Tussocks and Dung

The pasture land, or inbye land, which is given over to farm livestock is in the top part of Blacka. All of Blacka should be predominantly for the enjoyment of visitors but as it is managed nobody could say that about the pasture land. Unless, that is, your hobby is photographing or recording the distribution of farm animal excrement.
I’ve not yet met such a person but we live in funny times and odd things do happen. Not much though as odd as this place being designated part of a SSSI with requirements that it’s managed by conservationists in the way that it is, making it unnatural and about as uninspiring as a 5 year management plan. I’ve sometimes tried to think of a way to make this place entertaining within the terms of its present conservation management. One idea was to blindfold a walker, turn him round, and lay bets on how many seconds before his boot came down in a cowpat; or, alternatively, sheep faeces.
Stakes and rewards for the two would be differential.
But the presence of the cattle is a great example of the scam of conservation grazing. Because the livestock are not there primarily for the benefit of the grazier who owns the animals. They are there to fulfil the grand scheme of managing for wildlife - allegedly for upland breeding birds. This is about as thorough a piece of nonsense as you can get. The officers who decide these things make it up as they go according to what grants are available. A couple of years ago a Natural England officer suggested keeping the cattle on the inbye land over winter ‘to deal with the tussocks’. This immediately became policy and lovers of cow pats have thanked her ever since. Yet where is the evidence that tussocks are bad or a lack of tussocks is good? A friend whose tolerance is greater than mine saw another conservationist on BBC television’s Countryfile programme saying that tussocks are grand things for ground nesting birds. Now my attention has been drawn by one of Mark’s recent articles that “rough tussocky grassland” is just what barn owls need because it is ideal for field voles much valued food supply for the owls. See this page on the website of the Barn Owl Trust. But then we always knew that conservationists were making things up as they went along and that the confidence with which they implied they know best is assumed and phoney.