With the weather a little cooler we had a pleasant walk through Stoke Park and Eastville Park either side of the M32 motorway. It’s interesting to see the work being carried out in Stoke Park which has drawn a lot of criticism locally but with lots of scrub cleared, new fences and hedges created, stone walls repaired and lots of new saplings planted we could see nothing but positives.

Clouds over Stoke Park – a very welcome sight

At the beginning of the walk, at Duchess Pond, there were some young Canada geese goslings with their parents and late broods of ducklings. The lilies on the pond look very attractive and there were plenty of gatekeeper butterflies and  damselflies.

Gatekeeper butterfly

We saw one of the buzzards that we regularly see flying over our house and from Purdown (at the top of  Stoke Park) we could see a peregrine falcon on Stapleton Church spire.

Peregrine on the church spire – trust me.

The first blackberries are ripe in the middle of July

In Eastville Park a grey heron looked a little bedraggled and black-headed gulls competed with the mallards and Canada geese for scraps from people feeding them.

On the River Frome there was a pair of grey wagtails which, although quite bright, were very well camouflaged in the river. There were beautiful demoiselles damselflies too.

Grey wagtail

Beautiful demoiselle damselflies