Another windy day!

After a long weekend off, I came back to work today and started the oh so glamorous job of poo collection on the koniks on Verralls. This is done every 2 or 3 months so that we can then analyse the poo for worms and assess the approximate level of them in each sample. As we don't worm any of our grazing animals, this is an important thing to keep up as it is the only way for us to see whether worm counts are worryingly high for any individuals. Generally they can cope with quite high levels, and over the year the levels change - in the summer, worm counts are higher than the winter, and so this flux is expected as seasons change.

Spending all the morning out on Verralls waiting for the koniks to poo eventually was finished and I headed back to the office for a well needed brew! In the afternoon, the weekly checks on the rest of the animals needed to be completed. Quite a few of the animals were a bit flighty today due to the strong winds. Over on Harrisons I think Isle (one of the females) is coming into season or has very recently been in season, as lots of the bulls were following her around and the dominant bull (Edmund) was guarding her. When the females are in season, there is definitely more activity going on in the herd and the males frequently are grumbling/braying. It's not a good idea to get too close to them when they're doing this!

After a couple of weeks of carrying out some observations of the group of cattle on Harrisons, I've decided to do my mini research project on the bulls aggressive behaviour. I'm not sure how much I will observe over the coming months, but hopefully enough to do some kind of analysis on and produce something that will be useful! Before christmas, I am going to finalise the details of it and potentially start some data collection. That reminds me, all the visitor centre decorations have been put up today (and over the next couple of days) so it's well worth a visit to come and see them! Also, on Saturday is the 'late night shopping' evening at the fen, a good chance to see all the festiveness around here!

Hope you have a good evening and thanks for reading!