Cows on Powers Hill, with Butterow behind

Looking out over the valley and the hillsides behind our house, I saw the grazing cattle were in a nearby field. I suddenly had the urge to go for a walk and see if I could get close to them for a blip.

I'd started the day rather early, with a meeting at 8-15am about the council's proposed purchase of a new tractor and mower for the parks and gardens in Stroud. Jim had arranged to have his proposed machine for a trial this morning up at the cemetery where the green spaces team are based. I was of the same opinion as him about which machine would be best.

Walking back through the lower cemetery, I heard the sound of what I think is a very young buzzard. I have heard it occasionally for some weeks now, and so I tried to walk about and locate the source, possibly where its nest was, but I didn't manage it.

This evening I walked to another field on the edge of Powers Hill, where I have heard the same rather plaintiff bleating. But there was no bird life there either as far as I could see or hear. But the cows appeared alongside the hazel trees which provide cover along the side of the Lime Brook stream that runs down the Horns Valley behind our house.

At first I sat and photographed them approaching me in line abreast, with at least twenty cows, with their heads down munching grass. The light was poor in the fading grey sky. As they neared me I walked round and past them to get behind the light, and as I did so, the sun crept through some holes in the clouds.

I love this view across to the far side of the Golden Valley, where you can see the houses of Butterow, perched way up the steep slopes below Rodborough Common. There are so many views, that I might do a series of cattle shots, as they are doing what cows have done here for centuries, browsing in a wooded 'parkland', which is actually farmland, but the townspeople treat it as their open space leading away into the countryside of narrow lanes and paths amongst fields and woods.

The cows were very friendly and after this shot came and stood only feet away from me, looking up at my face and chewing the grass and leaves they had been browsing. Two cows saw a cat scrambling in the scrub on the edge of a section of wood, and they quickened their pace and went and stared into the long grass and shrubs, inquisitively.