Crosby to Bootle on the canal, 5th September 2010

We met at Queen Square on a warm but overcast morning for the X2 at 9.57. From Myers Road East we walked through the houses to Rimrose Valley Country Park, straight across to the Leeds-Liverpool canal and turned south. There were just the usual Coots, Moorhens, Mallards and Canada Geese on the canal today. Many of the male Mallards were in their fresh new plumage and were already hanging about hopefully with the females. We were surprised to see several young Moorhens, still in their first brown plumage, and in one place there were even two pairs of fluffy black Moorhen chicks, no more than a week or so old. Moorhens obviously keep breeding throughout the summer, but the Coots don’t. The sun came out as we lunched on the terrace at Tesco Litherland, while watching a flock of about 200 Starlings taking flight from the roof of the Red Lion. They did some passable attempts at formation flying, making several big globes which turned in unison.  There were Michaelmas daisies on the canal verges, possibly rather early since the feast of St Michael isn’t until September 29th. The fringed water lilies were still in flower, and we noticed two small clumps of white water lilies on the far side, which I have never seen on the canal before. They were at the foot of waterside gardens, so were perhaps planted by the residents. Under a bridge a coot was successfully “bobbing for an apple”, achieving the difficult task of lunging at a floating apple and hacking off chunks faster than the apple could submerge.   Nearing Bootle we spotted an abandoned swan’s nest in the reeds, and the swans themselves further downstream, with no cygnets. We were at Bootle Strand at 2.00 and split up for home. 

This entry was posted in Sunday Group. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply