Author Archives: Barbara

The Sunday group isn’t confident to meet again, so I ventured out on my own. A major consideration for us oldies, of course, is finding a public toilet. Two places I considered and rejected were Birkenhead Park (Visitors’ Centre still…

In these lockdown days, when short forays into nature are all we can hope for, I have been looking for trees in flower in my local streets and parks, noting some wildflowers too. In Alexandra Park on 8th April the…

In suburban gardens the Forsythia and Quince are flowering and the Magnolia buds are just bursting. It was a sunny spring-like day, but with ominous clouds over Parkgate. In the pools on the marsh were Mallard, Black-headed Gulls, Canada Geese,…

Yet another named storm – Storm Jorge – but the day was at least sunny even if it was cold and windy. We decided to walk northwards along the canal, with the wind and sun behind us. We would be…

Hallelujah! A day when it wasn’t raining! The sun even came out, although the wind was still chilly. The open fields in the park had unintended ponds, rainwater streamed off the banks in gurgling brooks and the ground was squelchy…

Even though we were in the middle of Storm Dennis, it was dry and mild, if a bit gusty. We got off the bus near the Liverpool Thorn Collection, a set of rare trees planted on the central reservation between…

It was the day of Storm Ciara, with high winds, gusty rain showers and weather warnings. It was too risky to go anywhere near a park, where there might be falling trees, and we didn’t fancy dodging high waves on …

It turned out to be a lovely mild, sunny day, feeling like spring. Eastham Woods are mostly Beech and Sweet Chestnut, and the thick carpet of spiky husks showed that the Sweet Chestnuts had had an excellent year in 2019.…

It was a grey and overcast morning, with rain threatened for later. We walked down from South Road, Waterloo, on a bit of a twitch, looking for a rare Long-tailed Duck. At the south-east end of the boating lake were…

On our first Sunday walk of the new decade we were looking for signs of spring. It was a misty and frosty morning, not looking promising. However, both Blackbirds and Robins were singing from hedges as I walked to the…