The Naturalists' Notebook

From Hall Road station we walked along Hall Road East, admiring the houses and gardens. The Rowan berries are red now and the blackberries are ripening. At the junction of Manor Road a narrow path leads through nettles and brambles into the fields around Little Crosby.  It was cooler, overcast and breezy, but we expected it to be sunny later.

We took the left-hand path towards Sniggery Wood, crossed the footbridge over the ditch and entered the wood. It’s quite narrow, with light coming in on either side, but silent and without much wildlife. There were some bird boxes up, and I saw a Robin earlier in the week, but nothing today. The wood is apparently the haunt of groups of anti-social lads who camp and drink. We emerged onto the path to return to Dibb Lane, and spoke to a dog walker who said there is a regular Barn Owl over the fields and that he had seen Weasels playing on Ackers Lane.

On the south-west side of the path was a meadow with sparse wheat and wildflowers, including a lovely blue one which may have been Perennial Flax. The field of Oil-seed Rape had recently been harvested, while the potato field to the south was in flower. The only birds were two Lapwings and a Wood Pigeon. The rain started then, and just as we got to Little Crosby Village there was a heavy downpour, so we dived into the Wellbarn and through an open door into the office of a small aromatherapy business called Carribean Essentials.

We had a damp lunch in the churchyard then walked up Delph Road where there are two big buddleias. Earlier in the week I’d seen a Peacock and a Comma, but there was only a Green-veined white today. On the lawn at the back of The Courtyard restaurant  we saw a Blackbird and a Robin.

Then the sun came out as we made our way back along Dibb Lane. The long hedge was full of Wild Roses and ripening Rose Hips. About a dozen white butterflies and a Meadow Brown emerged into the sunshine. The young Swallows were out too. Along the path leading to Sniggery Wood a Magpie was stalking slowly, hunting for something. Then a Moorhen passed us in heavy flight, long legs dangling, heading for splashdown in the ditch.

At home, the first Peacock of the year was feeding on my own Buddleia.

It was a very hot and sunny day, with the threat of thundery showers, but we missed one downpour whilst we were on the bus. The park lake had only pigeons at the south end, but there were lots of Black-headed Gulls and Coots at the top. I counted five Coot nests, some of them still with youngsters, since Coots nest all through the summer. One Mallard had four very late ducklings. There was a Mute Swan and a well-grown cygnet on the island, some Canada Geese, a Moorhen and just one Little Grebe. I got rid of the last of the duck and swan food to the BHGs, who dived for it enthusiastically, and the very last crumbs went onto the bird table by the Palm House.  Near the bandstand in the upper lake, a very young Heron posed picturesquely on the bank.

The terrapins were probably all removed when the lake was drained a few years ago, but the rats are still flourishing. One was creeping out of a crevice under a rock to snaffle turnip peelings left by someone. Did they think the birds would eat it?

The gardeners are allowing much of the grass to grow long and the lake banks are full of natural wild flowers. This may be why we saw more insects than usual. There were two species of butterfly, a Green-veined White and a Ringlet, plus a Brown Hawker dragonfly and a damsel fly, possibly a Blue-tail. Clouds of midges or gnats were circling over the water. On the railing I spotted a splendid brown Shield Bug with an orange and brown edging. I think it was Pentatoma rufipes, a common and widespread species which usually lives in trees. It was hopefully climbing up each semi-circular rail top, only to find itself guided down again.

At the Eros statue we were reminded of the flights of fancy of the former Park Ranger, Ritchie Baker, who always asserted that it was “Eros’s younger brother”

The wildflower bank by the Palm House was looking past its best, and the only creatures were the little animals on the Peter Pan statue – mice, frogs, and a lizard. But we nodded to the statues of the secular saints of natural history, Darwin and Linnaeus.

A brief thunderstorm overtook us in the Dell, and as we sheltered under the trees we spotted the Moorhens and Squirrels doing the same under the Rhododendrons.

It was raining hard before we set out, but by the time we emerged from the train at Wallasey Grove Road it had mostly cleared up, and we were greeted by a Goldfinch singing on a telegraph wire.

Today’s birds included Magpies, Starlings and Carrion Crows on the grass and Oystercatchers, Redshanks, one Cormorant, Herring Gulls, Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Black-headed Gulls on the beach. Some of the BHGs have nearly lost their black head feathers already. Two big brown LBB chicks were begging from their mother. She got fed up and flew away for a dip in a tidal pool but they pursued her relentlessly.

All along the Coastal Drive we noticed the joints in the pavement were full of bits of cockle shell. Have the gulls or crows been dropping them from a great height to break them? A Carrion Crow flew past with one in its beak and we watched it hopefully to see if it would do the trick for us, but it took it over to the grass to fiddle with.

The only butterfly we saw was a Small White, and there were no Cinnabar moth caterpillars on any of the Ragwort. But House Martins were flying about near the Lifeguard station so there must be some insects about.  Parties of Dads and sons were taking advantage of the breezy sunshine to go crabbing, using fresh bacon as bait. It’s the crab’s favourite, we were assured. This weekend was the 11th National Whale and Dolphin Watch. We didn’t see any whales, but near the breakwater a sculptor had carved three pieces of driftwood into a row of leaping dolphins.

Off to Gorse Hill Nature Reserve, near Ormskirk, on a hot and sunny day. We took the train to Aughton Park, the stop before Ormskirk, and headed for Aughton Church. Just opposite, a footpath leads up through barley fields to the reservoir. House Sparrows were tweeting in the shrubbery opposite the church, a few young Swallows swooped above, and we were interested to see a large number of Banded Snails clustering on dried umbellifer stalks.

The gate to the reservoir was secured with an amazing set of 10 padlocks.

Further along we went through a field of very confident and inquisitive black ponies. One tried to get into Olive’s backpack, one gave Sheena a “friendly” nip on the arm and two clustered around the stile, making it hard to get over the stile and away from them!  But then we were in amongst the farmer’s fields. One was growing two types of Kale, the normal green curly variety, and the taller and darker Black Tuscan kale. We saw ripening fields of all three main grains – wheat, oats and barley, the barley catching the sun and looking as if it was made of bronze.

We had lunch on a verge near the top of Gaw’s Hill. Although only 81 meters (265 feet) high, the Lancashire Plain is otherwise so flat that we could see Blackpool Tower and the funfair ride called The Big One on the horizon. Butterflies were scarce. We saw just one Painted Lady and a couple of Meadow Browns. Back in the woodlands we heard Greenfinch singing, a few young Great Tits cheeped in the bushes and, our best bird of the day, a Yellowhammer which was calling, then seen perched on a wire.

It was yet another dry and sunny day between the rainy weekdays, but with a brisk northerly breeze keeping the temperature down. Starting at Waterloo station, we toured all four of the beachfront gardens, once the private preserve of the wealthy sea captains in their villas, open to the public since the 1930s and now being looked after by a local Friends group. To our delight we found a wonderful display of poppies on the rockery in the southernmost garden, Marine Garden.

There weren’t many birds about. The usual Wood Pigeons and Blackbird, with Swallows and Swifts overhead. Greenfinches were calling. In the shrubbery in Crescent Garden there was a small colony of House Sparrows, and a small warbler that had us foxed for a minute, until we realised it was probably a Chiffchaff, sitting in the open on the low branches, preening and fluffing itself up. It didn’t know the rule for Chiffchaffs – be heard but not seen!  It’s been a very poor summer for butterflies. All we saw was a Small White in Marine Garden.

In the weed-choked pond in Beach Lawn Garden there were two Common Newts, but it was hard to see anything else between the green scum. We had our lunch there, keeping out of the wind in the shelter of its north wall. After the recent heavy rain, the path down to the promenade and beach was another pond, looking like it had been there for quite a while. Our goal was to see the two Iron Men who had been dressed in crocheted body suits at the end of May by Polish textile artist Agata Oleksiak, known as Olek .When I photographed them on 4th June they were fresh (left picture), but after six weeks of wind and rain the suits were partially unravelled and rather droopy (right picture).

They are both near Crosby Baths. Number 64 is the one with the bright colours, high up the beach, but the one in black and grey (no. 63) is further out and much harder to spot. There is a replica Iron Man inside Crosby Baths, brightly decorated all over with mosaic. Sadly, it is impossible to photograph from the outside, and there is a strict “no photography” rule inside. Despite my signing a form and promising not to photograph any children, the manager wouldn’t allow me near it with a camera.

As we made our way north along the beach we spotted a Common Gull in a shallow tidal pool, occasionally snatching something from the water.There were lots of worm casts around, which was probably what it was feeding on. Further along, a Black-headed Gull seemed to have commandeered another small pool for itself.

Near the Coast Guard Station two men were making sand sculptures. Here is their version of Edoras, the Golden Hall of Rohan from Lord of the Rings.