The Naturalists' Notebook

We met at Liverpool ONE bus station and took the 80A bus to Blackburne Street / Banks Way, on the edge of the Liverpool International Business Park. A path leads into the Speke Garston Coastal Reserve, an area of reeds and wild flowers along the estuary, with views over the mud flats and sandbanks to Stanlow.

Along the path down to the riverside we saw a Common Blue, then four white butterflies all clustered together in a thicket of Vetch. We realised that two of them were caught in a spider’s web and were struggling to escape. The other two had been attracted to their frantic fluttering. We got a stick and poked around them until they came free. One sat on the leaves, exhausted, but the other flew off. John complained that we’d done some poor spider out of its dinner!  On this picture of the two trapped butterflies you can see that one was a Green-veined White, but the other was struggling too hard to be identified.

Birds on the mudflats included Herring Gulls, Greater and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Curlews, Heron and Shelduck. As a plane came over, about 50 Goldfinches flew up from the dry grass, wildflowers and thistles. The blackberries are ripening well.

The sun came out as we approached the BM warehouse on the curve of Garston Shore Road. There is a little linear park, following the line of a small stream and leading to the old airport building.

The damp depressions had various collections of wildflowers, probably deliberately sown, because we spotted Yellow Rattle in amongst them. Reed mace, Purple Loostrife, Meadow Sweet, Great Willow Herb, Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Vetch, Red Clover, Corn Marigold.

We had our lunch there, then we walked back along the path through the “burial mounds” to where there is a pair of “amphitheatres” each with four radial mounds with a detached lump in the middle. Now I look at it on the aerial photo I realise they are meant to be propellors!  They are at the top centre of the picture.

The new roads around there are part of the Business Park and are lined with mysterious white hi-tech factory buildings. The roads are all named after British aeoplanes – Dakota, De Haviland and so on. Hurricane Drive has a long pond at the north end of the central reservation and several fishermen were on the banks. One told me it had been stocked with Roach and Carp.

The planting along the roadside is wonderful, mostly of native shrubs like Hawthorn, Hazel and Crab Apple, interspersed with various cultivars of Dog Rose.

We ended up at Dobbies Garden Centre, where the loos are remarkable for their inventive porcelain. Here is one of the wash basins in the ladies, and the men said the facilities in the Gents were just as entertaining.

It was a cloudy and blustery day, but sunshine was expected. Our first bird of the day was a young Herring Gull in Queen Square Bus Station, probably not long out of its nest. It was calling and begging to an adult perched on top of one of the bus shelters, but when the adult flew off, the chick stood amongst all the passers-by, looking lost and calling for its Mum.

It’s a long journey to Orrell Water Park, starting with the number 10 bus at 10.20, then changing at St Helens Bus Station to the 352. We didn’t get there until nearly noon, but the place is worth an occasional visit.

The Park was set up in the 1980s, when three ponds were dug. The largest is a commercial fishing lake, stocked with Carp, Bream, Perch, Roach, Tench and Gudgeon, and costing the fishermen £5 a ticket. The rest is a Local Nature Reserve called Greenslate Water Meadows. The sign claims it has thirteen species of dragonflies and damsel flies (but we didn’t see any), water voles, four amphibians and nineteen species of butterfly. The notice board also had a Mink Warning sign. They are widespread around Wigan and numbers were found to be rising in 2012. People are urged to report any sightings to the website of Leigh Ornithological Society.

Large White butterfly

There weren’t many birds on the lake, although a family of Coots had five well-grown chicks. A few Mallards were loafing around. There were plenty of signs of autumn, though. The Rowan berries have turned red in the last week and the blackberries are ripening. Amongst the ornamental shrubs were many cultivated varieties of Dog Rose, some with very alarming-looking fruits.

Many of the paths are lined with Himalayan Balsam. I know it’s supposed to be a bad thing, but at this time of year it’s full of insects. Here’s a Red-tailed Bumble Bee which has crawled right to the bottom of a flower to get at the nectar.

The Friends of Greenslate Water Meadows (who charmingly call themselves FROG) provide a bird feeding area. Visitors included Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, a Robin and some Siskins. We were more interested in the marauding Grey Squrrel who was raiding a peanut cage on the left of the bird table, and hanging upside down at its leisure to nibble each stolen nut.

Flowers included this lovely Purple Loostrife.

On the way out we spotted a Speckled Wood on a Guelder Rose with ripening berries.

Getting home takes longer than usual, too. The 2.35 bus got us back to Liverpool via St Helens after 4.30.

On a cloudy day with a threat of showers we took the 437 West Kirby bus to Bidston, arriving at  Upton Road / Boundary Road by 10.30, then setting off along the footpath called King George’s Way, which climbs through a small woodland.

Frustratingly, in a clearing we could hear a bird of prey although we couldn’t see it, but when we broke out into the open gorse and sandstone, there it was, a Buzzard right over our heads.
There has been some strategic clearing of the taller trees, so that there are splendid viewpoints. Once, there must have been views in all directions. The trig point is marked with angles and distances to an enormous number of other high points, including Snaefell on the Isle of Man, 83 miles away. At one spot you can see the Liverpool waterfront in one direction and Anglesey the other way, but the gap in the trees isn’t quite wide enough to see two lighthouses at the same time, Leasowe and Point of Air.

After taking shelter under some trees from a heavy shower we passed the Observatory, went around the hill and came back up to the Windmill.

There were still plenty of butterflies about. We saw a Speckled Wood, a Peacock, a Gatekeeper and a Small Copper.

Gatekeeper

Several areas of Gorse had been burnt, but new growth was shooting out from below ground.

We went into Tam O’Shanter urban farm for lunch, where we bumped into our old friend Bob Hughes, who has an allotment nearby and who was taking two huge turnips and a cabbage to the farm.  He said he’d seen 20 species of butterfly on his allotment this year, most recently including Purple Hairstreak and White-letter Hairstreak.  After lunch he walked with us through Flaybrick Cemetery, pointing out some trees of note. A small Giant Redwood, a Red Oak and a Gingko.

Red Oak

Ginkgo

There are two magnificent Cut-leaved Beeches flanking the entrance. Bob told us a car had been burnt out under one of them, and where the tree was damaged it is re-growing with normal Beech leaves. So what makes the tree revert to “normal” leaves? A virus infection which was somehow cleared by the burning? Or did it mess up the genetics in just that area?

[Added 16th August: Collins Field Guide to the Trees of Britain by Alan Mitchell has the answer. It says “Where branches are cut or damaged, ordinary entire leaves will appear, with leaves of intermediate shapes, because the plant is a chimera with inner tissues of ordinary Beech overlaid by tissues of the Cut-leaf form. ]

Then we walked along to Birkenhead Park and admired the juxtaposition of clumps of Copper Beech and Weeping Willow in the parkland.

The Wirral Flower Show was in full swing, and we browsed the competition entries. Here is a wonderful plate of soft fruit, looking like a perfection of autumn bounty. Surprisingly, it only won second prize.  The winner was a plate of plums which didn’t look as pretty but must have tasted wonderful!

Another warm day, but overcast and humid, with the threat of thundery showers.  We took the 433 bus from Sir Thomas Street, and arrived in New Brighton at 10.45.

There was very little wildlife interest today. Around the Marine Lake there were lots of young Herring Gulls and plenty of pigeons enjoying the sunshine. As we walked west along the Prom (King’s Parade) we saw Herring, Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed gulls on the sand, and some House Martins coming down for mud from the sides of gullys. Were they building for a late brood? Further along there were dozens of Oystercatchers foraging, and later we saw two Terns over the river, probably Common Terns.  But we enjoyed the finely detailed model ships being put throught their paces by the Wallasey Model Boat Society at the Boating lake, and the 7 meter tall Pierrot sculpture on the roundabout near King’s Parade Gardens.

Lunch was on the seats against the prom wall. A brisk breeze heralded a short shower, but it was soon over.  The walkway here is always scattered with broken cockleshells. The clever Carrion Crows drop the cockles here to break them open, but we have never seen a gull doing it. Howard found a discarded fishing weight with a hook and strong spikes, which he gathered up and binned.

There was an open-top red bus giving free rides back along the prom from the Lifeguard Station to the Floral Pavilion. Outside the theatre the Co-op has put up its touring street gallery of photographs, showing examples of co-operation in their business and the natural world, which celebrated the UN International Year of Cooperatives.

Then we loitered on the railings, watching the container ship MSC Sandra, bearing about 1000 containers, come in on the tide. Three tugs were manoevering her into Gladstone Dock.

There was another brief shower as we headed for the 433 back to Liverpool at 2.15.

It was an overcast day, noticeably cooler, with a brisk breeze. Only a short leg today, not much more than a mile, which would have been very welcome if it had been as hot as it was earlier in the week. The 300 bus dropped us at Our Lady’s Church at Lydiate and we walked along Hall Lane again, to Jackson’s Bridge and the canal, enjoying the sight of a young Swallow begging for food from a telegraph wire. House Sparrows were chirping, Starlings were congregating on TV aerials, but the House Martin’s nests at Barn Hey looked deserted. The sheep in the field to the south of Hall Lane were surrounded by a circle of chopped turnips – I imagine the grass has stopped growing in the prolonged dry spell and the growing lambs need extra food.

The canal edge was full of Greater Willow Herb and Meadow Sweet, although the path itself looked like it had been treated with herbicide. Here’s a Small Tortoiseshell on the dead grass, which may not be doing it any good! There was a dead fish in the water nearby.

Just north of Jackson’s Bridge the canal crosses a small stream, which is the boundary between Merseyside (Sefton) and West Lancashire. It rises near Skelmersdale as the Bickerstaffe Brook, is called Sudell Brook where the canal crosses it and it’s Lydiate Brook further west, eventually flowing into the Alt.

We lunched on the canal bank near Rimmer’s Bridge. Two Black-headed gulls kept circling, appearing to hover over a spot on the canal edge, then flying back around again. Were they hoping for food from us? Was there something in the water they were interested in? We couldn’t see anything.  Away on the other side we thought we had spotted two huge birds of prey, but they turned out to be two tethered black canvas kites, soaring over a farmer’s crops, presumably as bird scarers.

There were very few Mallards about, and we saw only one each of Coot and Moorhen all day. Perhaps they were all sheltering in the shade of the reeds. But near Rimmer’s Bridge a mother duck was out and about with seven well-grown ducklings.

The fields of wheat and oats were ripening on either side of the canal, and a Kestrel hovered overhead. Further along we noted another dead fish, about a foot long. Its head was down, so it was hard to tell what it was, but it could even have been a Pike. In a tree on the bank on our side there was prolonged loud scratchy birdsong coming from a thick tree. We were right under it, no more than a few feet away from the source of the song, but the bird itself was completely invisible. A Whitethroat? I though they put themselves on show when they were singing.  On the other side, a different loud raspy song was coming from the reeds. That was definitely a Reed Warbler.

Near Downholland Bridge there is another relic of WWII, a fortified barn, now used only by Swallows.

Alongside the barn, partly hidden in a tree, was an extraordinary “sculpture”. A wooden carving of a pair of male hips, wearing old fashioned thigh-length underpants, and clearly in an uncovered state of excitement. What joker has put THAT there? There was time for a swift drink and a comfort stop in the Scarisbrick Arms before we caught the 2.21 bus home.