The Naturalists' Notebook

It was cold and overcast, but not frosty, like it had been the last two mornings. On the way through town to Central Station I spotted a recently-dead pigeon in Basnett Street. It had its wings half spread, and its head up, but its breast was all bloody and damaged. It looked as if it had flown into the ground and died as it made a crash landing. Had it been chased by a Peregrine?

On the way from Waterloo Station to the beach there was a fine Magpie’s nest in bare tree on South Road.

On the Boating Lake there were numerous Canada Geese, Mallards and Black-headed Gulls. One of the BHGs was wearing a Darvic ring, but we couldn’t get its number. There were a few Coots charging each other aggressively and about five Tufted Ducks.

A small flock of Starlings were roaming about. As we headed for the promenade, the sun came out rather weakly, shining on the sea captain’s houses. One Ragwort was still flowering on the dunes.

The tide was coming in fast, and the gulls were high up on the beach. Most were Herring Gulls but there were a few Common Gulls amongst them. A small flock of Sanderlings arrived and scuttled busily around the feet of one of the Iron Men. We looked through the railings to Seaforth Nature Reserve, but there was nothing interesting to see, just a few Cormorants and a Heron. There was a large flock of something further back. Grey Plovers?  We ate our lunch overlooking the Marine Lake, watching the exertions of a rowing team.

Just over the fence into the Freeport is a mural of old Crosby on the side of a big warehouse, showing the Titanic, the Overhead Railway, Five Lamps, the sand dunes, an old bathing machine and a rather splendid Cormorant! 

Then we headed up to St Faith’s Church at the junction of Crosby Road North and Kingsway. They were having a Christmas Tree Festival, with over 40 trees lining the nave, each decorated by a different charitable group. In true C of E style the ladies of the church were offering refreshments and an assortment of home-made jams and pickles. The church has a memorial to a former parishioner, Joseph Bell, the Chief Engineer of the Titanic, who was lost with the ship. They also have a stained glass window to another of their “old boys”, Robert Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
If it isn’t too early, Happy Christmas to all!

No further walks until 20th January 2013.  Walks in January and February 2013 will meet 10am Queen Square, and destination will depend on the weather.

Anyone is welcome to come out with the Sunday Group. It is not part of the MNA, although it has several overlapping members. We go out by public transport to local parks, woods and nature reserves all over Merseyside, and occasionally further afield.  We are mostly pensioners, so the day is free on our bus passes, and we enjoy fresh air, a laugh and a joke, a slow amble in pleasant surroundings and sometimes we even look at the wildlife!
If you want to join a Sunday Group walk, pack lunch, a flask, waterproofs, binoculars if you have them, a waterproof pad to sit on if we have to have lunch on the grass, and wear stout shoes or walking boots. We are usually back in Liverpool City Centre by 4pm at the latest.

On a bright sunny morning, after an overnight frost, we took the 10.15 train to Chester and set off on our usual walk along the canal.

There were only a few Mallards, one Moorhen, and the usual town tykes, the pigeons and the Black-headed Gulls. A Pied Wagtail flew off from the bank and some Himalayan Balsam was still in  raggedly flower. At the Telford warehouse the sky was full of pigeons, which congregate on the roof there.

Below it there were the resident pair of Mute Swans. There are usually more of them, but either the cygnets have already dispersed or their brood failed this year.

We lunched in Water Tower Gardens, glad of the warm sunshine. We seem to be wading ankle deep through carpets of golden or bronze leaves more than usual this autumn. Is it a bumper year, or is it simply that park staff have been reduced because of the recession, and there is nobody to sweep them up? Then past the strange but colourful sculpture, based on jockey’s silks, and onto the Riverside Promenade.

Between the Roodee racecourse and the river the verge was full of the dead stalks of Giant Hogweed and Teasel. There was also an umbellifer in very late flower. Was it Common Hogweed?

We left Chester earlier than usual because another Waxwing hunt was proposed. They had been reported from the Stanley Road / Lambeth Road corner, but by the time we got there, they had gone. However, a flock of about 200 were back in Fountains Road on Wednesday 21st. They were very skittish, flocking around and trying to land on just two or three trees with golden berries. They never seemed to settle for more than a second or two, then they were off again. The trees were mostly stripped, anyway, with just a few berries left on the lower branches. But it’s a year-tick for me, anyway. Here’s a couple of “pocket camera pictures”, which I know won’t win any awards!

We go to a different Remembrance Service every year, and this year it was Southport’s turn. We enjoyed the playing of the brass band, but the laying of wreaths was a rather long drawn-out process, especially on such a cold day.  But at least it was dry and bright. One poppy posy was for “Women and children victims of conflict and war”.

We found a spot in the sunshine by the Marine Lake for lunch and watched four male Mute Swans displaying at each other.

One swan had a leg ring which JC noted for passing on to Sabena. There were lots of Black-headed Gulls and Herring Gulls around, mostly juveniles.

They gathered around hoping for crumbs from our sandwiches, and we noticed that one BHG appeared to be wearing a BTO leg ring. Just as we were getting the binoculars on it, a dog walker came along and scattered them, and we couldn’t locate it again. There were also some Mallards and Coots, and one Cormorant on the island.

We were bemused by a set of fingerposts, promising cycling, swans and lobsters!

On our way back through the town we were happy to see a good display of seaside paraphernalia fluttering bravely in the cold.

There are Waxwings about, so we set off to see if the 40-odd reported on Thursday and Friday at Blundell Drive were still there. Regrettably, they weren’t. There were about half a dozen ornamental berry trees along the street, which had been stripped bare, and although we waited around  for a while and watched the skies, there was no clue to where they had flown off to when their berries ran out.

We walked back to Hillside station through the suburban streets, spotting Goldfinches, Jackdaws and a Jay. There were plenty of other red berries around, also Privet and Ivy berries and a spectacular glowing beech hedge.

Pickerings Pasture is always a lovely place to visit, especially on a sunny autumn day.

Our first birds were Starlings, Chaffinches and a Mistle Thrush in the hedge along Mersey View Road. The tide was out, exposing the huge sandbanks, which had lots of Lapwings and Black-headed Gulls, with a few Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Carrion Crows. As we were enjoying the sparkling view, the Lapwings all went up and we searched the sky for a raptor, but there weren’t any about. Sometimes Lapwings must just fly around for no reason at all.

The sunshine caught some very handsome tall trees with just a few white leaves left at the top, strikingly catching the light. The fallen leaves were dark brown on one side and downy white on the other, so they were probably White Poplars.

There was a Kestrel overhead as we ate our lunches, and some very late blue Cranesbill flowers were out. As the tide started to come in we watched the “tidal bore” rippling over the sandbanks – a continuously-moving wavefront with white water at the leading edge.

We spotted the MNA’s sign at the hide and bird feeding area.

There were Canada Geese feeding on the grass, with some Magpies amongst them. A few Cormorants on the bank, and a single Redshank. A Raven cronked overhead. In the shrubbery a Blackbird was eating Holly berries and a Robin poked about under the feeders. Blue Tits, Great Tits and Greenfinches were at the nut and seed holders. The Greenfiches dominate the Great Tits, as these two lucky shots show. The first shows the Great Tit feeding, but being watched by the Greenfinch over on the right.  A moment later the Greenfinch has muscled in and the Great Tit is in retreat.

Then we spotted a Kingfisher, which is always a treat. It flew over the pool, then sat on a green fencepost, fidgeted a bit, flew to a branch near the hide, then made off.

On the way back to the entrance, we looked at the Ash trees but most looked OK, with fat black buds ready for next spring. At the edge of a copse was a madly quivering tree, which must have been an Aspen, surely. (“Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver … ” from The Lady of Shalott.)  Next to a huge bramble patch about 30 Redwings were on red berries, a Buzzard cruised overhead and in the distance near the Visitor’s Centre, about 200 Fieldfares were flying between an Oak and a couple of Lombardy Poplars.

There were a lot of delicate flying insects on the path beyond the hedge next to the wildflower meadow. Light-coloured, about the size of midges. I wonder what they were? It seems very late for them. A mixed flock of Starlings and Redwings flew past. In the hedges we spotted a Long-tailed Tit, the wonderful golden leaves of a Guelder Rose and bright red rose hips.

It was a dispiritingly damp and drizzly day, but we all made it to William Brown Street, despite the clock change. This was our second “fossil” walk following the guidance in the booklet published in 2001 by the The Liverpool Geological Society called “Rock around Liverpool”. Today’s plan was to look at the old flagstones around the Museum and Art Gallery.

The old flags (“made of a fine mica-rich sandstone, probably the Haslingdon flags of Upper Carboniferous age”) show ripples and flutes – “ovoid hollows cut by currents in thin muddy partings in the sandstone which are then filled by the overlying bed of sand”. Here’s one from the junction of Byrom Street.

There are said to be “protruberances caused by a ragworm-like animal” outside the doorway of the International Library. We didn’t find them, but they are probably obscured by the hoardings protecting the refurbishment. We did spot what looks suspiciously like pairs of fossil worm burrows on the pavement on the west side of St John’s Gardens (opposite the tunnel entrance), in line with the first half-turret north of the steps and eight courses of flags in from the pavement edge. The paired holes are about three inches apart.

There is also said to be a horizontal burrow of a marine worm “near the side door of St George’s Hall and adjacent to the mid-bollard between the door and the lamp standard”. We couldn’t find that, despite identifying what we thought was the right spot, but there is one suspiciously new-looking flag there, so maybe the fossil burrow has been removed. Five flags east of the the parking circle are several flags showing “an elongate rounded hollow representing the remains of a Carboniferous Coal Measure tree root known as Stigmaria.”

The bollards around the Wellington Column are made of a “nodular limestone from North Wales.” They include cross-sections of large Productus shells, the same as the ones in the steps of the Victoria Monument (see 16th September). There is also one splendid radially-symmetric creature which looks like a coral, in about the sixth bollard from the steps, south of the fountain.

We took a break from the rain in the Walker Art Gallery. As part of the Liverpool Biennial art event, the artist Patrick Murphy has placed some brightly coloured pigeons on the outside of the building. The blurb says “Here they are welcome, colourful visitors. However, the installation also evokes questions about … feelings of being accepted or marginalised. The pigeons can be seen to represent any group that struggles to find a natural home.”

The base of the William Rathbone statue in St John’s Gardens is of limestone, and shows “fine sections of crinoid jointed stalks”. I take that to mean round cross-sections. There are also more Productus shells and some wonderful tower shells. The vertical one on the second picture below is about 2½ inches long.

Then we went on our pub crawl, starting at Dr Duncan’s with its magnificent tiled ceiling, followed by the Grade II listed Crown on Lime Street with a wonderful plastered ceiling. Then the great Gin Palace on the Adelphi corner, the Vines (also known as the Big House): this is Grade II* listed (a higher classification than just Grade II), and the staff let us in to see the decaying splendour of the little-used ballroom.  The Central Commercial Hotel opposite Central Station is a riot of glittering cut-glass mirrors, and is also Grade II.

The manager of the Beehive at the bottom of Mount Pleasant confided to us that the bar was where “the Cameo murder was planned” in 1950. The Roscoe Head on the corner of Roscoe Street and Hardman Street is one of only seven pubs in Britain to have been included in all editions of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide. The Philharmonic was very quiet, and I achived a lifetime ambition of sneaking a glimpse of the marble urinals in the Gents! Some of the less worldly-wise members of the group had to have it explained to them why the two lounges are called Brahms and Lizt (very little to do with classical music!).

At the The Cracke, John Lennon’s pub, we sat in the tiny back room called the War Office, and then we made our final call of the day at Peter Kavanaghs on Egerton Street. This is also Grade II listed, and has an eclectic mix of interesting old junk hanging from the ceiling: gas masks, chamber pots, old radios and toy prams. The snugs contain wall paintings of scenes from Hogarth and The Pickwick Papers. Earlier on, Olive had found a very damp tenner in the street, so finally, at our ninth pub, it was drinks all round!