Dr Phil Smith -Wildlife Notes September 2024

Although we didn’t get the deluges that affected the Midlands and Southern England, 20 ‘rain-days’ and 112mm of precipitation meant that September in Formby was distinctly wetter than normal. We also had below average sunshine and it was slightly cooler than expected, though there were a couple of warm spells early on and towards the middle of the month. Most of the dune-slacks along the coast did not dry out during the summer and, as measured at the Devil’s Hole, the water-table was already climbing again by September’s end.

Images P Smith

I made good use of the two warm dry spells, visiting various insect-rich habitats along the coast. On 3rd, the Devil’s Hole produced a Black Darter which was still present on 26th. Another was photographed at Ainsdale the same day. A peatland specialist that disperses in autumn, this declining dragonfly used to be seen almost annually on the Sefton Coast but this was my first since 2013. The nearest breeding site is Highfield Moss at Golborne, about 30 km away. Another dragonfly hotspot, only recognised recently, is a small pond in the Marine Gardens at Crosby. Having been alerted by Pete Kinsella, I visited on 6th, logging seven species, including a colourful male Common Hawker. A great rarity with us, this is another dragonfly that breeds in acidic waters. I watched it battling for dominance with a male Emperor, both being highly territorial. Also good to see were a Brown Hawker, with its characteristic tawny wings, two Emerald Damselflies, the ubiquitous Blue-tailed Damselflies and Common Darters and, finally, several Small Red-eyed Damselflies. I counted three mating pairs and four males of this recent arrival in the Northwest.

On 4th September, Freshfield Dune Heath Nature Reserve hosted a meeting of the ‘Tanyptera Project’. Based at National Museums Liverpool, the project is funded by the Tanyptera Trust to promote the study and conservation of invertebrates in the Lancashire and Cheshire region. I joined a group of specialists adding to an already impressive number of more than 1200 insects recorded for the reserve. Over 150 were identified during the day. New to me was the attractive Black-horned Nomad, a solitary bee that breeds as a ‘cuckoo’ in the nests of other solitary bees, including the abundant Heather Colletes. It was great to meet up with experts that I hadn’t seen in years, including Chris Felton and Steve Garland.

Favourable weather in the middle of the month saw me scouring the flowering Ivy at Oxford Road and Hesketh Road, Southport. This was ‘heaving’ with 13 species of hoverflies and also Ivy Bees, now a familiar site following the first Sefton Coast record in 2018. The hoverflies included our largest, the spectacular Hornet Plumehorn and one unexpected wetland species, the Stripe-backed Glimmer, with its distinctive amber eyes. Other highlights on the Ivy were a male Speckled Bush-cricket and a mating pair of Migrant Hawkers. A few visits to Ivy patches at Ravenmeols were less successful, except that, on 19th, a Grey Squirrel bounded up a pine tree right in front of me. This was the first Grey I have seen on the Sefton Coast; I sent the details to Rachael Parks who monitors squirrels in this area. Nearby, I counted 38 spikes of Hungarian Mullein that had flowered earlier in the summer. I first found this spectacular garden-escape in 2011 as a new plant for the Northwest. It is known to have invasive characteristics in the south of England but, so far, it has not spread from its original location in the Ravenmeols woods.

During the month, I made eleven visits to the Devil’s Hole, Ravenmeols, to label and measure over 120 bushes of the rare hybrid willow Salix x friesiana for a long-term scientific study. This is the 13th year of the project and I’m not sure whether I will have the energy to do it again next year. On one trip, I bumped into botanist John Poland, who had travelled to the Devil’s Hole in the hope of seeing the very rare Intermediate Centaury. He had already located two tiny specimens, which I was able to confirm were indeed his target.

From mid-month, my visits to the dunes were often accompanied by the evocative ‘pink-wink’ calls of Pink-footed Geese as skeins passed overhead during the annual influx from Iceland. The largest flock I saw was about 4000 on harvested stubble just east of Cabin Hill NNR. These flew to a traditional night-time roost on Formby Bank, their calls echoing off the walls of the Devil’s Hole. A few days later the same field hosted about 400 Jackdaws, flushed by a marauding Buzzard. By now, all the leaves on the native Black Poplars had fallen; autumn had most certainly arrived. Another autumn signature was the occasional large hairy Fox Moth caterpillar sunning itself on dune path-sides prior to hibernation. I also caught up with the distinctive soldier fly, Twin-spot Centurion, at its regular site on Wicks Path, Formby Point. A big surprise, however, was finding the same species on my car parked over a mile from its usual habitat.