During the first lockdown in 2020, the British Trust for Ornithology’s (BTO) Garden BirdWatch (GBW) survey saw the number of participants double, from just over 10,000 to over 20,000 garden birdwatchers, with submissions of garden wildlife sightings up by around a third on 2019. So far in 2021 almost 4 million observations have been submitted.
My month with nature started well when Joyce and David Jarvis showed me two flowering Broad-leaved Helleborines at Ainsdale National Nature Reserve. I hadn’t seen this orchid on the Sefton Coast since 2008. Other notable plants during the month included a small colony of Whorl-grass that I found on a freshwater seepage zone on Hightown beach. It turned out to be the rare variety uniflora, largely confined to Western Scotland with only two known localities in England. While listing the associated species, I came across a plant that I couldn’t name but which seems to be Touch-me-not Balsam (Impatiens noli-tangere), not previously recorded for the Sefton Coast.
An Elegant Tern (Thalasseus elegans) has been spotted amongst a committee of Sandwich Terns (Sterna sandvicensis) on the Sefton Coast this month.
