The Chillingham Cattle

FROM MY ARCHIVES

15th July 2006

A few days ago, one of the members on the ZooChat forum asked if anyone had visited Chillingham Park in Northumberland to see the herd of cattle that live there. I remembered my visit in July 2006 and I decided to look up my photos from that day. When I found the raw files, I recalled that I had used my first digital camera, a Nikon D70, and processed my pictures on an early version of Photoshop. I couldn’t help wondering what they would look like if I reprocessed them with Capture NX2, a more recent version of Photoshop and the skills I have acquired since 2006.

I really liked the results. So I posted a couple of them on the ZooChat website and I decided to post them here too. They reminded me how lucky I was to get brilliant views of the cattle. I also downloaded the text and images that I had posted on the Nikon Cafe website to refresh my memory.

In 2006 visitors had to walk over a hill from the castle, but there is a new car park now which shortens the walk. You still have to meet the warden at the entrance to the cattle enclosure where there is a shelter called the Hemmel. The cattle can be dangerous, so you can only go into their enclosure accompanied by a warden. It was a beautiful day and I was very lucky that I arrived on my own, between larger parties. The herd was scattered, but most of them were moving down the hill to drink in the stream. It happened that the warden considered that the nearest animals to the left and right were both untrustworthy and so she offered me a short ride in the Land Rover to get close enough for photos. I was delighted.

My first sequence of photos includes my personal favourites because they remind me of the wild character of the cattle and their place in the landscape. A large bull approached a cow and then called to the herd.

These cattle are effectively wild animals: the bulls smear themselves with mud (and less pleasant substances) and fight each other. Only the strongest bulls sire calves until they are defeated by younger rivals. In spite of many generations of inbreeding, this competition may have helped to keep the cattle healthy and vigorous. When I visited there were about 50 animals in the herd, but there was no undisputed ‘King’ bull and there had been a lot of fighting the day before my visit, which is probably why the warden was cautious.
There are other strains of white park cattle, but this herd is unique. The cattle are never handled or managed in any way, except that they are given some hay in bad winter weather. No one knows when the herd was established, but the park beside Chillingham castle has been enclosed since the 13th century. Detailed records only go back to 1692, but it is believed that no new blood has been added to the herd. These animals are one of the most primitive surviving breeds of cattle, in many ways resembling their extinct wild ancestor, the aurochs. Charles Darwin took a great interest in them when he was studying the effects of domestication. The cattle are so important that a small reserve herd has been established in Scotland, just in case foot and mouth disease arrives at Chillingham.

Shooting photos through the open window of the Land Rover was exciting, it was effectively a twenty minute safari in the heart of Northumberland. The cattle know the Land Rover because it carries their winter feed so they came closer as they walked down to the beck. I realised that I had no excuse for poor photographs.

A young bull and a cow approach - note the wound behind the bull's foreleg, probably from the previous day's fighting, it looks black because of the flies clustering on it.

 

The bull comes closer.
 

 
I also had excellent photo opportunities when two calves came close to the Land Rover.
 

All these photos were taken with my 300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor, except for the last one when I switched to my Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro. In the end I could have used a wide angle lens (provided I stayed safely in the Land Rover).

Until 2005, a flock of sheep was also grazed in the Park. Once they were removed the grazing for the cattle improved and the herd now numbers over 100 animals.
I can thoroughly recommend a visit, for more details see the Chillingham cattle home page http://www.chillinghamwildcattle.com/page-2

The moral of the story? Keep your raw files as digital negatives which can be processed and reprocessed as required. Keep backup copies too!

Visiting a New Zoo

MONGOOSE LEMURS AT WILD PLACE

26th July 2013

Bristol Zoo has owned the Hollywood Towers estate for many years. It is just to the west of the M5, opposite the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre. Bristol Zoo itself has only a small urban site, so it can only hold a limited collection of animals, particularly as modern welfare standards mean that animals are now given far more space than they had in the bad old days. There have long been plans to develop the estate as Bristol Zoo’s animal park in the country – the west country equivalent of London Zoo’s country park at Whipsnade.

There were ambitious plans a few years ago, but the current government’s austerity cuts to regional development aid put plans them on the back burner (the same happened to Chester Zoo’s plans for a big new African exhibit). But they have built some new exhibits, modernised some others that were previously used for holding stock off-show and adapted some farm buildings to provide facilities for visitors. When everything was ready, Wild Place opened on the 22nd of July.

I called in on the 26th because I was passing and I was curious. I knew that there were only a few animal exhibits, but I was surprised to see that there were lots of play areas for children, nice gardens and woodland walks too. I felt that at the moment Wild Place is aiming at families with young children who want to spend a day in the country with plenty of activities for the kids and some animals to look at too. I hope it attracts plenty of visitors so that the animal collection can be expanded.

For the zoo enthusiast the best exhibit is the lemur walkthrough. It is nicely themed with some Madagascar theme displays in the first compound: pygmy goats, a schoolroom, a market stall and a wonderful trough for washing hands (a hygiene requirement after visiting the lemurs). The second compound holds ring-tailed, red-fronted and mongoose lemurs, with indoor housing and an open area which will look much better when the planting has grown a little. My favourites were the pair of mongoose lemurs. They are smaller than the other species but this pair was very active and they had the charming habit of keeping in contact by grunting softly to each other. Here is the female striding along.

The male enjoying a bit of aubergine (I think). Both photos taken with my 105mm macro lens.

A leaping lemur! This photo was taken with my old 18 to 70mm Nikkor zoom lens, which was the kit lens for my old D70, it was at maximum focal length and has been cropped too - I was using it for some wide angle shots of the collection for the ZooChat website, but I couldn't resist trying to capture the action.