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.