A job well done for ‘Big George’ and friends
AFTER a winter of stomping, chomping and occasionally “mooing”, the conservation grazing cattle have now left Ainsdale and Birkdale Sandhills Local Nature Reserve.
The place already seems quieter without them even as birdsong increases and the spring progresses.
This winter the two small herds of Longhorn cattle proved as popular as ever, whether it was the “polled” group on Ainsdale or the proud party of fully horned beasts led by Big George on the sandhills at Birkdale.
Working with Lancashire Wildlife Trust the magnificent livestock were monitored on a daily basis by Green Sefton staff and volunteers to ensure they remained fit and healthy as they carried out vital dune work over the winter months.
Ironically we only tend to see the benefit of their work once they have gone areas of cropped vegetation and trampled saplings keep the dune system open with plenty of patches of bare sand.
They control the spread of scrub and remove rank vegetation or biomass left from the autumn.
By the very action of walking, these big beasts “poach” the ground, churning areas up for it to dry come spring and become attractive for a host of specialised dune species.
By clearing the ground dune this allows species including Rue-Leaved Saxifrage and Heath Dog Violet to appear in profusion and in turn they act as valuable food plants for a range of insects. The caterpillars of the dune system’s biggest butterfly, the Dark Green Fritillary for example, rely on Heath Dog Violet as a food source.
This source of food would be lost if scrub was allowed to spread unabated, while bare sand is attractive to heat lovers including Sand Lizards, Natterjack Toads and Northern Dune Tiger Beetles.
Green Sefton, the Lancashire Wildlife Trust (and, of course, Big George and his friends) would like to thank the majority of dogwalkers who followed the Countryside Code when around the livestock over the winter, keeping their pets under control and away from cattle and sheep in our fenced enclosures so they could graze peacefully and without harm.
This year app technology allowed visitors to the dunes to log on and discover exactly where the cows were on the Local Nature Reserve at Ainsdale and Birkdale and so avoid them if necessary.
We look forward to the herds returning to the Sefton dune system in October after a summer break at Lancashire Wildlife Trust reserves in the North West.
Green Sefton’s Countryside Officer Gordon White commented: “Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s cows have done an excellent job again and coupled with the other winter conservation works from the core and stewardship teams, contractors and tireless groups and individual conservation volunteers, the habitat improvements across the council’s protected sites have been very successful this winter.”