We seem to have had a lot of wet Sundays recently, and here’s another one. It was dry when I arrived in town, and all the costumed runners were making their way through the city to join the 5 Km “Santa dash” from the Pier Head to the Town Hall. A record 11,000 took part this year, making it the largest in the UK.
At Ormskirk we turned left out of the station, past the car park and into 7 acres of mixed woodland called Station Approach. It used to be sidings and a branch line to Skelmersdale, but it was closed in 1974, reclaimed by nature and now tidied up as a small woodland park.
It was very damp and drippy under the trees. Some moss on a tree caught my eye, growing not as a carpet, but as small “blobs” about 1 – 2 cm (half an inch) across. Never seen that before. It might be Wood Bristle-Moss, described on the website of the British Bryological Society as “by far the commonest species of its genus, Lewinskya affinis characteristically grows epiphytically as small, loose tufts 1-2cm tall on the bark of a wide range of trees and shrubs.” It’s common and widespread and an indicator of clean air.
High up in the bare trees parties of mixed tits, Blue, Great and Long-tailed, were passing through. We saw a Blackbird on path, a Wood Pigeon in flight overhead, two Jays and a fleeting glance of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. We walked a little way up the “Smith Way”, originally a horse track. In WWI Ormskirk Station was a gathering place for thousands of requisitioned and purchased horses, which were walked along this path to the remount depot at Lathom Park. Against the dark background of wet hedges, there were occasional splashes of gold, like this Norway Maple, still holding on to its autumn leaves.
At Victoria Park on the corner of Ruff Lane, where we ate lunch in a fine rain, we watched a pair of Blackbirds and a Song Thrush dodging about on the lawn. Then we walked via Morrisons supermarket to the much bigger Coronation Park. By their Duck Pond they have a sign claiming to be visited by a Heron, Swans, Canadas, and Swallows in the summer, but today there were only Pigeons, Mallards, Coot and Moorhen, all hungry for bread.
There were also 7 Black-headed Gulls. On previous visits John had noticed a couple of ringed ones but had never been able to get their numbers. He lured them out of the water with food and I looked for the numbers. They were later reported via the website of the Waterbird Colour-marking group
Bird 283K, the bolder one, was ringed at Ormskirk Coronation Park in November 2023 as adult. There have been 8 reports since then, all at the same pond, all in autumn or winter, but no indication of where it goes in the spring and summer. The shyer bird, much harder to lure out of the water, was 269E. It turned out to be a Russian spy! It was ringed as an adult at Coronation Park in December 2022. Of the 19 reports since then, three were from a place called Ostashkov, Russia, probably its place of hatching, about half way between Moscow and St Petersburg. It was recorded there in April 2023 and in May, June and July 2025. All the other autumn and winter sightings were at Coronation Park, Ormskirk.
Public transport details: Train from Central at 9.55, arriving Ormskirk 10.25. Returned from Ormskirk on the train at 13.06, due to arrive Liverpool at 1.40.
Next week will be the last Sunday group walk until 2026. We plan to go to Kirby. Meet Queen Square at 10.00.
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.