Cattle return to graze at Welney
It's that time of the year again when the first herds of cattle are brought back onto the washes at WWT Welney to shortly begin the task of grazing the washes - a traditional way of managing wet grasslands. The cattle graze out any coarse long grasses and promote the diversity of short, finer grasses which are vital for grazing wildfowl in the winter and our ground nesting waders, wildfowl and passerines in the summer.
We do the same with the land alongside the visitor centre (Lady Fen and Bank Farm). At times sheep are also used to graze these sections of immature wetlands, but for the moment two herds of cattle can be seen from the visitor centre grazing in the spring sunshine. One of the herds seen from the visitor centre is rather special, these are the white cattle to the left of the centre, British white cattle.
British white cattle are one of the oldest breeds of cow in the UK and are also a rare breed. We have a herd of 14 British white cattle grazing Lady Fen to promote seed dispersal and future growth of the plant life. This herd comes from from a local farmer, as do the herds out on the washes during the summer, who need exrta summer grazing for livestock.
Within our herd we have one bull, eight cows and five calves. The British White cattle are white with black points (nose, ears, eyes and feet), medium sized cows with a very placid temperament. This breed of cattle date back more than 800 years and were seen as a status symbol in medieval times, before becoming a mainstream dual purpose breed; good for meat and milk.
In the 1800’s the dual purpose breeds started to be over taken in popularity by breeds which were specialised milk or meat producers. So much so that in 1918 there were only 7 recorded herds of British White cattle in the UK. With the help of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) that number rose to 116 herds in the UK in 1990.
If you look closely you may notice that some of our summer birds like yellow wagtail follow the herds of cattle around as they graze. These tiny birds dance right amongst the cattle whilst they are busy catching the insects that the cows disturb from the grasses as they move around the fields and washes.
We hope you enjoy watching our cattle out on the reserve as much as you do the wildlife, especially the calves, who frolic around in their new surrondings.
Photo credits: Emma Brand
