The Naturalists' Notebook

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.

We got the 82 from Liverpool ONE bus station, got off at the stop before Aigburth Vale and we were at Sefton Park lake by 10.30. It was a cool day, but sunny and bright. Following the upheavals and renovations of the last year or two it was good to see the park getting back to normal. At the south end of the lake there were lots of Black-headed gulls and Canada Geese, a few Mallard, one each of Moorhen and Coot and nine adult Mute Swans with three full-grown cygnets. The cygnets were bred in the park this year, but their mother was killed by a dog during the summer and they are now in the sole care of their father. Further up the lake we saw a Coot sitting on a nest on a floating raft, but when it moved off we could see that there were no eggs. There was a young Common Gull on a post at the boating barrier. Rats are common on the banks, coming boldly into the open, and we also saw Crows, Jackdaws, Magpies and a Grey Squirrel.
The newly-built café at the southern end of the lake is open but the new Ranger Station and restaurant on the site of the old café will not be complete until next week. Near the new wild flower bank by the Palm House we saw Wood Pigeons, a Blackbird and a Jay, a Speckled Wood, three Red Admirals and a Comma.
We joined Ranger John’s walk after lunch then some of us went back to the Palm House for an afternoon concert by the Liverpool Ladies Barbershop Singers. Very civilised! Soon after 2.30 the last of us left for buses home.