Otterspool, Merseyside: This is land built on waste-tips and spoil, but wildlife is thriving. Perhaps one day the otters will return, too

A chill autumn day and the turnstones were there. I knew they would be; they always are at Otterspool. With their tweed plumage, bright red legs and rattling, confiding chatter, they delight me every time. With their clockwork skittering and scattering, they are best seen at high tide, when they take refuge on the steep sandstone steps from the promenade down to the River Mersey. There is a pecking order, with each one choosing a different step. I want to know how step status is agreed.

Otterspool, in south Liverpool, was once just that – the Otter’s Pool. The otters, the pool and the apostrophe are long gone (we live in hope that the former will return), but today the area attracts much life, both human and non-human. Emerging from an place of 1950s municipal waste tips and spoil from the construction of the first Mersey tunnel, Otterspool is now a green place resurgent.