It is unseasonably warm. My layers of clothing may be misjudged. The vegetation speaks of late winter: crisp, desiccated oak leaves, a flattened bracken coverlet protecting underlying soil, while pencil-thin willows stand upright, leafless, alongside marshy areas. Yet spring lurks in the wings: hazel catkins shiver, snow-white blackthorn flowers, and fresh meadow cranesbill lurks among bleached grasses. Seasons are shifting here at Speke and Garston Coastal Reserve.
This 70-acre site in south Liverpool is sandwiched between the River Mersey to the south and the Estuary Business Park to the north. Formerly the site of Liverpool airport, before it decamped a few miles away to become Liverpool John Lennon airport, the reserve is a rich and diverse mosaic of habitats.
The walk to the reserve abounds with censure: “No Parking”, “Private Land” and a cartography of double yellow lines threaten the driver. Here it was once possible to flush out common and jack snipes, but no more. New buildings and car parks encroach ever nearer the reserve – though birds are no respecters of boundaries. The cliff faces of characterless industrial buildings now act as perches for kestrels and peregrines.
Walking down a former runway, I imagine I hear the roar and rumble of an Argonaut, Dakota or Viscount. Flight paths now are those of dunnocks, blackbirds, magpies, robins and skylarks. A pair of meadow pipits fly across the moss-etched runway to pause in one of the many willows bordering a marsh. The bird soundscape is interrupted at times by the roar of aircraft from the adjacent airport.
Edgeland this may be, but the reserve is rich in diversity: grassland, hedgerows and meadows merge with reedbeds, saltmarsh and the tidal mudflats of the Mersey at the southern boundary. Even on a quiet late winter day there is much to raise the spirits. A kestrel hovers close to the runway, then glides off: no prey there today. A flash of green in a hedgerow boosts me. My first greenfinch of the year.
Just as the tides shift Mersey waters and sediment, time may redesign this edgeland, but it is a defiant site and I shall enjoy its wildlife for a long time to come.
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