In complete contrast to the surrounding architecture, “Danger - Keep Out - Unsafe Structure” signs are attached to the promenade railings to deter access onto the weathered timber structures, not quite vertical, dilapidated, muscle encrusted below the Mersey surface, and with a Kienholz aesthetic.
Unsafe, perhaps, for people, but ideal for a pair of resting Cormorants. Staring at the Cormorants and wondering if they are in fact Liverbirds, my thoughts are interrupted by

Is that cone on the back of your bike to stop people parking up behind you?”

A fit looking 62year old on a bike, in cycling shorts, with tanned legs. He told me the Cormorants used to live and breed at Princess Half Tide Dock but have had to move on because of the building work. Mike has lived near the docks all his life, and as a kid he used to hang around the yards waiting for the Dockers to finish their shifts, scrounging sarnies they might have left in their lunch tins. Usually he got something, and on lucky occasions he also got a drop of milk left over in their mashing cups.

Mike had just cycled 36 miles, I had managed a pitiful 2.