Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club

Abstract

THE seventy-sixth Annual Proceedings of the Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club, recently issued, covers the year 1936. The botanical notes include a summary by Mr. J. D. Massey of ninety new plant stations in the area recorded in the past four years since the compilation of Dr. Green's last "Flora of Liverpool", while Mr. W. S. Laverock, the botanical referee, describes the finding of deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) at Eastham, adder's tongue fern (Ophio-glossum vulgatum) near the Manchester Ship Canal at Mount Manisty, young sycamore trees with variegated foliage at Irby woods, and other incidents of the field meetings of the year. The year's ornithological records, compiled by Mr. Eric Hardy, the ornithological referee, include a water-pipit, ruffs, a part-albino pied wagtail, curlew-sandpiper, little stint, greenshanks, green-sandpipers and a very late (November 28) yellow wagtail at Liverpool Sewage Farm, the latter (after a fog spell) a day later than the previous latest record in Britain; crossbills in tfre Ainsdale-Freshfield pinewoods in winter, a scaup wintering at the Botanic Park, Liverpool, puffins, fork-tailed petrels and mergansers in the Dee Estuary, a redwing summering hi Knowsley Park and the nesting of the Canada goose and little grebe at Kirkby Dam, lesser black-backed gull and curlew at Simonswood, oyster-catcher and rock-pipit by the Ship Canal below Eastham, shoveller at Burton, grasshopper-warbler at Ince and Gay ton in Wirral, and blackcap in Knowsley Park. The long-tailed duck is reported in full summer plumage feeding on crabs in West Kirby marine lake in mid-May. There are also the results of surveys carried out in the area for the British Trust for Ornithology, etc. The Committee reports an increase in membership during the year, the formation of a junior section, and an appeal for the Ornithological Fund.