It promised to be a drizzly and windy day, with heavy showers around lunchtime. We hadn’t made a definite plan for today’s walk, but the weather suggested another visit to West Kirby. We go there a lot, but it’s a safe bet for shelter and loos, and it also has the possibility of good birds on the Marine Lake, a pretty park, and a small section of the Wirral Way, which doubles as a country lane. Three destinations in one!
A Greater Scaup is said to have been on the Marine Lake for the last month or two, but on the two recent Sundays we have been, it was nowhere to be seen. I think the weekend wind-surfers and yachters scare it off at weekends. The only birds we saw on the choppy Marine Lake were a single Black-headed Gull, several Herring Gulls overhead and a solitary juvenile Mute Swan, pecking at the moss on the sea wall. I guess it has recently been ejected by its family, and is lonely and hungry, and hanging around where it might get a hand-out.
A squall was coming, so we headed along to Coronation Gardens where there are seats in shelters. A few brave dog walkers were out in it, but we hunkered down and admired the banks of Daffodils at a safe distance. Amazingly, the little park was using some of the sheltered nooks to run a book exchange and a garden seed exchange.
In Ashton Park the Cherry Plum blossom was nearly over, but an early “proper” Cherry was coming out. I think it’s a variety with no Latin species name, just Prunus ‘Accolade’, described as “one of the first to bloom in early spring with abundant, pendulous clusters of semi-double, rose-pink flowers”. That looks like it.
The birds of Ashton Park lake were hunkering down. We saw just a few Canada Geese, Mallards, Coots and Moorhens, with a scattering of Herring Gulls and the large resident flock of Feral Pigeons. One Coot was nesting under the branches of the Weeping Willow, whose leaves were just emerging.
At the entrance to the Wirral Way we heard a Robin and saw a Blackbird and a Great Tit. Nothing exciting in the bird line today! In the great clumps of Alexanders the umbels of flowers were just coming into bloom. The stamens were protruding but not shedding pollen. I learned later from the Wildflower Finder website that “The individual flowers have two central yellowish-green fused spheres. One sphere has two petals, the other three petals, making a hemizygomorphic flower rather than one with radial symmetry.” That’s a good word for the day: hemizygomorphic!
Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.35, arriving West Kirby at 11.10. Returned from West Kirby station at 1.31, arriving Liverpool 2.05.
Next week we plan to go to Parkgate. The tide will be high, which is ideal, and the three Spoonbills that are currently reported there may linger until then. Meet at Sir Thomas Street at 10.15.
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.