June & July

In June and July we met up a couple of times in Longrun Meadow,  a newly developed green area in the North of Taunton. It's a lovely area accessible from town through French Weir Park. The Willow Cathedral is also well worth a "visit".

　

In June we had a couple of picnics at The Spinney in Kingston St Mary, where the children enjoyed playing in the stream, climbing in the trees and swinging on a tree swing.

We also had a couple of walks in Langford Heathfield, a Somerset Wildlife Trust nature reserve near Wellington. We all enjoyed meeting the mini Shetlands ponies which are kept there in the summer to graze a small area of the reserve. It's a beautiful reserve with wildflower meadows, boarded walks as well as woods with multiple paths where it's surprisingly easy to become lost!

In July we took part in the Big Butterfly Count, a survey organised by Butterfly Conservation
We decided to meet up at Thurlbear Quarrylands, one of the best sites in the area to see a good variety of butterflies. With our copies of the butterfly charts we were able to identify a few species: gatekeeper, meadow brown, ringlet, large skipper, peacock, marbled white, large white, red admiral, silver-washed fritillary ... The children also enjoyed looking for bugs and buildings dens under some trees.