The Naturalists' Notebook

It was a lovely bright day, no wind, but quite cold (5°C). We met at Liverpool ONE and took the 82A to Riverside Drive / Otterspool Prom, arriving about 10.30. We walked southwards, looking at the yachts out on the river on the height of the tide.
 

Several fishermen were catching cod and whiting, which, although perfectly edible, were deemed too small and were thrown back. A seal popped its head up, then rolled on the surface before disappearing. In two old mimosa trees on the bank near the children’s playground there was a Pied Wagtail and three or four Linnets which flew down to pick about in the grass. There was a small party of gulls near the exercise machines, mostly Common Gulls, and we watched one of them paddling its feet to charm the worms.
During the morning several emergency craft went upriver towards Speke at roughly quarter-hour intervals. First was the Fire and Rescue speedboat, then the RNLI hovercraft, then a yellow Air-Sea Rescue helicopter from Anglesey, then the Hoylake Lifeboat. Hovering in the distance over the Wirral was the small Air Ambulance. While we ate our lunch we watched the helicopter fly slowly back downriver, hovering over the Fire and Rescue speedboat, winching somebody up. The Liverpool Echo reported on Monday that it was a special exercise, simulating a plane landing in the river. See this link to a photo gallery.
After lunch we walked up to Aigburth Vale through Otterspool Park, with falling bronze leaves sparkling through patches of sunlight.

They were unusual leaves so I collected a couple to identify.
Sefton Park lake had the usual Mute Swans, Canada Geese and Mallards. The air was full of Black-headed Gulls. About 40 Coots were gathered at the northern end, some already charging each other aggressively and frightening the Moorhens. A pair of Little Grebes kept out of the way around the shore of the island.

We made our way through the autumn colours of the park to the new Ranger Station for a slide show at 2pm by Ranger Paul on “The History of the Liverpool Parks”. Ranger Ronnie agreed to take a handful of MNA leaflets for display and he positively identified the fallen leaves I had collected earlier as cut-leaved beech (also known as feather beech or fern beech).

We planned to start the day at the Hoylake Local Food Fair so we took the 10.05 train from Central to Manor Road and found Hoylake Community Centre at the bottom of Hoyle Road. It was very well-attended, in fact it was a bit of a scrum. Local dignitaries included Wirral West MP Esther McVey and several councillors. We managed to get to some of the stalls through the crush, tasted some free samples and by the time we emerged several of us had bought cheese, kale, celery or bacon.
We lunched in the Promenade Gardens, happy that it was dry and fairly warm for late October (about 16°C) although the sun was hidden by clouds. Then we set off northwards, passing the Lifeboat station. The tide was very far out, so apart from a few pigeons on the sand and a few gulls flying over, the only thing we noted was the Spartina grass coming up again on the beach.

The grass has been of great concern to the locals for some time. In 2008 the Wirral Globe had an article “Don’t let Hoylake beach become another Parkgate”, and the Hoylake Junction blog showed pictures in September 2009 and June 2010, the latter showing council workers strimming it.

Towards Red Rocks the prom petered out so we picked our way across the splashy sand and were relieved to reach the rocks and the boardwalk. We spotted a pair of Stonechats on high twigs amongst the reeds and noted some late flowers. There were huge patches of Sea Aster in depressions near the houses.

Also what appeared to be Soapwort (although it is not supposed to flower later than September).

We caught the 3 o’clock train from West Kirkby and were back in Liverpool about 3.30.

We met at Central Station at 10am for the 10.15 train. Changed to a Rail Replacement bus at Rock Ferry, which didn’t get us to Ellesmere Port until 20 to 12, and we were at the Museum just before 12. We booked for Jeff Clarke’s talk at 1pm followed by his guided walk. After lunch outside in the chilly sunshine we went up to the exhibition room and met Dave Hardy and David Bryant, who had been manning the MNA’s table all morning.
Jeff Clarke’s presentation was most entertaining, then we went with him to the rough grassland outside where he demonstrated the use of sweep nets and “beating the bushes” for catching invertebrates. The haul was various spiders, snails, caterpillars, a harvestman, a shield bug and several ladybirds: a harlequin, a 2-spot, a 7-spot, a 10-spot, an 11-spot and three 22-spot.
We caught the 2.45 Rail Replacement bus, the train from Rock Ferry and we were back in Liverpool before 4pm.

We met at Lime Street station for the 10.26 train to Widnes, then walked just a few yards along Birchfield Road to the park. It was a perfect autumn day, with a clear sky and crispy leaves underfoot. 

The pond was full of Mallards and Canada Geese, well-trained to bread, with some Black-headed gulls, one Moorhen and about 14 Mute Swans. None appeared to be this year’s cygnets (they were fully white) but they all looked like females, lacking the prominent black forehead knob of the mature cob. They may have been second-autumn juveniles.
The park was full of visitor-friendly features – a bandstand, a café, exercise machines, a BMX park and a climbing wall. The glasshouses had bedding plants for sale, two caged iguanas and a rather disappointing butterfly house. Near the Gladstone Memorial Fountain was an old milestone showing damage from a Zeppelin bombing raid in 1918.

The wooded area on the west side of the park is the “nature” area, where we saw Long-tailed Tits, Great Tits, a squirrel and a Collared Dove in the trees. The wardens have put up bird and bat boxes and made a “Bug Hotel”. It must have been working because we saw what we thought at the time were three different Ladybirds in the area. The first one is the native 7-spot ladybird, but the other two are probably both Harlequins, which are very variable.

Something we have never seen before is a bat hibernaculum. The adjacent signage said there are Common Pipistrelles, Soprano Pipistelles and Daubenton’s in the area, who may spend the winter in their newly-built home.

On the way back across the field we saw a Magpie and three Pied Wagtails on the grass. We caught the 2.15 train back to Lime Street, arriving just before 3pm. 

What a contrast to last week! We had a glorious sunny boat trip on the canal from Haskayne to Burscough on the barge “Pride of Sefton”.
Twelve of us met at 10.10 am on 10/10/10 (which had to be a good omen) for the 300 bus from Sir Thomas Street to the King’s Arms at Haskayne. We were escorted aboard, then setted down in the bow to drift happily northwards watching the wildlife. There were the usual Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and Black-headed gulls, and we saw two Herons on the banks, one of which flew ahead in short stretches, only to be disturbed again by our progress. Yellowhammers, Robins, Blackbirds and Goldfinches flitted across the canal, a Buzzard flew high in the blue sky, Crows flocked into an isolated tree and a Kingfisher disappeared into the reeds somewhere past Heaton’s Bridge.

For long stretches we meandered along with the canal to ourselves, passing only a very few walkers and fishermen and hardly any other narrowboats. The leaves on the trees had not yet started to turn, but the hedges were red with Hawthorn and Rowan berries, rose hips and apples. We spotted one white butterfly and several dark ones: one at least was a Red Admiral.
We turned near Burscough, right in the middle of a fishing competition, and had a chance to take a second look at three garden Peacocks (the birds not the butterflies); one was the white or leucistic variety. The skipper took us further south on the return journey, where we saw a most unexpected brood of seven Mallard ducklings, only a day or two old. Not only were their parents breeding very late (or early), they had a very mixed ancestry. Two ducklings were very dark brown, two were lighter brown, two were butter-blonde while the seventh was fawny-grey with dark flecks.  We disembarked at the Scarisbrick Arms at Downholland Cross at 4pm and caught the 300 bus back to Liverpool, due back in the City Centre at 5.15.

What a horrible wet day it was! We were supposed to be going to Hilbre Island for the Open Day, but it was just too wet. We stood at the Dee Lane slipway at West Kirby and looked glumly over the sands to the rain-sodden islands, and our resolve failed.
The day went wrong right from the start. Not only was it raining heavily when we met at Central Station (all kitted out in our best wellies) for the West Kirby train at 10.05, but we had to change to a Rail Replacement bus at Birkenhead North. We didn’t get to the Dee Lane slipway until 11.20, and found that even the Friends of Hilbre had decided not risk the hour-long trek over the sands.  So we walked along the Marine Lake, which has been drained for repairs to the embankment, and looked at the Black-headed gulls and Herring gulls in the mud and shallow pools. Six Herons were hunched out in the middle.
We had our lunch in the shelters, then walked in lighter rain through Coronation Gardens to Ashton Park. The gullys around the bowling greens were overflowing like mini-moats onto the sacred turf. We spotted a poster about Hoylake local food fair on Sunday 31st October and decided to go there at the end of the month instead of to Waterloo. We are always alert to the possibilities of the odd free sample!
Ashton Park lake had the usual Mallards, Coots, Moorhens, Canada Geese, Greylag Geese, two juvenile Herring Gulls and the resident Muscovy Duck. No Tufted Ducks today. On the island were three very black ducks with green glossy highlights on their sides. They were probably “deviant” Mallards, but in the other colour direction to the pale ones who have interbred with domestic ducks. There was one Grey Squirrel in the trees. As we crossed the bridge over the Wirral Way into the higher park the rain stopped and the sun made a valiant attempt to shine through the clouds.  We were greeted by a Robin in the hedge, some Collared Doves and Wood Pigeons, and a Crow with white flecks in his tail and back. Three Shaggy Ink-caps were coming up in the rose beds.  We were back at the station for the bus at 2.15, and at Central Station by 3pm.