Cows
Cows outnumber humans 4:1 on the archipelago of Orkney. Thus, the sight of a human is a rare and special occasion for a herd of cattle. I discovered this fact while searching for a walking route to take after work. Mapy.cz, my favorite hiking app, directed me to a nearby footpath. It looked promising at first…
The moment I came near the path, an entire herd of cattle ambled over to say hi.
It’s a good thing cows are so friendly. I’d never seen such a curious group of animals before.
The more timid cows gathered near the edges. They have yellow tags in their ears, and I took to referring to them by their numbers. The mottled black-and-white one here would be 2719.
2814
One cow in particular stood out. She was practically fighting her way to the front to get a look at me. She had wild eyes and a white nose with a large whorl on the left side.
She came closer
and closer.
I gave her a pat.
… She returned the favor.
About Cows
No fruit and very little in the way of vegetables are grown on the islands. Instead, 95% of the agricultural land on the island is given over to grassland and grazing. (The rest is barley.) Caring for the cattle of Orkney is a job occupying about 10% of the permanent workforce. And what a job it is.
Cows can eat 25-30 pounds of grass every day. The field that these cattle were in looked like it was almost grazed down to the dirt. Scottish people invented grass, so it grows quickly here, but the cows give it a run for its money.
I asked ChatGPT why cows have black tongues and it provided several very scientific possibilities:
Diet and Behavior: Since cows often use their tongues to grasp and manipulate food, the dark pigmentation may help reduce wear and tear or damage from their rough diet, which includes various plants and grasses.
Evolutionary Advantage: There may be evolutionary advantages to having a darker tongue, though the specific benefits might vary and are not fully understood. Darker pigmentation might help prevent infections or other tongue-related issues.
Sure… that makes lots of sense.
Wet
Here I discovered another fact about cows, which is that they are very, very wet creatures. I imagined cattle were phlegmatic in the dignified, British sense; I found that they were instead phlegmatic in the gross, mucousy sense.
Several times as I watched them, a cow would utter a deep, almost human cough, and huge wads of spittle would fly from its mouth and hang in great ropy strands of drool. I tried to capture this on video for some reason but was fortunately unsuccessful.
Curious
The other characteristic shared by this particular herd of cattle was a deep curiosity about everything in their world. Obviously I was the most interesting thing that they had seen in ages, and they couldn’t get enough of me. But other things fascinated their little bovine minds as well.
The color of this strand of barbed wire suggests that these two aren’t the first cows to give it the full force of their undivided attention.
And in every picture I took the cows would examine me with their quizzical cow expression. I love these guys.
I started walking away from the herd but they wouldn’t leave me alone. They trailed behind me, plodding gently along.
In fact, some of them pulled ahead and outstripped me.
The rest followed more sedately.
I was sad to leave them.
Glamor
Cows can put on the looks when they want to. Also, I love taking pictures of things through grass.
A little further down the road there were some slightly more refined cows. These ones didn’t come running out to see me, but stayed patiently where they stood. Clearly, these were the upper crust of cows.
And finally… the two natural features of Kirkwall, side by side. Cows and wind, together at last.
