For four years, Wyre Forest District Council's nature reserves have been managed with the help of grazing animals.

Even after this length of time, the sight of these magnificent rare breed cattle wandering across the reserves is a delight.

The cattle - the majority of which are curly-coated black or light brown belted Galloways with a distinctive white stripe around their middles - arrived on the heathland of the Rifle Range.

It is a truly magnificent sight to see the beasts ambling through the dense heather, gorse and broom, or lying under the shadow of the silver birch trees on sunnier days.

The heaths have been maintained as a natural habitat for millions of years in this way.

Looking across the reserve at these animals contentedly browsing, it is easy to imagine this as a scene which may have been witnessed by our ancestors many thousands of years ago.

Before humans dominated and imposed their wills on the natural world, it would not have been just cattle that wandered through the heaths. There would have been other types of grazing animals as well.

In future, as the heathland around Kidderminster improves, it may be necessary to tweak the way the heaths are grazed to reflect the more natural method of grazing which would have occurred in the past.

The reason why this is important is that different species of animals prefer to eat different things and even the way they eat differs.

It is these differences which create the vast and diverse small scale habitats many specialised heathland creatures need to survive.

One place where a completely different species of grazing animal is being used is the National Nature Reserve, Sutton Park, Birmingham.

Here, Exmoor ponies are used to graze the heath which has proved to be highly successful.

One thing which was discovered is that at some times of the year around 50 per cent the ponies' diet can consist of gorse.

On many of our heaths, gorse is one of the problem species which needs to be controlled to prevent it taking over all of the reserve.

Having an animal like an Exmoor pony which would naturally keep this under control would seem a very interesting idea.

At present, the cattle shy away from eating the prickly gorse so the Ranger Service has to resort to mechanically controlling it.

Despite the obvious advantages of Exmoor ponies there is still much work to be done to thoroughly investigate animal welfare and site suitability issues before any ideas of introducing these animals to our heaths could be seriously considered.