Ever wonder what a cow does with its time across one of our nature reserves? Well, check out the video below to see a single month in the life of one of our Powerstock Common cattle.

When you’re out and about on our nature reserves, you may well have noticed a variety of different grazing animals. The reason we have introduced them is because they play a vital role in maintaining the ecological integrity of our sites. Many of the habitats that are supported on our nature reserves have developed in the presence of grazing animals, whether previously wild herbivores or more recently domesticated ones. 

Grazing animals help to control growth of vigorous floral species within our open grassland swards. Without control, some dominant species of grasses tend to overrun our delicate wildflowers. Over time this would lead to the loss of these, reducing diversity along with abundance of insects which rely on the wildflowers for various stages of their life. Apart from the munching, they also play a crucial role in ground disturbance, providing bare ground for seed germination. Not to mention helping to distribute seed wider across our nature reserves.

Not all the work is done by the front end of the animal though! Dung from these animals plays crucial role in nutrient cycling and supporting a wealth of species. Up to 200 individual beetles can live within one cow pat. The species which come to use the dung, are often the basis of the food chain, being prey items for larger animals such as birds and bats.

Our larger grazers, cattle and ponies especially, maintain a level of habitat heterogeneity across our nature reserves. They aid in creating a variety of heights and densities, whether through browsing scrub or our lower grassland sward. Through increasing this difference, it gives more variety of ecological niches for the species calling our nature reserves home.

So next time you come across that cow, munching its way round our nature reserve, just think of where it’s been and all the things it been up to!

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