What's this? Cows grazing on Poole Park's precious cricket pitch?

Sharp-eyed park user Rolf Paoli was bowled over when he spotted the heifers calmly chewing the cud on the crease.

"People make enough fuss about the Canada geese fouling the grass," said the bird lover from Cowslip Road. "What are they going to say about this?"

Cattleman Chris Bullen said the beasts were introduced to help keep the grass down, after an alarm-call goose scarer proved so successful that most of the grazing geese flew away.

"With the council needing to make economies," he said, "This seemed worth a try to keep the grass short enough to play cricket on."

Flair and Polo were friendly beasts, said Chris and tended not to remain on the square but moove towards Poole Park Railway to be with the pigs, lambs, rabbits and chicks brought in for Easter.

"I don't quite know what we are going to do about the cow pats," he said. "Perhaps we could let them dry out and introduce another park activity of cow pat hurling."

Visitors to the popular park will be asked to help milk the mooers and Sam Hawkins, three and Noah Falconer, 3 were keen to feed the pair and cute calf their morning moosli.

If all goes well Poole Park could end up with its very own Friesian herd.

"And there are all the spin-offs including top quality milk, and we could even make our own cheese.

"Infact we could turn the park into a farm and end up with our very own Farmers Market," enthused Chris.

"Pull the udder one," said a council spokesman.