The Naturalists' Notebook

We weren’t looking for wildlife today – we went on a Bear Hunt! Southport Business Improvement District (BID) have commissioned ten fibreglass bear models, asked artists to decorate them, and scattered them around the town. They are mainly aimed at younger kids, so the prize is a family trip to Legoland. The aim, of course, is to attract visitors to the town and boost the struggling local businesses. It attracted us (that worked) but we didn’t spend any money at all!  There are ten of them, seven close to the town centre and three further out. We only looked for the easy seven, and here is the best – “Luna and the Moon” by Marnie Maurri, outside the Prince of Wales hotel.

When we got near the Marine Lake we spotted some real wildlife – the usual Swans, Geese and  Mallards but also a smart pair of Gadwall.

Hanging out on its own was this very odd duck, some sort of hybrid I think. At first glance, swimming towards us, it said “Mallard” by its shape and by its green head and yellow beak, but its light-coloured sides looked wrong. We came away convinced we had seen a hybrid of a Mallard and a Tufted Duck. Now I look at the picture, I am perplexed by the bird’s red head. It looked green in life. Is there a Pochard in the mix somewhere?

I have just looked up all three possible parents, and the Pochard and Tufted Duck are in the same genus, Aythaya, while the Mallard is more distantly related, in the genus Anas. So Pochard / Tuftie is the more likely pairing. The “Bird Hybrids” blog says Pochard / Tuftie is the commonest duck hybrid in the UK, so that is what it must be.

Public transport details: Bus 47 from Queen Square at 10.15, arriving Lord Street / Duke Street, outside Morrison’s, at 11.30. Returned on the Merseyrail train from Southport at 1.36, due into Liverpool at about 2.20.

Crosby Marine Lake doesn’t quite count towards World Wetland Day, but we bagged a pretty good bird list of 21 species, not bad for us. We got off the bus outside Potter’s Barn, a run-down small park just off the main road, Crosby Road South. Our first birds were sitting on a rooftop railing there, a Wood Pigeon and a Collared Dove.

There is a House Sparrow colony in the bushes by the big warehouse mural, and Carrion Crows and Magpies loitered around the car park. We didn’t go into the little nature reserve there because the wooden boardwalks were very slippery, so we went around the side to look at the bay next to the sailing club. Last year we saw some exciting birds here, but today there were only Black-headed Gulls sitting on the mooring posts. A Pied Wagtail pottered on the muddy edge but we looked in vain for the rare Smew which had visited here last week, and there weren’t even any Little Grebes.  Our luck turned as we headed northwards along the path next to the children’s playground. A Little Egret appeared to be skulking in the boulders which edge the lake and I thought it was ill, but it had just found a spot sheltered from the wind, with its feet in the water.

Then it roused itself and started moving amongst the boulders. It was right by the path, within a few feet of passers-by and apparently not wary of people at all.  What a lovely bird it is, with its gorgeous white plumes, black beak, yellow feet and black claws. It was finding food, too, right there at the lake edge.

On the smaller Boating Lake there was the usual crowd of birds. The local people come here with their toddlers to “feed the birds”, so it is a good place for juvenile Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls to spend their first winter.

Young Swans come here, too and there are lots of Canada Geese, Mallards and Coots. But there must be plenty of shellfish in the bottom, because diving ducks do well here, even rarities sometimes. There was a small flotilla of Tufted Ducks.

On the far bank a single Oystercatcher was resting up and there were several Turnstones on the edge. (They are the little brown and white birds, dwarfed by the Gulls). I haven’t seen those here before. Are their numbers increasing?

We lunched in Marine Gardens. Someone had just scattered bird food in a regular spot, and lots of little birds came to it, just a few feet from us. A Wood Pigeon was trying to monopolise it, and seeing off an interloper, so the little birds took their chances to sneak in. We had Robin, Dunnock, a female Blackbird, several House Sparrows, and a Blue Tit in a tree nearby.

Then we walked northwards through all four seafront gardens, with more Oystercatchers flying and  peeping overhead. The Snowdrops were out, but the Daffodils were just starting to show buds.

The winter-flowering evergreen shrub Laurustinus was blooming, and the Flowering Currant buds were breaking. Daisies were open on the path edges and the deep red flowers of Japanese Quince were popping out.

A few years ago The Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens replaced a Toposcope, which local residents fondly remembered from their childhoods.  It looks like a sundial, but it shows the directions and distances to points of interest. Blackpool 22 miles, Snowdon 52 miles and so on. Perhaps before the dunes and treees grew so high these points were visible, but not now. The plate also indicates distances to other places called Waterloo, in Belgium, Sierra Leone and Australia!

Public transport details: Bus 47 from Queen Square at 10.17, arriving Crosby Road South opp. Durham Road at 10.45. I could walk home from there but the others got the 53 bus back to Liverpool at 2.00 from Oxford Road / Courtenay Road.

On our first walk of 2025 we planned to join the Friends of Princes Park for a Big Garden Birdwatch event, but that wasn’t on until after lunch, so we went to Sefton Park first, walking from the Dingle corner via Ullet Road and Linnet Lane. There was a bitingly cold wind, with rain forecast for later.  In the park there were branches and twigs down everywhere, the after-effects of last week’s storm Éowyn. Near the old bowling greens, high in a bare tree, we noted a cluster of leaves and branches. Was this a Squirrel drey? We thought it was about 1 to 2 feet (30-60cm) across, and it was the wrong shape for a Magpie nest. Squirrel dreys are said to be leafy, and very high up, so it probably was.

There was a party of Long-tailed Tits high up by café, and the usual Crows and Magpies. We thought we heard Ring-necked Parakeets and spotted one high in a tree. I was hoping for some signs of spring, perhaps snowdrops or hazel catkins, but neither of those were on display.  However, the Witch Hazel near the Eros statue was in bloom.

We lunched by the old aviary, sheltered from the wind. We scattered bird food on the edge of the shrubbery and were rewarded by a Robin and a couple of Magpies. As a light rain started we headed back northwards by the obelisk path. Later in the year this path is lined with a magnificent display of Crocuses, and we were surprised to see some very early ones peeking out.

Into Princes Park via Windermere Terrace. In the backwaters of the lake were Mallards and Coots, and on the grassy opposite bank was a great crowd of Pigeons and Gulls, mostly Black-headed.  One of us spotted a Cormorant sidling away around a bend in the lake bank. As we rounded a quiet corner we came upon about eight Moorhens grazing. As soon as they saw us they headed back into the reeds. We knew they often came out of the water to graze grassy banks, but had never seen so many all together like that.

We went along by the tennis courts to look at their group of six Great White Cherries. They are still only small young trees but I hope they will bloom this year. I’d like to learn what they look like so I can identify others.

Across the fields is a modern sculpture, The Henge, made of wood and put up about ten years ago. It has a platform in the middle (currently under repair) which faces the sunrise at the summer solstice. It is a focal point for large and small celebrations and meetings, including Eid, weddings, solstices, yoga groups and simply for picnics.

We eventually found the Friends group who had been doing some gardening. They had decided it was too cold to go ahead with the Birdwatch. We were relieved, to be honest. As we headed out we saw a Jay crossing from treetop to treetop above our path.

Opposite our bus stop at the southern end of Park Road is a very old building, The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth, Grade I listed. It was built in about 1615 and continues to be used as a Unitarian Chapel to this day.  Of interest to my American friends is that one of its first preachers was a young man called Richard Mather. At that time he and the chapel were nominally Anglican (Episcopalian), but Richard Mather was a Puritan, as were most of his parishioners, and so he was suspended from his ministry in 1633 and 1634. The following year he emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony. He became father to Increase Mather and grandfather to Cotton Mather, celebrated Boston theologians, who played a central role in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-3. The chapel stands incongruously on a busy corner in the south of the city and is much visited by American tourists.

Public transport details: Bus 82 from Elliot Street at 10.10, arriving Aigburth Road / Ullet Road at 10.25. Returned on bus 82 from Park Road / Gredington Street at 1.25, arriving Liverpool ONE at 1.40.
Next week we will meet 10 am Queen Square and might go to Crosby to look for the Smew, if it is still being reported.

On our last walk of the year we had planned to go to Eastham Woods, but high winds of 50-60 mph meant it wasn’t safe. So we went to Port Sunlight instead. As well as the strong winds, there were bouts of squally rain. There wasn’t even a civic Christmas tree to brighten the day, just this slightly wonky “Post Box Topper” of the Nativity opposite the war memorial.

This was no fun at all so we headed for the Lady Lever Art Gallery and sat in their nice warm café, sipping tea. The only “wildlife” we noticed was on the way back to Port Sunlight station, where some roses were still flowering in the Rose Garden.

A couple of weeks ago a MNA member called Janet found a very unusual pine or fir cone in Calderstones Park and posted a picture of it on the MNA WhatsApp group. She identified it as the cone of a Santa Lucia Fir Abies bracteata, but couldn’t find the tree itself.  This is quite a rare tree. My Mitchell’s tree book says of it “Infrequent, in large gardens mainly in SW England. Cones seen rarely in the biggest trees only, extraordinary for long bristly protruding bracts”.

The tree in Calderstones is known to the Tree Register of Great Britain and Ireland, which lists it as the height and girth Champion of Lancashire – 17 m (56 ft) tall, 86 cm (34 in) girth. It also gives a grid reference and pictures of the tree itself. Last Thursday I went to Calderstones and found it.

For anyone else wanting to look at it, walk south from the Compton’s Lane car park. On the left, immediately after the end of the car park, is a group of conifers. The Santa Lucia Fir is the tree with three narrow whitish trunks springing from the ground, next to the hedge, and I have marked what I think are its three tall pointy crowns on this map.

There are still plenty of cones on the tree, growing right at the top. They don’t look fresh, so maybe they emerged some time in early 2024.

Janet was in touch with someone from Hergest Croft Gardens in Kington, Herefordshire, who were amazed when their Santa Lucia Fir “coned” (produced cones) for the first time in early 2024. It featured in several Welsh newspapers and magazines. The last recorded time that one of their older specimens of this tree had produced a cone was in the early 1960s. So it looks like our tree in Calderstones coned at around the same time as theirs. Something about the climate?

Public transport details: Bus 1 from Sir Thomas Street at 10.14, arriving New Chester Road / Shore Drive at 10.40.  Returned on the train from Port Sunlight Station at 12.24, arriving Liverpool Central at 12.50.
No Sunday walks now until 26th January 2025, meeting Queen Square, and we will decide on the day where to go.

The Eric Hardy Local Nature Reserve was formed from a tract of Clarke Gardens, and dedicated in April 2002 to honour the founder of the MNA, Eric Hardy. He was then 90 years old and died later that year. Eric had written a weekly “Countryside” column in the local paper, the Liverpool Daily Post, for 70 years from 1929 to 1999, and was once in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s longest-running journalists’ column. He also broadcast weekly on Radio Merseyside and was a founding member of the Mersey Estuary Conservation Group and the Lancashire Wildlife Trust.  Many current MNA members remember going on walks he led, but I joined too late to meet him.

The reserve is an area of rough grass and woodland extending southwards from Allerton Towers to Springwood Crematorium, set in the leafy southern suburbs of Liverpool, close to the childhood home of John Lennon. We entered it through the gap in the railings at the junction of Menlove Avenue, Woolton Road and Hillfoot Road and crossed the open area of young trees and bramble patches into the Oak and Beech woodland. Very few birds were making themselves known, except for the screeching of Ring-necked Parakeets. Jays are known to live here, but we didn’t see any today. Although the woods appear to be wild, there was evidence of management. This old Lime tree with its bushy epicormic growth at the base appears to have been trimmed.

Daffodil shoots were popping up.

The woods are fairly wet, and the map shows a section of a stream running through it. We have had a dry week, though, so all we had to contend with were occasional muddy patches, with one particularly boggy bit called Deadman’s Valley.

We emerged from the woods at the northern edge of Allerton Cemetery. It was looking neat and landscaped after the wildness of the woods. Two Monkey Puzzle trees near the north chapel caught my eye, perhaps now looking as the designers had imagined.

A big Beech tree had come down in Storm Darragh, cleverly missing all the surrounding trees and a hedge, and not touching a single gravestone.

Nearby was the stump of a previously cut-down tree, which was hollow. We peeked inside and spotted a couple of bracket fungi growing from the inside surface, an unusual sight.

We lunched in Springwood. They have decorative gardens for the scattering of loved ones’ remains, and there are plenty of benches for contemplation and remembrance. The lawns have some splendid old Cherry trees. I wonder about their age. The gardens at Springwood are only about 50 years old (1975), but these old Cherries look at least as old as the ones in Sefton Park – about 150 years old (1872).

In the sheltered shrubberies some Rhododendrons were coming into bloom.  We scattered some bird food, and got Great Tits, Coal Tits and a Grey Squirrel. More distant were a Blackbird, Wood Pigeons, Magpies, and our best bird, a Stock Dove. Around the northern perimeter a row of three conifers (Cypresses?) had come down.

We headed north on the path along the west side of the nature reserve, emerging by the south entrance to Allerton Towers on Woolton Road. Since one of us had arrived by car, we had a lift to Hunts Cross Station.

Public transport details: Bus 76 from Queen Square at 10.02, arriving Menlove Avenue / Cheddar Close at 10.30. Returned on Merseyrail train from Hunt’s Cross at 2.06, arriving Central at 2.25
Next week, our last walk of the year, we plan to go to Eastham Woods, meeting at 10.00 at Sir Thomas Street.

Storm Darragh tore through Wales and Merseyside on Saturday, felling several trees in the Greenbank and Calderstones areas of south Liverpool (according to the news). All parks were closed. In Crosby and Southport the winds weren’t so bad, just leaving pavements full of twigs on Sunday morning. But in Southport a very cold and gusty north wind was still blowing.

Our first stop was the sheltered area at the back of the Waterfront Hotel, from where we could look out over the northern Marine Lake and its two islands. A pair Cormorants sat on the jetty at the tip of South Island and there was a possible Little Egret, just a flash of white in the bushes. A Greater Black-backed Gull was surveying the lake from the North Island. There were a few Mute Swans and a small numbers of flying gulls. We walked southwards past Funland, seeing very few birds, just a Magpie, a Wood Pigeon and a juvenile Herring Gull. Where were all the waterbirds that usually congregate here? Aha, they were all clustered by the pier in the southern arm of the Marine Lake. There were 40+ Swans, dozens of Mallards, lots of Coots and one Moorhen. Then we saw why they all hang around this spot. A couple with empty buckets of food were just returning from a feeding session. They are on the extreme left of the picture below.  I guess they must do this every day, throwing out seed or grain, and THAT’S why there are always so many big birds clustered there.

At the same place were small groups of Greylag and Canada Geese, a Crow, lots of Feral Pigeons and two Pied Wagtails.

We continued southwards via the sunken King’s Gardens, where there are lots of hedges and shelter. The area is usually packed with families and kids, but it was deserted today. The little birds were popping about, handfuls of Starlings and one each of Robin and Blackbird. There was just one damaged tree, which looked like a Willow, which had a couple of branches snapped off.

The Big Wheel in Pleasureland had the top four gondolas missing. Had they blown off in the storm?  There was no apparent damage, no area taped off, all was neat and symmetrical. I think they might have taken down deliberately to reduce the “sail effect” and protect the wheel.

After a pit stop in Morrison’s and lunch in a shelter, we returned around the other side of the lake, where the Ragwort was still blooming. It was too cold to linger, so we went for the early train. Amazingly, we saw two deer out of the train window on the way back. They were at the southern end of the West Lancashire Golf Course, just north of Hall Road station. They were small ones, possibly Roe Deer females (does).  So despite the cold and wind, it was a good day for bird and wildlife spotting.

Public transport details: Train from Central at 10.02, arriving Southport at 10.45. Returned on the 1.03 train.
Next week,15th December, we plan to go to the Eric Hardy Nature reserve, meeting at Queen Square at 10.00 prompt for the (hourly) 76 bus at 10.02.
On 22nd Dec we plan to go to Eastham Woods, meeting at 10.00 in Sir Thomas Street.

Both Liverpool and Chester were busy with Christmas shoppers, and it was Santa Dash day in both cities. We headed for Grosvenor Park, opened in 1867 and designed by our favourite landscaper Edward Kemp. As we entered Grosvenor Park we saw a used Santa Dash costume stuffed into a litter bin, while Santa himself was riding the park’s miniature railway and waving to everyone he passed.

There weren’t many birds in evidence, just Moorhen, Wood Pigeons, Feral Pigeons, Black-headed Gulls sitting atop a Weeping Beech, Crow, Robin and Blackbird. Many Grey Squirrels were about, sufficiently used to people to come right up to their feet hoping to be fed from the hand. But in Grosvenor Park the trees are the main attraction, and the low winter light attracted our attention to many lovely trees we hadn’t noted before. Here is a Fastigiate or Dawyck beech, Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck’, a variety of the Common Beech. This is a lifer for me.

Wellingtonia or Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum.

A very fine and shapely Deodar Cedar. At this time of year they produce male pollen “catkins”.

We puzzled over this one. It’s a Cedar, but with limbs falling somewhat downwards. And is it blue-ish? We guessed it might be a Weeping Blue Atlas cedar. There is such a thing, but photos on the web suggest a much more “collapsed” tree than this one. I guess I might call it “semi-pendula”, but it’s a lovely tree, whatever it is.

Hooray, the first intimation of spring, some Hazel catkins.

There were some small bushy oaks in the shrubbery near the rose garden. As with all young oaks, they had held on to their leaves, which were a lovely biscuity colour. The shape was a bit odd though, with those deeply-cut overlapping lobes. Could it be Hungarian Oak? Not sure.

There is a Tulip Tree opposite the rose garden. There are no leaves on it now, of course, but many, many cones, one on almost every branch tip. There could be a thousand cones on this one tree. I have seen other winter Tulip Trees just like this.  But here’s a thing, we have never known a summer tree to bear so many flowers. The only theory I can come up with is that Tulip Trees flower sequentially, all through the summer, a few blooms at a time. Unfortunately, I haven’t got one near me to watch all through one summer to see if that is true.

After lunch we went down to the River Dee, and started spotting many Black-headed Gulls with blue leg rings. We were dashing about, peering through binoculars, and taking zoomed pictures. In the past, when we have reported such birds to the people who ringed them, we have found Chester birds which breed in summer in Poland or Norway. When I checked all the notes and pictures later, we had ended up with eight different ringed BHGs, which I entered into the website of the Waterbird Colour-marking Group 

All the birds we saw had been ringed on the Dee as adults in 2021 or 2022, and all have been re-sighted there dozens of times since. All had gaps in their sighting lists between March and August each year, when they had gone off somewhere to breed, but nobody had seen and reported them in exotic locations, so we don’t know where they go. Then they all return to Chester for a winter of hand-outs. 2B82 was ringed on 20 Feb 2021 and has had 102 sightings at Chester since then. Six of them had been ringed on 28 Nov 2021: 269A, 278A, 279A, 281A, 291A and 294A. The “youngest” was 296H, ringed on 2nd December 2022.

We walked back through the oldest part of Chester, looking at some of the historic buildings on Bridge Street. The splendid Bear and Billet pub was rebuilt in 1664 to replace an older building damaged in the English Civil War.

The shop labelled “Three Old Arches” claims to date back to an amazing 1274. Yes, it isn’t a fake, parts of the building are indeed that old. It is Grade 1 listed, and it is the earliest surviving shopfront in England.

Along a short stretch of the canal we saw our first Mallards of the day. Three school-age lads were  fishing, saying they hoped for Pike. One had hooked something, bending his rod and reeling-in hard, calling to his friends “30lb pike”. Then whatever is was came free, he was left reeling in his empty lure, and some big fish splashed a few yards away. We will never know if it was a 30lb Pike!

Public transport details: We intended to get the 10.15 train from Central, but the previous one was severely delayed, arriving at Central at 10.09. We took it, and it ran non-stop back to Chester, arriving 10.35. We have never been there so early. We expected to return on the 2.30 train, but it was also late, departing at 2.40. The guard announced that the train would run “semi-fast”, not stopping between Hooton and Hamilton Square, then he walked along the train making sure everyone who had wanted stops in between should get off at Hooton. It worked, we caught up, and arrived Liverpool Central on time at 3.15.
Next week, 8th Dec, we plan to go to Southport, meeting Central Station for the train at 10.02.
On 15th Dec we plan to go to the Eric Hardy Nature reserve, meeting Queen Square for the (hourly) 76 bus at 10.02.
On 22nd Dec we plan to go to Eastham Woods, meeting Sir Thomas Street for bus 1 or X1

Princes Park is the earliest public park in Liverpool, and the nearest to the city centre. It was originally a private development, funded by the sale of grand perimeter houses, and designed by the famous Joseph Paxton. It opened in 1842. It was a mild dry day, but overcast and gloomy. Last week’s Storm Bert blew off most of the remaining autumn-coloured leaves, but a few are still hanging on in sheltered corners.

We looked at some of the rare and interesting trees. Their Wollemi Pine, still in its weed-filled cage, has grown quite tall but is now looking a bit tufty.

We didn’t find the Golden Rain / Pride of India tree again, and we should have had the map with us. There is a Cherry Walk, with nothing much to see at the moment, of course. The park is also said to have some Great White Cherries, a variety once extinct in Japan, but restored from a cutting in a Sussex garden. The ones here are near the tennis courts, in the north-west arm of the park, a spot we rarely go to. We ought to make an effort to catch the cherries in bloom next spring. We also looked at the Joseph Paxton memorial tree, a Chinese Tulip Tree, looking very promising within its set of fine railings.

We could hear Ring-necked Parakeets but hardly caught sight of them. Otherwise the open spaces had Pigeons, Crows and Magpies. The lake had Mallards, Coots and lots of Moorhens. The male and female Moorhens have identical plumage, but the males are slightly larger. Is this a male-female pair? With the male at the top of the picture?

Also on the lake was one distant Tufted Duck and two Little Grebes.

We made a quick sortie out of the park to the nearest McDonalds to use their facilities, then back for lunch. Under a nearby Oak, a Jay was poking through the leaf litter, but there didn’t seem to be any acorns left.

On the way out we noticed a big red-berried Cotoneaster. The Friends’ tree map says it is a variety called ‘Cornubia’, and Trees and Shrubs Online says “This is one of the very finest of the larger growing cotoneasters.  It bears enormous crops of brilliant red fruits and is not surpassed in that respect by any other cotoneaster.

Public transport details: Bus 86A from Elliott Street at 10.10, which didn’t go the way we expected, so we had to walk back to the park from the Women’s Hospital. Returned from Princes Road / Princes Gate West on bus 75 at 1.17, arriving Liverpool 1.25.
Next week we plan to go to Chester, meeting at Central Station.

After our unseasonably mild autumn, today was “hats and gloves” weather. From Wallasey Grove Road station we walked towards the seafront, then went the “wrong” way, westward along Bayview Drive, to the Harvester pub and Wallasey beach.  We had heard rumours that one or two Snow Buntings had recently been seen there, but no luck. As a consolation tick a Meadow Pipit flew inland from the beach and later we spotted a busy Pied Wagtail on the prom. Two Crows had found a high perch on a dune overlooking the beach and were supervising all the comings and goings.

I was spotting plants in flower, to see what was surviving into this colder weather. The winter-flowering shrub Laurustinus was just coming into bloom. By the roadside was a wild Dog Rose; some Ivy had just a few late flowers hanging on; there was Gorse, which flowers in every season; Daisies in the grass, some kind of Sow Thistle and a Hawkweed; the tough roadside “weeds” Hairy Bittercress, Groundsel and Shepherd’s Purse; Sea Rocket was sprawling beside the gone-over flower heads of Sea Holly and further back from the dunes were Ragwort and Yarrow. That’s 13 species.

Further along Wallasey beach, near the kitesurfing school, four brave young souls were cavorting in the cold water and heavy surf. Brrrr!

Then we headed north-east along King’s Parade towards New Brighton. It was blowy and chilly, with scattered sharp showers driven by the stiff breeze, but at least the wind was behind us. It was high tide around 11.30, and the waves were beating hard against the sea wall, crashing up in great walls of spray. At times the red cranes at Seaforth docks across the Mersey were almost obscured in the misty rain. (As on the opening picture)

We crossed over, away from the risk of unexpected drenchings, and looked at the gulls in the grassy “dips” between King’s Parade and Coastal Drive. A few Crows, Black-headed Gulls and Herring Gulls were hanging about there, waiting for the weather to improve so they could get back to their special feeding method. They collect live Cockles from the beach and drop them onto the hard pavement, which breaks them open. The edge of the grass was white with drifts of broken cockleshells.

After a pit stop in Morrison’s supermarket and lunch in a seafront shelter, we went around the back of the “Marine Point Retail and Leisure Park” to check out the birds on the pontoons on the Marine Lake.

Not very many today, and just the usual Redshanks, Turnstones and Dunlins. We were hoping tor a Purple Sandpiper or two, but not today.

As we watched them, small groups were flying off towards the beach, their high tide break over. How do they know the sand and mud is uncovering again? They can’t see any of the beach from their sheltered spot on the pontoons. Do they have a inherent feeling for the tide? Do they see others flying off and not returning? Or are they just too hungry to wait any longer?

Five Cormorants were perched on a navigation tower just off the beach. On the small sandy bay between the lighthouse and the Fort were over a dozen Redshank and about a hundred Oystercatchers.

Public transport details: New Brighton train from Central at 10.20, arriving Wallasey Grove Road at 10.40. Returned on bus 433 from King’s Parade / Morrison’s at 1.40, arriving Liverpool 2.15.
Next week we plan to go to Princes Park, meeting Elliot Street at 10 am.

Yet another mild but dull day. We gave the big Remembrance Service in Liverpool City Centre a miss and sought peaceful contemplation elsewhere. Kirkdale Cemetery has the graves of 478 servicemen from the two world wars, as well some other men with links to history.  Many of the WWII victims buried there are from the Battle of the Atlantic, there are graves of Belgian and Russian servicemen, and of the 357 interments from WWI, over 100 were for Canadian servicemen who died at the country’s military hospital in Westminster Road, Liverpool.

The oldest soldier commemorated there is a Victoria Cross holder from the Indian Mutiny or Rebellion, Gunner William Connolly. He has a CWGC stone near the entrance but was buried somewhere near the far northern side.

We didn’t find the gravestone commemorating a Titanic connection, but found the one for Alexander Braid Johnston, Chief Engineer of the Carpathia, the ship that was first to arrive on the night of the disaster in 1912, and rescued over 700 survivors. He died in Liverpool 16 years later. His stone has fallen.

One of the greatest tragedies of WWI was the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania, which was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, on route from New York to Liverpool in 1915. The body of Chief officer John Piper was washed ashore near Kinsale 12 days later. The unusual letters “SPE” on his gravestone are thought to be an unauthorised later addition: when his body was found it wore a ring with those letters engraved on it, but nobody knows to this day what they mean.

As for wildlife, the cemetery has scattered mature trees, none looking like rarities, and no obvious new plantings.

We noted the usual birds of urban open spaces, Herring Gulls, Crows, Magpies and Wood Pigeons. The best bird of the day was a single shy Rook, which dodged behind a gravestone then flew off. It’s an awful picture, but it shows it’s definitely a Rook with that whitish beak and face. Unusual to see one on its own.

At lunchtime a fine drizzle started, so we abandoned plans to walk a section of the Loop Line, and headed for the bus.

Public transport details: Bus 20 from the temporary stop in Victoria Street at 10.17 (diverted from Queen Square for Remembrance Day) arriving Longmoor Lane / Greenwich Road at 10.45. Returned on bus 21 from Longmoor Lane / Bradville Road at 1.05m, arriving Queen Square at 1.40.