Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #6

That reindeer is still proving elusive (perhaps I'll do better at Christmas?), but I have located some bison, as previously hinted, maybe jokingly.

It did occur to me that Longleat Safari Park was in Wiltshire, but I felt that it would be cheating to include unusual animals imported to be a commercial public attraction such as in a zoo.

The herds of bison to be found on Bush Farm in West Knoyle are on view to the public, but it is a fully working farm where the bison are farmed primarily for their meat. Indeed bison burgers are on sale from the deep freeze at the farm shop, along with cuts of venison from elk and pork chops from Oxford Sandy and Black pigs. They cooked me a bison burger for lunch - prior to my meeting the bison, to avoid any awkward conflict of interest - and very fine it was, with only 10% of the fat of a choice beef burger.

I was fortunate as a large group of them came up to where I was, to drink at the water trough, and they were surprisingly placid and cautious, very much like cattle; one of them even allowing me to stroke his nose. I was glad he didn't know about my lunch.

I did have a card in the camera this time, but was not free of technical problems, as several images were severely over-exposed, apparently randomly, and all with the 55-300 zoom. I suspect a lever in the lens barrel is jamming.

L.
13.8.2010

The series so far:
Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #1: Jacob sheep
Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #2: Appaloosa pony
Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #3: alpacas
Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #4: pygmy goats
Unusual Animals In Wiltshire Fields #5: shire horses

Bison Centre at Bush Farm, 12 August 2010 (Flickr album of 89 images)