FOR many years, cattle have been grazing the nature reserves of the Wyre Forest district. While animals come and go, many of the animals currently living out on the reserves have been there since birth and have learned many things about the reserve that even the rangers who look after them have yet to find out.

One example of this happened just the other day when I when to check on the animals grazing Wilden Marsh in Stourport. This is a large reserve, stretching along the length of the Stour from Wilden village to Kidderminster, and is owned and managed by Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. This reserve supports an array of interesting and nationally rare wildlife that are in part looked after by the animals of the Wyre Forest GAP project.

The GAP project is a partnership between Wyre Forest District Council, Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, Natural England and a farmer who owns the animals.

The project employs a cattle ranger (who is as close as you are going to get to a cowboy in our district) but even he has days off or needs a little help from time to time, meaning us rangers have to muck in and help.

This particular day it was my turn and fortunately they did have the full freedom of this site. There are a few compartments which help concentrate the animal’s grazing patterns to help target specific plant species but the area they did have is large and wild enough.

The previous night it had rained heavily and with it being a marsh I was expecting to find the animals up on the dry ground well away from the water logged reed and rush beds. It took me about an hour walking a zig-zag pattern through this rough grassland peering under scrubby trees.

They have got to know me well over the years and will usually come when I call them, in hope of a small treat, but they are quite lazy sometimes and know I will always go find them in the end.

But this time, they were nowhere in sight. I even rang the cattle ranger to make sure he had not moved them to a different field but were told they were there somewhere.

I had to venture out into the marsh to look for them as one or all of them could be in trouble. This was not to be taken lightly so I waited for a fellow ranger to arrive to accompany me.

Previously, a young cow had run in after getting through one of the fences. It made his way back to the herd but I had to be pulled out of the bog.

So into the marsh we went picking our way using the sparse scatterings of willow trees as refuges. The cows were spotted in what we felt was the wettest area of the marsh. We wadded and splashed through the tussocks of rush towards them.

The animals slipped from view as we got nearer, hidden by some scrub and then appeared looking at us some 20m away, with what I can all but imagine is a expression of puzzlement on their faces. We waded and scrambled towards them and found the ground they were on was firm with hardly any water. They munched the snack and once they felt there was little else on offer walked off on what we could now see as a well-trodden and dry path that lead to a high spot covered in lush grass.

We followed the cow trail back as they led us effortlessly though this otherwise harsh environment on a secret path known only to them.