Have a guess what we might be looking at today on the eighth of our twelve days of christmas? Well I’ll give you some clues, they’re a large farm animal, they love grass and they have a tendency to go ‘mooooo’. That’s right, we’re focussing on cows. Cows are very important to the RSPB and not only because they provide us with milk to put in our tea and coffee!!!
You might see grazing cattle at many of our reserves across the country and these help us manage our land for wildlife. Now you may think cows eating all the grass is a bad thing but they help make sure there is a species rich habitat by stopping one plant from dominating. This means there is a wider variety of plants for birds and other wildlife to feed on. They use their tongues to pull tufts of vegetation into their mouth which means they don’t graze vegetation too close to the ground and often leave tussocks of grass which are used by insects and small mammals. You may have seen cows grazing on the grassland and saltmarsh here at Frampton Marsh over the summer.
Cattle in a meadow- Ernie Janes (rspb-images.com)
As well as cows, we also use sheep and ponies for land management. Different types of livestock graze in different ways and so are used for different habitats. For example sheep can graze very close to the ground so are good for keeping grass very short and ponies will leave some areas of pasture untouched resulting in taller patches of vegetation. At Minsmere and Blacktoft Sands we graze Konik ponies. They are a small but hardy breed and have been used for grazing at many nature reserves in Europe to help wildlife over the past decade. They also prove a hit with the visitors!
Konik pony grazing at Minsmere- Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Well anyway that’s maids-a-milking covered, next up is ladies dancing!