Dun Belted Galloway

My edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes the word "dun" as "Of a dull or dingy brown colour; now esp. dull greyish brown, like the hair of the ass and mouse" and suggests it may derive from the Old English "dun(n), the Irish and Gaelic "donn" or the Welsh "dwn". Consequently it is used to describe one of the three colours that feature in Belted Galloway cattle, the others being red (i.e. orange brown) and black. I've seen plenty of Black Belted Galloways, but no reds, and, until recently no duns. However, on a recent family visit to the summit of May Hill, Gloucestershire, I noticed a Dun Belted Galloway cow in the bracken with some black examples of the breed.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Cattle as habitat managers

Walking through Woorgreens Nature Reserve in the Forest of Dean, an area of heathland and a lake, we came across six young Highland cattle. Some were the traditional ginger/brown, the others black. They were introduced in 2019 to restore, create and maintain the heathland by grazing the bramble, coarse grasses and gorse, as well as restricting the bracken by trampling it. This will allow a wider range of plant species to flourish and attract a greater variety of insects, amphibians and birds.

A few weeks earlier, when the cloud was low, we had seen the Belted Galloways of May Hill going about similar work. These cattle, however, sported bells, something we haven't seen in Britain before.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Belted Galloway cattle

We came across this group of a dozen or so Belted Galloway cattle on the steep slopes of the Malvern Hills above the town of Great Malvern. They look somewhat like cattle dressed up in panda suits and were brought there by the Malvern Hills Conservators, the body charged with looking after this range of hills, in order to keep areas of grassland open and unencroached by bracken, shrubs and trees. The distinctive breed originates from the Galloway region of south-west Scotland where its hardy qualities enabled it to turn poor grazing into beef. They are a reasonably common sight in England, used by conservation groups to maintain open pasture and the flora and fauna that depends upon it.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100