Up river to Balerno

We had a lovely walk today up the Water of Leith from Colinton to Balerno. This is a section of the river we rarely walk along and it offers a lovely walk with some very pretty views of the river.

The wild garlic is still out and looking beautiful

and there are lots of other flowers in bloom, in this photo there's leopard's bane, red campion and forget me not with some male ferns.

This grey heron was happy to pose for Crafty Green Boyfriend

as was this mistle thrush

It was nice to see lots of hoverflies too, including this Sericomyia lappona (thanks to the Hoverflies Facebook group for the identification and to Crafty Green Boyfriend for the photo)