The Naturalists' Notebook

I know it’s only January, but I thought I’d go and look for any signs of spring – any flowers, Snowdrops or catkins. The official Sunday walks haven’t started yet, but it was a fine bright day, ideal for the Waterloo beachfront gardens. In the domestic gardens on the way I noted the hairy buds of Magnolia, one very early Camellia in flower and a Silk Tassel tree Garrya elliptica, which puts out long catkins or tassels in January.

There were also several examples of the December-flowering shrub Laurustinus Viburnum tinus, which is one of the parents of the winter-flowering hybrid Viburnum x bodnantense.

At the north end of Beach Lawn Garden there was a flock of 200-ish Starlings, fluting and whistling on the rooftops then wheeling overhead. Just inside the gate was some kind of Mallow in flower. Is it a Hollyhock Mallow? A garden type, anyway, but a welcome splash of brightness on a brisk January day.

In Adelaide Garden, a Blackbird was chucking low down on a fence, then vanished into the shrubbery. There were lots of Herring Gulls aloft, hovering in the strong onshore breeze. Spears of Daffodils were shooting up.

There were Feral Pigeons and Wood Pigeons in Crescent Garden, and also a Carrion Crow defending what looked like a meaty bone. There’s a colony of House Sparrows in the shrubbery. Around the disused raised pond the paths were flooded.

I stopped for a pot of tea in the café called Waterloo Place, in what used to be the old shop and loo block at the end of South Road. They had lamb stew, hot soup, award-winning pies and home-baked cake. The smart new crockery all matched and I was given a tea strainer and stand. Very elegant! Strongly recommended.

Then into the southernmost garden, Marine Garden, where there were Daisies and Shepherd’s Purse in flower, some Heathers and a cultivated Periwinkle. I spotted no catkins or Snowdrops today, but a Robin was proclaiming its territory from the top of a bush, which must be some kind of forerunner of spring.

My Tree of the Day was a nicely-shaped Holm Oak, with plain glossy leaves, paler and slightly furry underneath. The bark was dark and finely cracked. I looked up into the crown for acorns to clinch the ID, but couldn’t see any. However the ground underneath was covered with tiny undeveloped acorns, 5-7mm across.  I wonder why they all failed? Is there no other Holm Oak in the vicinity to provide pollen?

My route home took me through Victoria Park, which is surrounded by rows of Lombardy Poplars. The trunks are massive, very gnarled and buttressed. I think they must be the original plantings of 1902, and now over 100 years old.

Public transport details: The nearest station is Waterloo.

It was a cold, wet morning, with a steady drizzle all day. On the long walk up to the Hall we noticed an old Hawthorn tree that had come down in storm Desmond, and also that the temporary pond in the wet grass on the left was now nearly encroaching on the path. The herd of Highland Cattle appears to be doing well, now a dozen or more strong, with some young ones. They were ankle deep in mud but didn’t seem to care.

On the lawn opposite the house is an interesting evergreen tree, a Lucombe Oak. It has green glossy leaves and corky bark. See some pictures of it on my post of 11 Dec 2011, where I said it was a hybrid of Holm Oak and Turkey Oak, but that’s wrong – it’s a cross between Turkey Oak and Cork Oak.

The Winter-flowering Cherry was in bloom, probably Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’.

Not a good day for birds it was far too wet. We heard a Great Tit calling tea-cher, tea-cher, and some Crows cawing. Magpies were about in abundance, and some Black-headed Gulls were far out on the fields. A few forlorn Mallards pootled about on the Long Pond, leaving clear trails in the green weed, and some Moorhens ventured out to peck at the wet grass. A clattering of over 50 Jackdaws congregated in a tree above the old stable block.

One of the old Beeches on the main lawn was showing off its exposed roots. They are very shallow-rooted trees, and sometimes come down in storms. This one had, luckily, shed all its leaves by the time storm Desmond came along.

North of the Hall, there’s a tree with bark mulch all around it, and a ring of logs. Two strange devices were hanging in the branches, looking like wind chimes, but they weren’t. The tree had a straight bole and tiny acorns, and judging by the fallen leaves nearby, it could have been a Pin Oak or a Scarlet Oak. Is it undergoing some special study by the students at the outstation of Myerscough College nearby?

As we turned back to West Derby Village, we spotted our Tree of the Day. Next to the path at the end of the fountain lake was an otherwise undistinguished tree with delicate drooping bare branches, which we might have easily taken for a Birch, except that it had a lot of spiky seed balls hanging from the branches. They were far too spiky to be Plane fruits. I looked it up at home and it must be a Sweet Gum Liquidambar styraciflua. According to Mitchell’s tree book, the flowers and fruit are “not often seen” in the UK, so our warm summer must have suited them.  In the Southern USA they call it the most dangerous tree in the suburbs, and American gardeners often collect the spiky balls to ward off snails and slugs from their flower beds.

Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone.

Public transport details: Bus 13 from Queen Square towards Stockbridge Village, getting off at West Derby Village at 10.25. Returned from West Derby Village at 1.45 on the 13 bus, arriving Liverpool city centre at 2.00.

There was a dead hedgehog in road this morning as I set out, outside SS Peter and Paul church in Crosby. It was only a small one, probably quite young, and it seemed to have been hit by a car only an hour or so before.  A bit gory, sorry.

At Wallasey Grove Road Station there’s a sign saying that it is “tended and cared for by the Edible Wirral Partnership”. There was a raised bed, but no sign of any vegetables. More Ivy-leaved Toadflax was growing and flowering, though. What a tough little plant it is!  In light rain we threaded through Groveland Road, past St Nicholas Church and down Newport Avenue, and by the time we got to the prom the rain had stopped. We headed about a mile along the front to New Brighton. A Crow was hovering over the golf club dune heath in the stiff breeze and the Gorse was flowering profusely.

There was a lot of sand on this side of the sea wall, probably thrown over in the tail end of Storm Desmond, which had brought flooding to Carlisle and Cumbria.  Several Black-headed Gulls were on the grass, one with its black head starting to show. That’s early!

Scattered on the beach were immature Gulls and a several groups of Oystercatchers, standing on their reflections in the wet sand and preening.

We had great views of the five new “mega-max” quayside cranes, which arrived last month at the new container terminal after an 18,000 sea voyage from Shanghai.

We had our Christmas dinner at Wetherspoons, joined there by Seema and Christine, who had been to West Kirby to see the young Red-throated Diver which has been hanging around there for the last week or so.

Public transport details: Train from Liverpool Central Station towards New Brighton at 10.20, arriving Grove Road at 10.40. Returned on 432 bus at 1.35, arriving Liverpool City centre at 2.05.

The Mute Swan family we saw in the middle of last week wasn’t at the south end of the lake, but there was another individual, standing hesitantly on the grass bank, with a BTO ring but no Darvic ring. Where had that one come from? The usual congregation of birds had gathered for food hand-outs: Canada Geese, Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, a few Common Gulls further out, Mallards, Coots and Moorhens. The male Coots are starting to get aggressive and chasing each other around. A Pied Wagtail flitted around on the far bank, and we noticed two Little Grebes, where we’d seen only one last week. There were still Cormorants on the chain posts and about half a dozen Tufted Duck. I wonder why there always seem to be more males than females?

Near the grotto tunnel there were two Jays in a tree, and a Ring-necked Parakeet flew over the lake. Up on the higher bank we found this tree with amazing deeply ridged bark. I think it has to be Tree of the Day, although I have no idea what it was. Simply going by book descriptions I guess Black Poplar, Common Walnut or Locust but we need to see it in leaf at some other time of year.

The family of eight Mute Swans were by the stepping stones on the middle lake, clustering around some children who were stooping to feed them. There are only seven birds on this photo, but the father of the family (the cob) was a bit further out, keeping an eye cocked for any danger. John was able to take all their Darvic ring numbers again, and the only one missing from last week was now readable as 4BVP.

Both fountains on the upper lake were squirting intermittently, and it looks like there is something wrong with the pump. We had lunch by the aviary, where we were sheltered from the very strong winds. Just opposite was a young tree, probably planted in the last few years, which may have had a name marker on the post in front of it, but it was long gone. Is it  a Blue Atlas Cedar? The foliage matched, but it’s too young to have any cones.

Nearby is an astonishing tree trunk. Olive remembers having this pointed out to her by a ranger, possibly Ritchie in his park heyday, and he said something about it being unusual that it dropped its leaves, and that it came from the time of the dinosaurs. I think it must be a Dawn Redwood Metasequoia glyptostroboides, but what an unusually figured trunk!

But back to Cedars. There are only four true Cedars (genus Cedrus) and the Cyprus Cedar is small and very rare, so it can be ignored. That leaves just three to sort out, and there is a handy mnemonic about their branches. A = Atlas Cedar (with two colour forms) = ascending;  L= Cedar of Lebanon = level; D = Deodar = drooping. There was a definite Deodar Cedrus deodara in the Dell, with drooping tips to its branches and leaves of different lengths. It was in deep shadow and hard to photograph well. So we’ve seen a mature Atlas Cedar in its green form, a young Blue Atlas Cedar and a Deodar in Sefton Park. Is there a Cedar of Lebanon? I used to live nearby and walked here often, but don’t remember ever seeing one.

It was a very wild blustery day, with gales up to 60 mph reported. We later heard that some trees were down in Liverpool, disrupting trains and roads, but we weren’t affected. The wind roared in the trees overhead, and over it we could hear Crows cawing, Magpies cackling and the occasional squawks of Ring-necked Parakeets as they flew between the sheltering Scots Pines. In open areas we were sometimes blown to a standstill. There were twigs and bigger broken branches scattered along the paths, some up to two inches across, but mostly already dead wood. In the Dell a large branch had broken off some kind of Willow.

On the way back around the lake we saw the young Heron from last week, sheltering under the bank of the island.

Public transport details: Bus 82 from Liverpool ONE bus station at 10.07, arriving Aigburth Road / Ashbourne Road at 10.29. Returned on 82 bus from Aigburth Road / Jericho Lane at 1.55, arriving Renshaw Street 2.15

Before meeting the group I had a look at the trees in Williamson Square. The ones on the south side (Richmond Street) are Ginkgos, and one of the four on the other side, outside the football shop and near the Playhouse, has no leaves, so it will have to wait for Spring. The three others are small evergreens, but not conifers, and I think they are Holm Oaks.

The soil under the grid at the base of one of them had been excavated by some small animal, and there was a burrow. I swear I saw something’s nose just pulling back into the hole. A rat? While I waited to see if it would re-emerge two council fellows in yellow jackets came along, one with a white plastic bucket and the other with a large pick. They were sure it was rat diggings and they trowelled rat poison down the burrow.

We were joined by two ex-MNA members, Joyce and David, who are also learning about trees. There was a Robin in the Lower Park, and many Grey Squirrels mooching for handouts. On the lake were Mallards, Canada Geese, Coots and a Moorhen. For a few years we have been noting a family of odd black ducks here.  They had been five when we first spotted them on 13th November 2011, but only two survived to 3rd March 2013 and 2nd Feb 2014. This must be the same two again, now coming to the end of their fourth summer.

There were some very dark evergreens in the deep shaded shrubberies but they were far too droopy to be Yew. In retrospect, I suspect  they were Western Hemlocks and I should go back and look again.

The Swiss Bridge was blocked off and partly clothed in scaffolding. Vandalised by fire a few weeks ago, apparently. High up on some trees there were bat boxes, and we looked at an old-looking gnarled tree which probably belonged to the park’s Black Mulberry, of which they are quite proud. They advertise their Cucumber Tree, too, but we didn’t spot that one. Another small tree in a glade was probably a Persian Ironwood, perhaps only about ten years old. We had a good look at a Turkey Oak, noting the deeply indented leaves, the whiskery buds and the cracked bark with orange showing through.

Christine spotted two Great Spotted Woodpeckers silhouetted high against the sky. They were pecking at the branches and making pieces of bark fly. Goldfinches and Greenfinches were also in distant trees. On the eastern edge of the lake was one of the trees I was hoping to spot, a Camperdown Elm Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’, the weeping version of Wych Elm. The pendulous top is grafted onto a normal Wych Elm trunk. It’s the Cheshire county champion for girth, at 93cm. (There’s another one in Stanley Park in the “Druid’s circle” of London Planes.)

There were about half a dozen Redwings in a Holly tree, gorging on red berries. They probably came down from Scandinavia on the sudden cold winds we had this week. After lunch at the Visitor’s Centre we headed off to the Upper Park, where a Mistle Thrush scolded us from high overhead. Nearby was the thickly burred stump of an old Sweet Chestnut.

As we approached the westernmost gate, at the junction of Park Road North and Park Road West we spotted two interesting trees over the wall in the garden of the Castellated Lodge. One was a very big Monkey Puzzle, with big brown globular spiky fruits on it, which take two years to mature.

A few yards away was our Tree of the Day, a huge old Tulip Tree, with just one leaf left to clinch the identification, which was covered in pointed erect fruits, standing up against the sky like candle bulbs. They only produce fruit this prolifically in hot summers, according to Mitchell.

Public transport details: Train from Central Station at 10.05 towards West Kirby, arriving Birkenhead Park station at 10.15. Returned on the train from Birkenhead Park station at 13.36, arriving Liverpool Central 13.50.

There was a high tide of 8.73m due at 12.40, and it was “Wirral Wader Weekend”. Two MNA members, Christine and Seema, joined us for the event. It was a very windy day with squally showers but still very warm: 15°C at 9.15 near North Park, Bootle.

This warm weather has the flowers confused. I saw a Dandelion blooming in town earlier in the week, and my Himalayan Poppies are sprouting new shoots like it’s spring. Near Hoylake Station this Ivy-leaved Toadflax was blooming happily on a garden wall.

Along Stanley Road, amongst the rustling fallen leaves, we came across our Corpse of the Day, a squashed hedgehog on the pavement.

Cormorants were flying by the Red Rocks, but it was so blowy we set off along the coastal path towards West Kirby. The kite surfers were getting their kit set up and a Kestrel took advantage of the same strong wind to hover over the dunes. In the salt marsh we spotted a Curlew, and further along, a Little Egret.

A short squall of rain soon blew over, and didn’t disturb the WEBS counters out with their scopes.  The waders were lined up along the water’s edge; Oystercatchers, hundreds of pale grey Dunlin twinkling in the air as they took off, Knot, a few Sanderling and some Brent Geese. Christine was on the look-out for a leucistic Oyk which she had spotted here on the previous day, then she found it again. I think it’s on the first picture below. Count the back row of Oyks from right to left, then between the third and the fourth, drop down.  There is a white head at the back of the front group of Oyks.

Near West Kirby Margaret went beachcombing in her wellies. She picked up this strand of weed with may kinds of bivalve creatures clinging to it. There was also the test (empty skeleton) of a small Sea Potato, Echinocardium cordatum, only about 6cm across. They live buried in the sand, about 10-15cm down.

We lunched in the shelter of Sandlea Park, where a Pied Wagtail strutted across the path. Above the roofs was an amusing weather vane in the shape of a fox.

There were leaf miners in the Holly. They are the larvae of the fly Phytomyza ilicis, and there is no problem identifying them, because there is only one species which lives on Holly in the UK. Up to three larvae will mine from a single deposit of eggs, and this leaf seems to have three, possibly even four. The tunnels aren’t very long, though. Apparently some larvae will hatch through a small round hole, some will be attacked by a parasitic wasp and some will be pecked out by Blue Tits, which leave triangular beak-shaped holes in the leaf. Must look more closely next time!

Some of us went back to Dee Lane Slipway to join a ranger-led walk, but the less hardy made for home.

Public transport details: Train from Central Station towards West Kirby at 10.05, arriving Hoylake station at 10.30. Returned to Liverpool on the 13.31 train from West Kirby, arriving Liverpool central at 2.05.

No nature walk today, because we attended the remembrance service at St George’s Hall, which was also an opportunity to see the newly-installed Weeping Window of ceramic poppies. Its formal name is Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, and is by artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper.

Then we walked the “Liverpool Remembers” Poppy Trail, a series of 22 posters set up from William Brown Street, along Old Haymarket, Victoria Street, Stanley Street, Whitechapel, Paradise Street, Thomas Steers Way, Albert Dock and ending at the Pier Head. The one in the Museum is rather clever, as it shows a pressed Poppy flower, their herbarium specimen of Papaver rhoeas, collected on the edge of golf links at Hoylake on 17 Jul 1915, the same year John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields.

Subjects covered on the trail include the Milne family, who lost three sons; the 10th (Scottish) battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment; boy soldiers; the Liverpool Pals; Private Arthur Procter, VC; the Chavasse family, including double VC Noel; the Dock battalions, black servicemen; and Isabella Innes of the WAACs.