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Britain I grew up on a hill overlooking the mouth of the River Mersey and the relentless rise & fall of tides - among the highest in the world - impressed itself on my consciousness from an early age.
I spent nearly six years apprenticed in the Liverpool Pilotage Service, and a love of the sea, together with its land edges, has persisted. Based now barely a dozen golf courses north from the mouth of the Mersey I still spend much time on or near the sea.
Below are a couple of galleries featuring two different aspects of Liverpool Bay's coast: ships, & buoys, beached or wrecked; & sand extraction for building & industry.
In the 90s I became involved in schemes to protect the habitat of the (nationally rare) natterjack toad, the great crested newt & the sand lizard - scroll down to see more information.
Coastal wrecks
There is an excellent site (external link, right), featuring much well-researched historical information on some of the wrecks to be seen between the Ribble & Mersey estuaries.
Here I present a small selection of photos, spanning the last twenty years or so. The coast seems immutable, but in fact changes hugely from year to year. Features prominently visible may quickly vanish, only to re-appear in years to come. Sandbanks always appear to be the same, yet change subtly after every tide...
Here I present a small selection of photos, spanning the last twenty years or so. The coast seems immutable, but in fact changes hugely from year to year. Features prominently visible may quickly vanish, only to re-appear in years to come. Sandbanks always appear to be the same, yet change subtly after every tide...Sand extraction
Another 'resident' of the Horse Bank off Southport beach was Wm. Rainfords - a company licensed to extract sand for industrial use. Sometimes excoriated by largely ignorant local politicians for 'stripping our beach of sand' (the very idea!), they created shallow pools that persisted over many tides as they scooped out sand. These pools were visited by shore birds, who were not fazed at all by the huge Terex trucks rumbling slowly back & forth along the extraction road. Rainfords have left now, but little has changed on the foreshore: shelduck, pinkfoot & Canada geese still populate the outer sandbanks, falcons still patrol above while flocks of seed-eating birds feed on the many small trees & shrubs that surround the former sand works. And if you're lucky enough to sit through the peak of a 10m tide you may see short-eared owls patrolling in front of you as small animals scamper inland ahead of the advancing waters. What you are now always guaranteed to see is large numbers of human birders, booted, be-scoped & tripoded, uniformly clad in army drab... It used to be so peaceful! (I feel like Furry Freak Phineas reminiscing about that little forest clearing when he first came upon a solitary plant, growing alone...)Dune management
Attempts were made to mitigate the effects of dune succession between Formby Point & Southport, in order to protect the habitat of the (nationally rare) natterjack toad, great crested newt & sand lizard. This involved clearing some areas of scrub - creeping willow, birch & sea buckthorn - in order for dune slacks (water-filled scrapes) & open south-facing basking slopes for the lizards to survive. These initiatives, by Sefton, the National Trust & English Nature (now Natural England) were sometimes locally controversial but have proved successful thus far.
The phrase "a sea of buckthorn... " seared itself onto our brains one tired evening after a long day; and none then present will ever forget it!
The phrase "a sea of buckthorn... " seared itself onto our brains one tired evening after a long day; and none then present will ever forget it!
Britain | urban | landscapes | flora
