Wessington Pasture

WARNING: Grazing longhorn cattle with calves and bull on site. From Tuesday 26th April to early June.

No dogs allowed during this period.

Longhorn cattle will be grazing this reserve from Tuesday 26th April. They will include cows with young calves, pregnant cows and a bull. There may also be a few rare breed rams grazing amongst the cows. These cows will defend their calves if they feel threatened by dogs. We have decided to ask walkers to not bring their dogs to this reserve whilst livestock are present. This will help reduce stress in the cattle and potential risk to you and your dog.

In addition, a noticeable volume of dog faeces has been allowed to accumulate by dog owners, which now potentially threatens both the wildlife and livestock. Dog faeces can contain an assortment of diseases that can seriously affect the health of cows and sheep, including inducing abortions in pregnant cows. We will be expecting any future dog owners to ensure they remove their own dog’s faeces whenever using this reserve outside of any grazing periods.

Please feel free to walk along the permissive paths through this reserve but without your dog. We hope this does not interrupt or reduce your enjoyment of this reserve too much. 

For more information, contact Neville Hart, Reserves Manager on 01432 356872.

The Parks nature reserve

The Trust has now acquired its latest nature reserve at The Parks, Dulas Court, near Ewyas Harold. Covering 44 acres (18 hectares) this fantastic unimproved lowland meadow is set in the beautiful Dulas valley. The grassland is very diverse with plants such as yellow rattle, quaking grass, burnet saxifrage, common and heath spotted orchids. Already recorded on the site is the club-tailed dragonfly that is probably using the brook in its larval stages as are otter, brown trout, kingfisher and the white clawed crayfish. There will be a more detailed article about The Parks in the next Wildside, the Trust newsletter.

Whilst the Trust has been able to draw on the generosity of two legacies from Roland Wilkes and Cyril Jarrold we have also had to empty our land purchase budget and borrow a considerable amount of money in order to purchase the land prior to auction. We now need to raise the funds to pay off the loan and to secure future management.

Click here if you would like to donate towards securing the future of The Parks reserve.