Distance: 5.2 miles. Climb: 443'.
Time: 2 hours 44 minutes. On the move walking average: 2.3 m.p.h.
Overall walking average: 1.4 m.p.h.
Temperature: Around 20 Celsius throughout the walk, although it did feel warmer and humid at times. It was quite humid at times.
Beaufort Wind Force: 2 – 4 Mainly just a Light breeze, but at times it increased to a Gentle breeze and gusted to a 13.3 m.p.h. Moderate breeze as we walked along Heswall beach.
Group: Martyn, Sue and Michel, Nigel and Elaine.
The forecast for today was not good, in fact if we took it literally, we should have stayed at home!
Thankfully, we didn’t, but it was raining quite heavily as w arrived at the Banks Road car park. After a five-minute sit in the cars, the rain stopped and we donned our waterproofs and armed with our umbrellas, we set off. We probably used our umbrellas for about half an hour throughout the first hour of the walk as the light showers past through.
As this was the first time that I had visited Heswall Dales, I was keen to see what it was like, probably a little more overgrown than I expected. There were splashes of purple heather scattered between the bracken and gorse that added to the colour.
It was good to see a group from “Friends of Heswall Dale” clearing bracken and gorse from the areas near the paths. One volunteer was clearing the access track to Oldfield Road.
Autumn really is approaching, as once again we saw lots of Barn swallows gathering on telephone wires near Oldfield Farm.
We managed to avoid some of the road waking by entering Cleaver Heath Nature, Reserve, an area that looks worth exploring on future short walks.
Another first for me was descending The Dungeon path to The Wirral Way. Chatting to the volunteers in Heswall Dales, slowed us down, but was The Wirral Way that slowed us down the most! This time it was the ripe Blackberries that were the culprit, demanding that we should sample them!
Lunch was taken at the Thursaston Visitor Centre, where we took advantage of one of the pic-nic benches.
After taking advantage of the facilities at the Visitor Centre, Sue and Elaine spotted something unusual in the pond that looked like a turtle (probably a terrapin).
Eventually, the rest of us managed to see it, but kept disappearing before I could photograph it.
After lunch, a new area for all of us was Heswall Fields, an area described as a “Wildflower Meadow”, too late for us to see any still in flower, but were treated to seeing Little egret coming off the estuary to roost in the some of the trees in the Field. Over fifty could be seen in the trees by the time we left Heswall Fields and descended to Heswall Beach.
The tide was still rising, so lots of waders were being pushed onto the mud closer to the shore.
Birds seen or heard today included: Black billed magpie, Common blackbird, European robin, Cetti warbler, Mallard, Common coot, Moorhen, Barn swallow, Woodpigeon, Little egret, Eurasian curlew, Oystercatcher, Lesser black backed gull, Herring gull, Great cormorant, Knot, Dunlin, Common redshank, Shelduck and Grey heron.
We arrived back at the car, in warm sunshine, having had a very enjoyable walk and pleased that we had not taken the weather forecast literally.
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