp Rose Hips.

We walked north as far as the footpath leading to the Old Baths picnic area. The rain seemed to be going off so we made for our favourite picnic table, with a great view out over the marsh, but found it was being swallowed up by a Tamarisk tree.

The only birds in sight, except for a few crows, were about a dozen Swallows over the car park trees, probably juveniles. They will be leaving for Africa soon.

It started to rain again while we were eating, making our sandwiches rather soggy.  There was going to be a good high tide in mid-afternoon, and if the weather had been better, we’d have stayed a bit longer to see the little voles and shrews pushed near to the road by the rising water. However, the return buses run only every two hours, and it was too wet to stay for the 3.30, so we headed back for the one at 1.30. As we walked along the quayside, there was nothing much to see over the marsh, although the hidden birds were beginning to shift as the water rose. We glimpsed a possible flight of a Great Egret, several strings of Canada Geese going north, what might have been Mute Swans on the edge of one of the distant pools, and two definite Herons flying quite close in, looking for small mammals near the old quayside wall. We were very wet and dripping naturalists as we boarded the very welcome bus to take us back.  As we suspected, it wasn’t raining in Liverpool when we arrived, and the pavements were quite dry. 

Other hedgehog news from my garden. On Saturday afternoon my left-hand neighbours Dave and Ann said they had just seen three small hoglets wandering on their lawn in broad daylight. Babies! I didn’t see them myself, and I haven’t yet caught them on the trailcam. They will need to feed up if they are to attain 600g in time for hibernation.

Public transport details: Bus 487 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.29, arriving Parkgate Mostyn Square at 11.25. Returned on the 487 from Mostyn Square at 1.30, arriving Liverpool 2.20.

Prince’s Park is the oldest public park in Liverpool, designed by Joseph Paxton and opened in 1842. It was named after the young Queen Victoria’s first son, later Edward VIII. It is the nearest major park to Liverpool’s city centre and is now designated a Grade II* historic park.

MNA member Katy is also a member of the Friends of Prince’s Park (FoPP), and they are doing wonderful work, planting a great variety of new young trees and identifying their veterans. Katy guided us around some of her favourite trees and we also tried to find some of the champion trees listed on the TROBI database. The Friends are marking many trees with numbered posts bearing QR codes, which lead to the names and descriptions of the trees on the FoPP website. Visitors with smartphones can immediately identify the tree and learn something about it. This is the way of the future!

Our first success was the Cricket Bat Willow Salix alba ‘Caerulea’. When last measured in 2015 it was 23m tall and 329 cm around the trunk, making it the girth & height county champion of Lancashire. We re-measured it at 359cm. On the FoPP website it is listed just as White Willow, their number 708.

We continued around the lake, admiring two young trees, a Foxglove tree (311) and an unusual and pretty variegated Sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Variegata’. (314).

High on a bank west of the lake was another champion, Chinese Privet, Ligustrum lucidum. There are two of them here, rather shrubby, but the larger of the two is girth & height county champion of Lancashire, 8m, 187 cm. It flowers late, but we caught the buds just opening. The blooms are like ordinary English privet, but three or four times the size.

Many of the open grassy areas have been turned over to wildflower meadows, now past their best, but lovely in the sunshine.

Our third champion was the Willow-leaf Pear Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’. At 165cm, it’s the girth county champion of Lancashire.

Surprisingly, one of the numbered trees of the park is an English Elm. We thought they had all died and been felled in the 1980s. However, some of the stumps retained the ability to re-grow and are now living on as occasional shrubs in hedgerows. The one in Prince’s Park is next to a fence, so was probably difficult to cut right down when it was first infected, and is now quite a tall clump. Sadly, it isn’t the majestic tall Elm tree of old.

The young Wollemi Pine is doing well, now about 8 feet tall, still in its wire mesh cage, and is fruiting this year. It is the most recent “fossil tree” to be found in modern times, with just a handful of individuals found in a hidden valley in Wollemi Park in Australia in 1994. As a safety measure against extinction, young trees have now been planted all over the world.

Tree 701 is a gnarled old Oriental Plane near the Sunburst Gates.  It is thought to be the oldest tree in the park at around 220 years old.  Here’s something that might boggle your mind. The park itself is coming up to 180 years old, so how did a tree that is possibly 40 years older get there? Joseph Paxton was the head gardener at Chatsworth at the time, and was skilled at moving mature trees (he designed special apparatus for it).  Could it be that he moved several large trees from Chatsworth to Prince’s Park to enhance the landscape he was designing?

The last champion tree we found was an Indian Bean tree Catalpa bignonioides. It wasn’t measured in 2015 (the last time the recorders came around) and it appears that they couldn’t find it. It is deep in some overgrown woodland at the back of Devonshire Road, obstructed in Bramble and Ivy. In open situations Indian Bean trees make a low dome, but this hemmed-in tree has reached for the sky. It is the height county champion of Lancashire at 15m in 2004. We were able to get a tape around it, and since then its girth has increased from 135 cm to 188 cm.

Amongst all this tree-hunting, we were still aware of birds. On the ground were Magpies, Crows,  Wood Pigeons and Feral Pigeons, while the lake had just Mallards, Coots and Black-headed Gulls. We heard some Ring-necked Parakeets but didn’t see them. From the south side of the lake we were able to look over to the island and see the family of Mute Swans with six cygnets, dozing on a bank. Further along was a Heron.

We returned to our starting point along the Ullet Road edge. The hedgerow fruit are all ripening in abundance: Guelder Rose, Dogwood, Sloes on Blackthorn. It’s going to be a good autumn, they say.

There were some Alders, and we hunted amongst the green cones for a fungal gall called Alder Tongue. See Jeremy Bartlett’s blog “Let it Grow”. It’s caused by a fungal infection from the Taphrina genus, and makes the Alder produce tongue-like galls protruding from the unripe cones. This one looks like a Cobra’s head.

Public transport details: Bus 82 from Liverpool ONE bus station at 10.06, arriving Aigburth Road / Parkfield Road at 10.25. (This was one stop too far, but the Ullet Road stop was, to our dismay, “out of use”). Returned from Park Road / Gredington Street on 84A at 2.15, arriving Liverpool ONE at 2.35.

Birkenhead Park, its lakes, ornamental buildings, bridges and trees, is one of our favourite destinations. We went in by the huge Town Gates archway and walked around the lakes in both the lower and upper parks. Before we noticed any living birds, we found a patch of scattered pigeon feathers on the path, probably a Sparrowhawk kill from earlier in the day. The usual lake denizens were hanging around for bread – Canada Geese, scruffy moulting Mallards and a few Coots. The resident pair of Mute Swans had three full-grown cygnets.

Later in the day we spotted a fleeting Grey Wagtail, but otherwise the land birds were just the usual Crows, Magpies and Wood Pigeons, although we did encounter one scruffy and persistent Robin, who knew that if it stared intently at us for long enough, we would weaken and give it some bread. (One of us did, it was me.)

Although September is still over a week away, signs of autumn are increasing. This lovely Maple was turning colour at the ends of its branches, but remaining green near to the trunk.

Lots of nuts and berries were also starting to appear. We looked at ripening Turkish Hazel nuts and blackberries. Most of the mulberries are still red, but we spotted a few ripe black ones out of reach of the birds and the foragers.

These are lovely Hawthorn fruits, and now I look closely at the photo, I wonder if the tree is a rarer thorn, and not the common Hawthorn after all. Hawthorn berries aren’t usually slightly hairy, and the leaves look rather thick and waxy.

Although the day had started overcast, with rain forecast, eventually the sun came out and it became quite warm. Butterfly weather! We spent some time looking at a Holly Blue fluttering around in a patch of wildflowers, too distant and active to catch with a camera, but this Speckled Wood calmly sunned itself.

We had a list of eleven champion trees which we hoped to find, and we must have passed by six  of them in the Lower Park. There is said to be a Yellow Buckeye on the rockery somewhere, and although we didn’t scramble up the rocks, we still couldn’t see it. On the island by the Swiss Bridge, there is said to be a remarkable Willow-leaved Pear, almost 30 feet tall, but we couldn’t see that either. The only one we found was one we knew already, the Cucumber tree Magnolia acuminata on the side of the path near the rockery. Like many magnolias, it has huge leaves, and its fruit is a little pink upright “sausage”, about an inch long. It’s the Cheshire height champion at 15m (49ft).

There’s a newly-planted small tree on the lawn east of the visitors’ centre, a wonderful young Copper Beech. There isn’t a hint of purple about it, it’s just the true browny-copper. I’ve not seen one like it before. Is it a new variety?

We also admired one of the flower beds near the visitors’ centre, now called Marion’s Herb Garden. We spotted Nasturtium, Fennel, Chives, Marjoram, Lavender and several others we weren’t sure of.

After lunch we went into the Upper Park, where there were supposed to be three more champion trees. We spotted a possible Manna Ash up a bank, which did have a graft at its base, as the champion was supposed to have, but after scrambling up through Holly and Bramble and getting a  tape measure around it, we found its girth to be only about 150cm, not the 230cm+ the champion should have had.

I had hoped we would find more than one tree out of the eleven on our list. We didn’t think we were such poor tree-spotters. However, Champion trees are by their nature old, and are likely to fall or die. The last survey of the park was in 2015.  As we were looking we considered all the dead and broken trees we saw, and we wondered. There were signs up saying there was ongoing “essential tree safety work” on the lake banks, aimed removing dead or unstable trees. Perhaps many of the trees we were looking for have died and been removed.

We take heart from a great find in Calderstones Park earlier in the week. Margaret was walking some of the less-travelled paths there, and found a Golden Rain Tree Koelreuteria paniculata. We had known of one at the back of the Mansion House, which had been cut down during the recent renovations. As far as we knew, the only other one in Lancashire was in Wythenshawe Park, Manchester.  But now we find there had been a second one in Calderstones all along, in an obscure spot, next to the fence of the horse field belonging to Beechley Stables. It is in a good sunny position, and had just flowered.  It is about to be added to the database of the Tree Register, not as a champion, but as a remarkable tree nevertheless.

Public transport details: Bus 437 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.05, arriving Park Rd N  / Park Rd E at 10.20.  Returned on bus 437 from Park Rd N / Duke Street at 2.37, arriving Liverpool 2.50.

On a warm and humid day with the threat of rain, we went down to Otterspool promenade on the banks of the Mersey to see the carpets of wildflowers we had been told were there.  And so they were, masses of them, quite pretty, mostly yellow, but not the best we have ever seen.

The predominant flowers were yellow Corn Marigolds, interspersed with a few Cornflowers, Poppies and Wild Carrots.

In amongst them were occasional clumps of something pink-and-purple. I think it was Viper’s Bugloss, but it was very pink. There seemed to be clumps of a white variety too, which doesn’t occur in the wild. You get some odd things in some wildflower mixes. But there were lots of bees and hoverflies enjoying them.

The tide was well out, exposing the mid-river sandbanks. There weren’t many birds loitering there, just a motley sprinkling of gulls and crows, one Greater Black-backed gull, a Common Tern with a fish, a Cormorant flying down river and a single Swallow. There were great views south eastwards to Garston, north westwards to Birkenhead and Cammell Laird’s shipyard, and way off to the south, Stanlow oil refinery with the Helsby and Frodsham hills behind it.

We had a good look at the rocky mud at river’s edge. Picking about were the usual gulls, a few Oystercatchers, and also some autumn visitors – Redshanks and Turnstones, which have arrived very early.

There is an old sewage outfall opposite Eastham. The river has now been cleaned up, but years ago, when the pipe was spewing out untreated sewage, this stretch of the Mersey was said to be the best place in the country to see large numbers of the uncommon duck, the Pintail. (Yuk!)

Walkers and cyclists can only go as far south as Grassendale, but a continuation of the prom can be seen past a fence and a gap. Rumour has it that the posh folk in Cressington and Grassendale didn’t want the public path joined up because they didn’t want all and sundry walking past their houses.

A squall of fine rain came up the river, so we took refuge under some trees, then headed up the  sheltered Beechwood Road South, past newly-built detached houses and up-market apartment blocks, north along the footpath by the cricket field, onto Riversdale Road and back down to the prom. The weather had cleared up in just those ten minutes, so we sat and ate lunch overlooking the Mersey with the tide coming in strongly, hoping for seals, porpoises or even a Killer Whale! No luck (although all those have occasionally been seen in the river.)

We retraced our steps back along the prom. During another heavy shower we sheltered under the awning of the Otterspool Adventure Centre café. Then, even though the sun had come out, we decided not to push our luck any further and call it a day.  On the way back to the bus we spotted some new plantings of Oak and Bird Cherry saplings and an orange-berried Rowan.

The most surprising tree was a Tamarisk in the centre of the busy roundabout at the bottom of Jericho Lane, leaning at an alarming angle. Its pink autumn flowers were starting to show and it will be splendid when it gets bigger, as long as it manages to stay upright.

Public transport details: Bus 500 (the airport bus) from Liverpool ONE bus station at 9.59, arriving Jericho Lane / Riverside Drive at 10.20. Returned from the opposite stop on the 500 at 1.25, arriving Liverpool ONE at 2.05.

Stanley Park is a purpose-built city park, designed by our favourite landscape architect Edward Kemp (Flaybrick Cemetery, Grosvenor Park Chester) and opened in 1870. It’s located between Liverpool and Everton football grounds, which are less than half a mile apart across the park, one to the north and one to the south.

The park contains three trees listed by the Tree Register, and the first is our old friend the Weeping Wych Elm (Ulmus glabra ‘Pendula’) in the circle of Plane trees in the roundel at the northern end. It isn’t a champion, simply listed as “remarkable”.

The second is Grignon’s Thorn, Crataegus x grignonensis, which we weren’t able to find. It’s the height champion of Lancashire at 6 meters, and is said to be on the north bank of the lake. Unfortunately its leaves look just like those of ordinary Hawthorn, and it is distinguished by its large flowers and masses of dark red fruit. We are looking at the wrong time, of course, between the spring and the autumn, so we will have to look for it another day.  We think we DID find the third tree, and it’s a real rarity, an Altai Thorn Crataegus wattiana.  It is said to be by the path on the north of the lake, and we found it (probably) around the new lake path, by a bridge.  The leaves look right, with deeply-cut lobes, distinctly different from normal Hawthorns. To be really sure we need to see the fruit, which is said to be yellow, with five stones. Again, we’ll have to look again.

There was a sign on the railings confirming that this lake, too, has blue-green algae. The water wasn’t looking too bad, but it was a bit luridly green in some quiet corners. It didn’t bother the birds, though. There were plenty of Mallards and Coots and an occasional Moorhen. A Great Crested Grebe put in an appearance, but most of us missed it while we were looking at the trees.  The only land birds were Magpies, Crows and Feral Pigeons.  Some of the Rowan berries have already turned red, and the berries of the Guelder Rose are just on the turn. It’s autumn!

Last year they planted wild flowers at the edge of the football field and this year they have used that land to plant young native trees, while moving the wildflowers further out.

The trees were mostly Oak, Birch and Willow, with some others that were too small to identify. Several white butterflies were flitting over the flowers, but nothing else. John was in the park nearly every day during lockdown last year, and said he saw 11 species of butterfly on the meadow (not all at once, of course) but this year is very poor. The flowers were lovely, with a mix of Poppies, Cornflower and Marigolds, with the occasional huge Sunflower.

Swallows were flying low over the grass near the terrace and the formal beds. Several had nested under the roofs of the pavilions, and some were still lurking inside.

This marvellous shrub was near the Conservatory, and it looks like Smoke bush Cotinus sp., possibly the dwarf variety ‘Young Lady’.

Then we crossed into Anfield Cemetery. Earlier this year a Sparrowhawk nested in the spire of the old chapel, but there was nothing to see today. Other birds were scarce here too, with just the usual Magpies and Crows.

The Cemetery has many mature Silver Pendent Lime trees, filling the air with a lovely scent.

A recent addition is a number of signboards put up by the Friends, drawing attention to notable graves. One lists “Victoria Cross Heroes”, another is about the Chinese revolutionary Sou Zen Young, who drowned himself at Crosby beach after being exiled, and a third is about Michael James Whitty (1795-1873), who was a very important Victorian Liverpool worthy. He was Superintendent of the Night Watch in Liverpool’s first police force, later becoming the Head Constable of the Liverpool Fire Brigade and the Police (1836-1844). In about 1850 he founded the Liverpool newspaper, the Daily Post.

We were hoping to see a sign about James Maybrick, who was supposedly murdered by his wife Florence and is buried in this cemetery. She was the victim of a miscarriage of justice but escaped hanging.  We did see the grave of William and Julia Wallace. The nearby sign is headed “The Perfect Murder?” and goes into some detail about why William was suspected and convicted of Julia’s murder. Only at the very end does it say that his conviction was quashed, and the tone implies he “got away with it”. Now we know that he was innocent and was the victim of another miscarriage of justice.

Finally, we visited the grave of Norman Alexander Milne, 1924-1963, who was a famous British singer in the late 1950s and early 1960s under the name of Michael Holliday. You may remember him from “Starry Eyed” 1959 or the theme to the TV show “Four Feather Falls”.

Public transport details: Bus 19 from Queen Square at 10.04, arriving Walton Lane / Bullens Road 10.25. Returned on the 19 bus from Walton Lane / Priory Road at 15.10, arriving Liverpool City Centre 15.30

Croxteth Hall is the former seat of the Molyneux family, the Earls of Sefton. After the death of the last Earl in 1972, the estate passed to Liverpool City Council and is now a Country Park.  The long carriage drive to the house starts in West Derby Village, now little more than a suburban road junction with a church, a pub and a couple of shops, but it was once a more important place than Liverpool. It was the “capital” of West Derby Hundred, which is roughly equivalent to all of modern Merseyside, reaching as far as Leigh and Ormskirk.  It held a court every few weeks for minor offences, and the present little stone courthouse with shuttered windows is from a building which was constructed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Happily, it was a little cooler today. On the right of the main route was a detour into a wildflower meadow. Corn Marigold was on one side, buzzing with bees, and there were a few Poppies and Cornflower.

The wildflower planting on the other side of the path was puzzling. The edge was pink-flowered Redshank while the main mass was a similar but paler plant with white flowers. Was it Bistort or was it Pale Persicaria?

The herd of Highland Cattle were resting in the shade under a clump of trees. We were amused by the sign asking people not to feed them, as they are on a special diet!  There were Magpies climbing on them, like African Oxpeckers on zebras, and doing the same job of eating flies I suppose.

Near the great house there is still a Home Farm, some labourers cottages, an old smithy building and an amazing stableyard and carriage stores.

Mull Wood has been opened to the public in the last few years, mainly Beech and Sycamore.

Some trees had shed lots of crunchy beech mast underfoot, while others appeared to be holding on to theirs. Have some been dropping their fruits prematurely in the heat? An old cut trunk of (probably) Lombardy Poplar had some lovely white fungi sprouting from the dead wood. It looked like Oyster Mushrooms, and also reminded me of Velvet Shank Flammulina velutipes, but that’s orange/red so it couldn’t have been that.

The woodland path crosses the river Alt, and a passing cyclist said that on quieter days there is often a Kingfisher sitting on an overhanging branch.

On the lawn in front of the hall is a marvellous spreading Copper Beech, making a patch of shade for people to sit under.

We saw very few birds today. One Swallow, one Robin, plus the usual Crows, Magpies and Wood Pigeons, but not even many of them. There were a few White butterflies, and a fleeting dragonfly but most wildlife must have been hiding in the shade. The sun was very strong as we returned (uphill!) to West Derby Village.

As I arrived home I found a Red Admiral butterfly on my Buddleia. That’s the first one in my garden this year, and very welcome, but where have they all gone?

Some other home news. There is a small colony of Swifts near my house, but I have never found exactly where they nest. Five birds arrived in May, and I’ve seen them flying low most evenings since then. On Thursday evening (22nd July), there were suddenly eleven of them!  I assume that means they have fledged two broods of three youngsters. The expert who gave a talk to the MNA some years ago said they fly off to Africa immediately, but there were still six flying past and screaming on Sunday evening (25th). Do the youngsters hang around a few days longer, like young Swallows do?    

Public transport details: Bus 13 from Queen Square at 10.07, arriving Mill Lane / West Derby Village at 10.25. Returned from Mill Lane / Town Row on 13 at 15.02, arriving Queen Square 15.25.

On what may have been the hottest day of the year we walked north from Moreton Station down Pasture Road, towards the sea front. The land on the east (right) is owned by Premier Foods and surrounds a Typhoo tea factory. There are new houses being built south of the factory site, but to the north is a popular green oasis called Ditton Lane nature area. Wirral Council have recently designated it as a Local Wildlife site, but the decision remains open to appeal by Premier Foods. There are said to be a large number of rare native Black Poplars there, but all we saw from the road was a Buzzard keeping watch from overhead. On the way back there were a couple of House Martins.

We crossed over into North Wirral Coastal Park and followed the path along the River Birkett towards the old lighthouse. The path was lined with masses of wild flowers: Great Willowherb, Green Alkanet, White and Purple Clover, Meadowsweet, Buttercup, Himalayan Balsam, Golden Rod, Common Mallow, Wild Carrot, Yarrow, Bindweed, Creeping Thistle, Coltsfoot leaves and clumps of Horseradish leaves. This red seedy plant confuses me. Is it Mugwort? Fat Hen?  After a rummage I now think it’s either Common Sorrel or Sheep’s Sorrel, with the latter more likely as it’s near the coast.

There were tufts of Ragwort everywhere. It’s many years since we saw huge numbers of the black-and-yellow caterpillars of the Cinnabar Moth, but we keep checking. None at Leasowe, but we saw a few yesterday at Lydiate.

We climbed up to the top of the sea-defence bank. The tide was way out, revealing an almost-empty beach (but the sea comes crashing against the sea wall at high tide in autumn gales.)  Leasowe is on the north-facing Wirral coast, with the Mersey and Dee estuaries on either side. To the left we could see all the way to Anglesey and the Great Orme, to the right we could see the docks at Seaforth and northwards along Crosby beach, and in front were the turbines, which were not spinning at all today.

We wandered south-westwards on the top of the bank. The birds on the sand were humdrum – Carrion Crows, Herring Gulls, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, while a few Starlings flew over, and we spotted just two Swallows.  Several White butterflies were abroad, and during the day we also saw a Comma, a Speckled Wood and a Red Admiral. Then we came down off the bank and headed back northwards via an overgrown path just inland of the Wirral Coastal Trail. It was almost machete-worthy, like Darwin’s tangled bank, made of walls of Reeds, Himalayan Balsam and Willow scrub, bound together by Brambles, Bindweed and Goose Grass.

Despite appearances, there was no chance of getting lost and we soon spotted the lighthouse, which led us back to better-trodden paths.  We stopped to admire this blue-flowering shrub. Is it some kind of Ceanothus? There are often garden “escapes” (more likely “dumps”) here, so it could be anything.

Yesterday (Saturday) was another very hot and sunny day for the MNA walk in Lydiate. We spotted two or three Yellowhammers.  On the Leeds-Liverpool canal there appears to be a breeding colony of Emperor dragonflies, south of Rimmer’s Swing Bridge. We saw several flying back and forth and a female clinging to waterside vegetation as she laid eggs.  The more common dragonfly, the Broad-bodied Chaser, was also there in good numbers and one male posed for me on a dead leaf of Arrowhead.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.35 towards West Kirby, alighting Moreton 10.55. Returned from Moreton on the train at 14.41, arriving Liverpool at 15.05.

The park was quieter than usual, not as crowded with people (or birds) as we often find. This may have had something to do with the state of the water. The main lake was blotched with blue-green algae. Signs all around the railings warned people and dogs to keep clear: even the local fishermen and the model boat club have been banned.

But most of the usual birds were there. Plenty of Coots, Mallards, Black-headed Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A large flock of Canada Geese hung around for bread on the eastern bank. We never see them nest or breed here, so are they all juveniles? The Coots seem to be constructing nests all over the place, and we were surprised to see a Terrapin basking on the side of one. There used to be lots of Terrapins in the lake, ex-pets from the Ninja Turtles boom, but we thought they had all been removed when the lake was drained and cleared some years ago. Either one survived the purge, or it is a recent introduction. At the north end were a pair of Mute Swans with a single well-grown cygnet, a Cormorant on a post and a Great Crested Grebe. No sign of the Little Grebes, though.

We don’t usually come here in summer, so it was lovely to see some familiar trees in full leaf. The Narrow-leaved Ashes (Fraxinus angustifolia ’Raywood’) were still dark green, saving their magnificent purple and gold colour for the autumn.  The County Champion Black Walnut Juglans nigra opposite the bandstand was superbly elegant.

The tree just around the corner from the “Oasis in the Park” café was probably an Indian Bean Tree Catalpa bignonioides, although we discussed the atypical slight point or lobe on either side of some leaves. It looks as if it is on the way to being a Hybrid Catalpa Catalpa x erubescens and not quite the same as another on the other side of the stream.

Near the old aviary a Comma butterfly sped past. On the nettles below the second Indian Bean Tree we found a Harlequin Ladybird nursery. The adults were just emerging from their larval coats. On this picture of three individuals, the top one is a larva, while the other two are adults with the larval coat clinging to their backs.

The stagnant stream by the café was completely covered with green scum, looking like a solid surface. Was this more of the blue-green algae? On it were thousands of long-legged flies. A Moorhen sat on the edge, not going in, but snatching as many flies as it could reach.

Just around the corner from the Eros Fountain, north of the path going east to the Plane Walk, three young trees were planted several years ago. We have noted them before, but now we see them in summer we are becoming more confident that they are Foxglove trees Paulownia tomentosa. The bark is a bit ridgier than we expected, but Mitchell’s tree book says this is typical of young trees.

The trickling stream in the Fairy Glen looked a bit “off”, too, appearing greyish like dirty dish water. Some little girls were fishing with dipping nets, and were bringing out tiny Sticklebacks, so the fish weren’t affected by the odd water. This is where Kingfishers are often seen, although they may be away breeding, as there is nowhere in the park for them to dig riverbank nest holes. A mother Mallard had six ducklings, perhaps hatched that morning. (Only five in the picture, because one was lagging behind, as one always does.)

Along the wildlife woodland path we spotted a fleeting Wren and just one Ring-necked Parakeet. We stopped to listen to some odd calls from the woods, which turned out to be the contact calls of a brood of young Magpies, just fledged, looking like adults, but clambering clumsily around the branches. Earlier we had also found a Jay’s blue wing feather.

Some trees have a second flush of new leaves in the summer, known as Lammas growth. (Lammas Day is 1 August). Here’s a Red Oak showing the effect.

There is a wildflower meadow, but it is a few years old and there was nothing much growing but yellow Hawkweed. However, find of the day was an Emperor Dragonfly, resting on the grass, and seemingly tangled in a grass seed-head. When disturbed it seemed to struggle for a moment, flew off level and unsteadily for a few inches then soared away.

On a very hot and sultry morning we met at the Waterloo Sunset café at the south-western end of South Road, Waterloo, for a walk along the beach, by two nature reserves and through the seafront gardens.

There is a newish little nature reserve on the south-east corner of the Marine Lake, made up of a  boardwalk through reeds and plantings of native trees. We spotted one Common Blue Damselfly (but there would surely have been many more) and also a male Reed Bunting perching on a high reed. On the unmown grassland as we emerged there were patches of Bird’s Foot Trefoil (the food plant for several of the Blue butterflies), orchids in the long grass, and several butterflies on the wing. First was an unidentified White, then a Meadow Brown sipping from Creeping Thistle and finally what I think was  a Large Skipper, the sharp black line on the wing identifying it as a male. That new nature reserve is a success!

Beyond the fence along the south edge of the Marine Lake, are two pools within the dock estate, managed by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. You need a permit to go in by the dock gates, so lesser mortals just have to peer through the railings. There was rumoured to have been a Roseate Tern there the day before, so we had a look. There were Shelduck, Oystercatchers, about a dozen Curlew, Cormorants, Mute Swans, Canada Geese and rabbits. Some Terns were on the floating platform, but there have been no reports of them nesting this year, and there was no way to see if one was Roseate.

Then we walked north on the path along the beach. The high speed catamaran “Manannan” sped past on its way to the Isle of Man.

The Sea Holly was budding and the Marram Grass had big, soft flower heads, which I don’t remember seeing before.

Anthony Gormley has been here recently with some heavy machinery to rescue some of his Iron Men which had fallen and were lost in the mud and sand. I thought he had made them all level with the beach again, but some near the prom were still buried to their thighs. These kids clearly want to help him out.

There were a prodigious number of  Mute Swans on the Boating lake, at least 30. They get free handouts of food from the locals and their kids.

There were the usual Mallards, Canada Geese, a few Tufted Duck and a row of immature Herring Gulls sitting on the barrier.

The local pair of Black Swans, which commute between Waterloo and Southport, were also present. They are native to Australia, and must have escaped from a wildfowl collection.

We looked at three of the four beachfront gardens. The only birds were Sparrows, Magpies and Wood Pigeons. A lot of the shrubs were flowering magnificently, especially the Mock Orange, strewing its white petals all over the paths. There were plenty of Snowbells (Storax japonica), a bright yellow Broom, several Globe Buddleias and this gorgeous Tree Mallow.

This shrub is one that I’ve seen often but never known what it was. It has spiky leaves a bit like Holly, but on Sunday I saw it flowering for the first time. It’s a kind of daisy bush called New Zealand Holly Oleana macrodonta.

And for those of you who are wondering how my crop of Sweet Peas is going this year – excellent! Here are the ones I cut a couple of days ago.