The ponies at Prestwick are starting to have an impact opening some areas of the grassland. It's just a shame that the water levels have risen back up to near winter level with the rain we have had this month. Once they have dropped back again some of the rushes will be cut open it up some more.

They always get the better of you don't they.
The 4 cattle on Druridge pools have been quite happily settled there for several months now. There were 2 steers (castrated males) and 2 females one of which was a free martin. A free martin is the female from a pair of twins and is almost always infertile. The plan was to bring another 4 in to join them which would have been female, but before this could happen the one fertile female in the group decided she couldn't wait any longer and jumped 3 fences and travelled 2 fields to find a bull. Once there she quite happily stayed and was not keen on returning. After much discussion about the possibility / probability of this happening again it was decided that the best course of action would be to take the cattle off for now. This isn't ideal as the grass is still growing and should ideally be shorter for the migratory wildfowl which start to pass through at the end of this month but the probability of this happening again is far to high and if young cattle are bulled before they are big enough it results in difficult calvings and a strong chance that the mother and calf will not survive. We will have to rely on the ponies and possibility some sheep to keep the grass down for the rest of this summer.
Next year it will be all steers and not hormonal teenagers!!

In between the showers haymaking has been progressing at Cleadon hills SSSI.

There are areas which cannot be cut by machine. Every few years an effort is made to cut these areas by hand which is very time consuming and costly and means they are not quite as good as
they could be.
Over the long term it would be beneficial to graze the hay aftermaths (regrowth) and other areas in the autumn and spring. An initial consultation process is being started looking at the feasibility of grazing hardy Exmoor ponies over the area for a few weeks each year.

Have been across to Whittledene today and moved the sheep from the bbq field for a while. Then it was on up Kielder to check out the grazing at Bakethin and Yarrow and work out a plan for the next few months. Bakethin will be Exmoor ponies and Yarrow ponies and cattle. While we were up there it started to chuck it down and the rain has pretty much followed us all the way back to Gosforth.

On the way back we came around via Fontburn and the 2 ponies there look well with the site starting improve. I am going to put on a few sheep next week to help it along a bit. They will probably be Shetlands along with some others breeds yet to be decided, it depends which ones volunteer on the day!

Some Highland cows have now joined the ponies and sheep at Prestwick, they have not long since calved and have some cute little calves with them. They are very good mothers and protective of their offspring so it is best to keep a respectable distance from them until they settle in.

They will be grazing out on the rushy areas while it is fairly dry and the water levels reasonably low.

They were going to graze the fields beside the road for a few days but that has had to be postponed until some fencing work is done behind the houses. There was a gate missing and the garden fences don't seem to be 'Highland cow proof'! We wouldn't want them turning up to a barbeque uninvited!

The sheep are now off the top section of Whittledene aqueduct, which they have been grazing for the early summer period this year. They have moved to the bbq field where they will stay until the early autumn when they move back onto the aqueduct for the winter grazing period. It will be interesting to see what flower species come into bloom on the heavily grazed area later this summer.

Surveys at Whittle

The grazing at the Whittle aqueduct has been a little experimental. last year a length of this site was grazed until June giving a late flush of flowers. We returned to survey the site and see what was the result of this late grazing and to compare it with the more conventinally spring and autumn grazed section. The diversity of plants on the site was certainly impressive, over 20 species in some of the quadrats. However, the area grazed late last year did seem to be a little more grass dominated, a huge range of species were to be seen but the grass was quite lush in comparison. We need to continue the work and surveys to assess this more fully.