Despite two days of Storm Hannah, it being our first year and a fairly laid back approach... the results are in..
And you did yourselves and the Liverpool City Region proud! Here are some of the stats from the 4 days;
The LCR 3 key stats are;
Observations: 12,326
Species: 1,075
Observers: 121
EDWARD O. WILSON ( at 89) is one of the world’s renowned myrmecologists (studied ants) and has been an enthusiastic naturalist since the age of 7. Growing up in the Alabama swamplands, natural history kept him on an even keel through broken schooling, parental separation and his father’s suicide. Ensconced at Harvard, since the early 1950’s, he pioneered the exploration of New Guinea as an entomologist and developed the study of desert island re-colonisation in the Florida Keys.
Sixteen members of North West Fungus Group attended on a beautiful autumn day. Our first foray since the area was taken over by The National Trust. First stop was at Ravenmeols where we checked on the decreasing patch of Tulostoma brumale. We also recorded some rarities in Hebeloma dunense and Inocybe dunensis, in the dunes (where else?).
Ten Liverpool Botanical Society members accompanied by Anne-Marie Belcher, Reserve Warden and Lee Lappin, local naturalist explored the footpaths and bird hides of Moore Nature Reserve and Moss Side. Moore Nature Reserve is situated between the Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. The 186 acres site has been managed as a nature reserve since 1991 after a history of land use for farming and sand quarrying. Today the reserve is surrounded by woodland, meadows and wetlands which provide a rich biodiversity of habitats for birds, mammals, insects, plants, amphibians and fungi. On the day 180 species of wildflowers were recorded.
Field trip plant list of 180 species in Latin name alphabetic order. The number in the comments column indicates the order in which the plant was seen during the event.
Eighteen people attended this popular event held by north West Fungus Group. Starting by the reserve manager’s office, we moved very slowly down to the oak wood which is as far as we got by lunchtime because the fungi were numerous and varied. The paddock produced a couple of new species for the Reserve, Lepiota cortinarius and Psathyrella bipellis. We also found a little brown job, Panaeolus fimicola (Turf Mottlegill), on a little brown job (a rabbit dropping).
On Monday 3 September 2018 at the Chadwick Lecture Theatre, University of Liverpool, Cleo Small, Head of the BirdLife International Marine Programme was the opening speaker of the three-day 14th International Seabird Group Conference.
On Sunday 19th August 2018 the North West Fungus Group held foray at Clock Face Country Park, St. Helens, despite the unpromising ground conditions and the threat of Storm Debby. Fortunately, Debby failed to turn up.
Little did anyone expect, on May 2nd, that with the mid afternoon temperature at a bracing 12 degrees and a healthy dollop of some 7.5 mms of rain, we would be soon regarding the latter with some nostalgia and the former as an uncomfortable memory
Temperatures rose steeply that week up to the torrid Bank Holiday week end, only to plunge down again, to once again rise to the low 20’s by the 19th and here they remained by and large till the end of the month. A trip to Bodnant Gardens, with the Friends of Calderstones Park, on the 25th, witnessed 7mm of rain( fortunately towards the end of the visit), and a couple of days later we heard thunder: The air was coming from a southerly direction.
First signs of autumn are already with us in the form of ripe blackberries, rowan berries and hawthorn “haws”. Soon other trees and bushes will follow.
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