The Urban Herd often passes by our home – so often that we actually name individual animals we easily recognise. Here is the Mud Cow, for example, so named because she looks as though she has been splashed with mud. This photograph of her was taken in November 2021 when she was grazing on our pavement.
Late yesterday afternoon she was on the pavement in front of the house next door to ours – this time with a skittish calf in tow.
She was one of a larger group of the Urban Herd we had not seen in the gathering gloom until our return. A few of them are caught in the headlights through the windscreen. There were many more dark shapes in the background that we had to wait for before we could proceed.
From time to time we come across a new-born calf. This one was nestled in the grass while its mother grazed nearby on the hill above our home.
At other times we can hear the mournful bleating of a calf that has become separated from the rest of the herd, like this one a short distance below where we live.
Here is a part of the Urban Herd resting in the park below our house. For some reason – apparently a new mower has been purchased – the municipality recently mowed the grass there for the first time in months. The Urban Herd still pays it regular visits though for there is water from a leak that has been untended for years and plenty of shade for them to lie under while they chew the cud.