Author Archives: Barbara

Stanley Park wasn’t quite at its best, with the massed Daffodils of the Field of Hope all gone, and  the formal beds yet to come into their peak flowering.  It was quite a grey day too, overcast and warm, but…

We went to Kirkby to follow up reports of nesting Peregrines on the church, but we had a good look at the trees in St Chad’s Gardens first. They have a fine young Deodar, a Laburnum arch that has just…

From Freshfield Station we walked down Victoria Road, entertained by a succession of Blackbirds who sang to us all the way along. In estate-agent-speak it is “one of the best roads in the north west”, meaning it is lined by…

Long Lane in Aughton has interesting and colourful gardens, with Rowan, Cherry, Lilac and Laburnum all in bloom and red Maples coming into leaf. Even the Sycamores are interesting, with many of them being the variety ‘Brilliantissimum’. The leaves open…

Hale village is a little bit of Old England, boasting over a dozen listed buildings, many of them 17th century thatched cottages.  Its most famous resident was John Middleton, 1578-1623, who was said to have been nine feet three inches…

We entered Frankby Cemetery at the north-east end, near Frankby Green. A Robin greeted us from a low branch and a Chiffchaff was calling. There is a Hillsborough gravestone on a corner there, which we stopped to look at. By…

Leasowe on the north Wirral coast is a good place to find spring migrant birds, so we hoped to make our 1000 I-Spy bird points today: only 50 to go. We got off to a good start in Berrylands Road…

Today we walked the section of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from Halsall to Downholland Cross. Bright sunshine all day, with just an occasional chilly breeze. In the gardens the Magnolia petals are dropping and the Forsythias are past their best, but…

It was dazzlingly sunny as we left the bus in Preesall Close, and it stayed that way all day. We wondered if the House Martins who nest under the eaves there would be back and building, but there was no…