The Naturalists' Notebook

It was dry but overcast when we met at Liverpool One Bus Station and took the 75E bus at 10.25 to the junction of Woolton Road and Aldbourne Avenue. We went into the Black Wood first and watched grey squirrels scampering about the small caches of peanuts in shells that somebody was regularly leaving for them at the foot of a tree. Then back across the road to Childwall Woods. We ate our lunch on some logs in the woods, watched a treecreeper, then went out into Childwall Fields. The meadow was full of Buttercups, Ragged Robin and what might have been Common Sorrel (the book said it “turns meadows crimson”). There were orchids, hogweed and blooming elder. Goldfinches were eating the Sorrel heads and Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs were singing. We hoped the sun would come out and bring butterflies, but it remained cloudy and still. Back in the woods we passed the back of the TV studios where they make Hollyoaks and Grange Hill, but the burnt-out helicopter from an old episode of Brookside had gone. It was starting to rain so we left the woods by Quickswood Close at about 2.30 for the bus back to Liverpool.

It was raining a little when we met in Queen Square at 10.30 and took the 17 bus to the top of St Domingo Road. We stopped to admire the half-timbered Mere Bank pub with its pargeting and its Elizabethan figures above the door. The derelict Everton Library is also worth a look, and both are described in “The Buildings of Liverpool”. Cutting through St George’s churchyard we walked along to Everton Park on National Cycle Network route 18 and stopped to admire the view. It had stopped raining, and although it was still very misty over the city we could see the skyscrapers near the river and just make out New Brighton.
Among the cut grass and paths there were quite a few wild flowers. One bank had patches of Bird’s Foot Trefoil and Hoary Cress, and there was a tiny starry moss in the cracks between the flags. While we were exploring one of the old quarry areas we met a Japanese tourist who was a bit off the normal tourist routes, and despite his limited English he asked us if we were naturalists. Perhaps he was one too. We lunched in the pergola with a splendid view over the city.
Off Dorrington Walk is Everton Park Nature Garden. It is normally locked up and only available to organised school parties, but today it was open to the public. We met Rangers Ronnie and Ritchie at 1pm, and Ritchie gave us the ten cent tour while Ronnie did pond-dipping with the only child who had turned up. The Nature Garden has a shallow lake with reeds, yellow flag iris and fringed water lily, a small woodland, a wildflower meadow and a herb garden. Ritchie swept his insect net through the long grass and tipped out three common blue damsel flies, one fat caterpillar and about fifty ants, bugs and beetles. There is a resident Heron, who normally perches on the bridge over the lake, but we saw it flap off as we arrived. Although the lake is not supposed to have any fish, being officially intended for insects, the Rangers suspect that the local fishermen are secretly stocking it. On a flat-topped wooden rail in the woods we found a scattered collection of feathers of small birds and one sad little beak in the leaf litter. It may be a regular feeding place for a predatory bird, perhaps a magpie.
It started to rain again when we were in the herb garden, so we left about 2.30 and were back in Liverpool before 3pm.

It was a cute baby bird spectacular today. We took the train from Central just after 10am to Southport then the 42 bus from Lord Street to the junction of Marshside Road and Lytham Road. We were in the Sandgrounders hide by 20 to 12. On the way we saw a Swan on a nest, a Heron hunting and some Avocets flying. Swallows were nesting in the eaves outside the hide. There were plenty of Black-tailed Godwits in the pool in front of the hide, plus at least one Redshank, and a large flock of Starlings behind them. But our attention was caught by a family of four tiny Avocet chicks, wading through the water and swishing their tiny beaks back and forth, just like the adults. They were close enough to see that their legs were greyish-blue, not black. Their parents were very attentive and aggressive, seeing off all other Avocets and even menacing the odd Starling who was sneaking through the reeds, trying to get nearer to the chicks.
Across the field we saw some Canada Geese with goslings – 10, 11, was it 12? Then we realised that there were several sets of parent birds and this was a crèche of about two dozen youngsters.  A pair of Shelduck had just a single duckling, beautifully marked in white and russet.  Swallows, House Martins and Swifts were all hunting across the water.
After lunch we walked along to Nel’s hide. An Oystercatcher was sitting on a nest in full view. There was a female duck nearby who definitely wasn’t a Mallard. Female ducks are very tricky to identify, but she may have been a Gadwall.  Three tiny Lapwing chicks were pottering through the mud and reeds just under the hide window. Until they moved they were very hard to see because they were just the same colour as the mud. 
We walked back up Marshside Road, passing two llamas in a field (or were they alpacas?) At the bus stop at the corner of Elswick Road we watched a brood of three or four fluffy baby Sparrows on a fat ball hanging on a garden wall. The 44D bus took us back to Southport in time for the train at half past two, and we were in Liverpool City Centre by a quarter past three.