After two weeks in the sunshine of South Africa I was expecting not to see much colour on a walk round my local patch of Eastville Park this morning but I was pleasantly surprised.

As well as the following birds which are photographed we saw the beautiful flash of blue as a kingfisher darted up river, the brown and fresh white of a treecreeper very close up and lots of great and blue tits (although their colour did not show too well).

We saw a dipper on the River Frome and the stream leading off.

There were robins in their usual territories (looking alert and making lots of noise) but blackbirds higher up in trees away from their normal territory.

The Canada geese were very feisty.

The mallards were on the lake and up trees (and who says the drakes are more attractive than the females?)

The black-headed gulls had heads of all colours:

The swan woke up when we were there and followed the moulting cygnet around the lake.

Even the lesser black backed gull looked quite attractive.

A couple of moorhen also added some contrast.

It would have been a lovely morning’s walk if a dog had not jumped up to my wife’s shoulders and knocked her flat on the floor causing her lots of bruising but thankfully nothing broken.