Nature’s Top 40: Britain’s Best Wildlife. Chris Packham

phenomenal floral diversity provides food and accommodation for a wide variety of invertebrates such as snails, grasshoppers, spiders, harvestmen and rare bumblebees, which, in turn, provide food for a range of agricultural birds that have declined massively on mainland Britain but of which the Outer Hebrides still have healthy populations. The machair and adjacent crofting lands on the Inner and Outer Hebrides have now become the last remaining strongholds of the corncrake, with recent surveys indicating that the islands may well hold at least 90 per cent of the British population of just under 600 calling males. This notorious skulker was difficult to see even in its heyday, when it could be heard repeating its strange rasping call up to 20,000 times a night all over rural Britain. Looking rather like a cross between a grey and rusty-coloured chicken and a moorhen, the corncrake began to decline on mainland Britain at the turn of the 20th century because of agricultural intensification. As hay fields were cut mechanically, the grass was cut earlier and removed for silage in early summer, the nests, young and even the adults disappeared rapidly. However, late cutting and the low-level of mechanisation is still commonplace in the Outer Hebrides today, which allows the corncrakes to hide in plentiful cover at harvest time, giving them a fighting chance. Grants and subsidies in return for good farm practice are also now available, and corncrake numbers seem to have started very slowly improving on the islands.

      Other birds present in healthy numbers on the machair, while becoming rarer on the mainland, include corn bunting and twite. The lack of pesticides used on the crops means that there are plenty of beetles and caterpillars that birds can catch to feed their young. Also, after the harvest, the abundant fields of stubble and seeds from wild flowers ensure there is enough food for the birds to survive the winter as they rove the machair in their large flocks.

      Of all the birds on the machair, the habitat is most famous for its breeding waders, with an estimated 17,000 pairs on the western fringes of the Uists and Barra alone. The most numerous breeding wader is the lapwing, but there are also large numbers of dunlin, ringed plover, oystercatcher, redshank and snipe. Because of the rich mosaic of habitats, the rotational form of agriculture and the lack of ground-based predators on the islands, these machair locations may well hold close to 40 per cent of the entire British breeding population of dunlin and close to a third of lapwing and ringed plover.

      Curiously, the only recent threat to the waders has been the introduction of the hedgehog, as Miss Tiggywinkle has an unfortunate penchant for wader eggs. With efforts being made to tackle this problem, however, there is hope that the display calls of the lapwings, snipe and corncrake, in addition to the vast wild flower blooms, will be spectacles for many years to come in the land of the machair.

32 Wild goats rutting

       While watching wild goats negotiate the most terrifying vertical cliffs and sheer precipices with such adroitness in places like Snowdonia, it is hard to believe that these hardy beasts only exist in some of our wildest places thanks to a helping hand from prehistoric man. These descendants of the original domesticated goat stock look as much part of the scenery as the drystone walls that weave up and down the mountainsides.

       Wild goats

       WHEN

       October and November for the rut, although the goats will be resident all year round

       WHERE

       Snowdonia, North Wales; Lundy Island; Valley of the Rocks, Lynton, Devon

       Since having been introduced, goats now seem part of the furniture in some of our wildest places.

      Alan Williams

      Feral goats in Britain are confined to mountainous districts, cliff tops and islands; they are widespread in Scotland, and occur locally in a few remote locations across northern England and Wales. Perhaps the best-known and most easily encountered population is the famous feral goats of Snowdonia. With the red deer long since exterminated from Wales’s most famous national park, it is curious that the only remaining large herbivore that is both tough and canny enough to survive in this unforgiving landscape, is an introduced goat.

      It is thought that goats were originally introduced to North Wales when Neolithic man first crossed the Channel to colonise Britain from mainland Europe over 5,000 years ago, bringing his domesticated livestock, such as goats from the Middle East, with him. Then, around 1,500 years ago, during the Iron Age, the farmers are believed to have taken their goats into the mountains to feed and the animals’ descendants are thought to have stayed ever since.

      For many centuries the goats held sway as they were used for their hair, hide, milk and meat; even up to the Middle Ages, goats were believed to have been more abundant than sheep, as they were able to graze the precipitous crags to the exclusion of less sure-footed and often more valuable cattle. It was not really until the 19th century that goat numbers began to decline as sheep numbers began to rise, due in part to the high demand for wool. By this time, however, many of the goats had become feral and the wild population was bolstered by escaped goats or those that were let loose once no longer needed.

      The wild Snowdonia goats of today most closely resemble breeds that have not been seen in domestic herds for over 100 years, meaning they have considerable historical and cultural value, in addition to being an integral part of the local wildlife. The goats are in small clusters around the park, with well-known herds existing on the Glyders, around Beddgelert, on the Moelwyns and the Rhinogs; since these groups are largely isolated, this has resulted in subtle differences in appearance between the herds.

      The feral male goat or billy is an imposing sight, reaching 90 centimetres at the shoulder and weighing between 45 and 55 kilograms, with the main difference between the wild version and the domesticated goat being that the wild goat has much longer hair, enabling it to tough out the worst possible Welsh weather. The females, or nannies, are much smaller, attaining a height of no more than 70 centimetres at the shoulder, with shorter hair and weighing approximately half the weight of their male counterparts. The coat colour of the males is generally piebald with black or brown blotches, but some can be entirely grey or black all over. The females, however, are usually much whiter and can be picked out among the rock scree at distance and can also be distinguished from the sheep as they only appear as pale as the goats when they are freshly shorn.

      Apart from the obvious size difference, the sexes can be easily distinguished by their respective sets of horns: mature males have a large set of curled horns which can curve back towards the centre; the females’ are thinner, straighter and more pointed. Both sexes grow rings around their horns (although they are more prominent on the male) with each ring representing a year’s growth and the distance between the rings decreasing in the oldest goats. Unlike the antlers of red deer, which are shed after the rut and then regrown every summer, if the goat breaks its horns they will not grow back. Males that have lost their horns generally compensate of being heavier than the horned billies of an equivalent age. Both sexes also have the celebrated ‘goatee’ beards, although the tuft on the males is usually not to be as visible within their long coat.

      The goats in Snowdonia tend to stay on the high ground most of the year, only descending during really harsh weather. The females spend most of their time in small groups of three to six within the boundaries of their home range, while the males will wander larger distances so they can visit and monitor several female groups. However, during the breeding season in September and October, much larger aggregations will form, making this the best time to look for these naturally wary animals as they drop their guard slightly while mating.

      Brief fights are common between the males as they jostle for the right to mate with the nannies, but the most prolonged scraps occur when two males of a similar age and horn size meet hoof to hoof, with the reward of a group of receptive nannies going to the winner. In a scene more reminiscent of primeval fighting ibex in the Alps, the two evenly matched billies will then rise up on their