Both Liverpool and Chester were busy with Christmas shoppers, and it was Santa Dash day in both cities. We headed for Grosvenor Park, opened in 1867 and designed by our favourite landscaper Edward Kemp. As we entered Grosvenor Park we saw a used Santa Dash costume stuffed into a litter bin, while Santa himself was riding the park’s miniature railway and waving to everyone he passed.
There weren’t many birds in evidence, just Moorhen, Wood Pigeons, Feral Pigeons, Black-headed Gulls sitting atop a Weeping Beech, Crow, Robin and Blackbird. Many Grey Squirrels were about, sufficiently used to people to come right up to their feet hoping to be fed from the hand. But in Grosvenor Park the trees are the main attraction, and the low winter light attracted our attention to many lovely trees we hadn’t noted before. Here is a Fastigiate or Dawyck beech, Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’, a variety of the Common Beech. This is a lifer for me.
Wellingtonia or Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum.
A very fine and shapely Deodar Cedar. At this time of year they produce male pollen “catkins”.
We puzzled over this one. It’s a Cedar, but with limbs falling somewhat downwards. And is it blue-ish? We guessed it might be a Weeping Blue Atlas cedar. There is such a thing, but photos on the web suggest a much more “collapsed” tree than this one. I guess I might call it “semi-pendula”, but it’s a lovely tree, whatever it is.
Hooray, the first intimation of spring, some Hazel catkins.
There were some small bushy oaks in the shrubbery near the rose garden. As with all young oaks, they had held on to their leaves, which were a lovely biscuity colour. The shape was a bit odd though, with those deeply-cut overlapping lobes. Could it be Hungarian Oak? Not sure.
There is a Tulip Tree opposite the rose garden. There are no leaves on it now, of course, but many, many cones, one on almost every branch tip. There could be a thousand cones on this one tree. I have seen other winter Tulip Trees just like this. But here’s a thing, we have never known a summer tree to bear so many flowers. The only theory I can come up with is that Tulip Trees flower sequentially, all through the summer, a few blooms at a time. Unfortunately, I haven’t got one near me to watch all through one summer to see if that is true.
After lunch we went down to the River Dee, and started spotting many Black-headed Gulls with blue leg rings. We were dashing about, peering through binoculars, and taking zoomed pictures. In the past, when we have reported such birds to the people who ringed them, we have found Chester birds which breed in summer in Poland or Norway. When I checked all the notes and pictures later, we had ended up with eight different ringed BHGs, which I entered into the website of the Waterbird Colour-marking Group
All the birds we saw had been ringed on the Dee as adults in 2021 or 2022, and all have been re-sighted there dozens of times since. All had gaps in their sighting lists between March and August each year, when they had gone off somewhere to breed, but nobody had seen and reported them in exotic locations, so we don’t know where they go. Then they all return to Chester for a winter of hand-outs. 2B82 was ringed on 20 Feb 2021 and has had 102 sightings at Chester since then. Six of them had been ringed on 28 Nov 2021: 269A, 278A, 279A, 281A, 291A and 294A. The “youngest” was 296H, ringed on 2nd December 2022.
We walked back through the oldest part of Chester, looking at some of the historic buildings on Bridge Street. The splendid Bear and Billet pub was rebuilt in 1664 to replace an older building damaged in the English Civil War.
The shop labelled “Three Old Arches” claims to date back to an amazing 1274. Yes, it isn’t a fake, parts of the building are indeed that old. It is Grade 1 listed, and it is the earliest surviving shopfront in England.
Along a short stretch of the canal we saw our first Mallards of the day. Three school-age lads were fishing, saying they hoped for Pike. One had hooked something, bending his rod and reeling-in hard, calling to his friends “30lb pike”. Then whatever is was came free, he was left reeling in his empty lure, and some big fish splashed a few yards away. We will never know if it was a 30lb Pike!
Public transport details: We intended to get the 10.15 train from Central, but the previous one was severely delayed, arriving at Central at 10.09. We took it, and it ran non-stop back to Chester, arriving 10.35. We have never been there so early. We expected to return on the 2.30 train, but it was also late, departing at 2.40. The guard announced that the train would run “semi-fast”, not stopping between Hooton and Hamilton Square, then he walked along the train making sure everyone who had wanted stops in between should get off at Hooton. It worked, we caught up, and arrived Liverpool Central on time at 3.15.
Next week, 8th Dec, we plan to go to Southport, meeting Central Station for the train at 10.02.
On 15th Dec we plan to go to the Eric Hardy Nature reserve, meeting Queen Square for the (hourly) 76 bus at 10.02.
On 22nd Dec we plan to go to Eastham Woods, meeting Sir Thomas Street for bus 1 or X1