NHM: Wildlife Garden Sheep

More unexpected in large ("L").

I know that I'm tired, but when I saw an electric fence at the edge of the Wildlife Garden last week, I really ought to have investigated further... I went to check on the moorhens (waterfowl withdrawal symptoms are getting pretty bad...) on my way back to DC2 after my lunch break, and was quite unprepared for what I saw. I'd heard that the museum had previously had sheep to graze on the meadow, but didn't realise that it was a regular summer occurrence! One of them even stuck its tongue out at me! I'll definitely be revisiting these next week with my 70-200 attached.

Here is the text from the board beside the meadow:
Our grazing sheep

Our greyface Dartmoor sheep are helping us manage the hay meadow and chalk downland by grazing. The meadow is usually cut for hay in mid-July, allowing time for the wild flowers to set seed. The plants are allowed to grow for a few weeks and are then grazed. The grazing and trampling action of the animals will help seeds to germinate.

After grazing, the meadow will be left and then either cut or grazed again in February or March. This will allow for the meadow grasses and wildflowers to bloom and set before cutting for next year's hay crop. Chalk downland was traditionally grazed by sheep all year round. Sheep grazing helps to control coarse grasses such as false-oat grasss (Arrhenatherum elitius) and tor grass (Brachypodium pinnatum). By leaving some areas ungrazed we hope to create a mosaic of different grassland heights, which is important for birds, mammals, and invertebrate fauna.

This is a grazing partnership with the London Wetland Centre in Barnes.


My mother went to visit the Goosles this evening and reported that they were grazing on the grass slightly away from the pond (where Mr. met Mrs. when she took breaks from incubating her eggs on the nest); Mr. and Mrs. were being fairly sedate, but the little Goosle (now presumably a fledgling) was chasing pigeons. She said it charged around getting quite a long way from its parents, and would doggedly chase individual wood pigeons even past other closer pigeons! Ha, funny little thing...
We're going to visit them in the morning, so I'll finally get to catch up with them (it has been more than a week now!). I hope that they recognise me...

Tomorrow looks good: I'm very much looking forward to a blipmeet (!), and hope to catch up with your journals and my replies to all of the kind feedback you've been giving me. There ought to be plenty of time over this long weekend; fingers crossed.