IT'S that time of year again when our four-legged volunteer workforce make their way out onto the heaths of Kidderminster.

I am, of course, talking about the cattle of the Wyre Forest Grazing Animal Project.

This year, the breed of cattle has changed. In the past the herds have been made up of an assortment of store cattle and Belted Galloways.

Last year, we even had a few highlands roaming through the heathery heaths.

The cattle this year have travelled a long way to join us in Kidderminster in fact, all the way from the northernmost part of the British Isles, Shetland.

For many centuries, cattle have grazed on Shetland and during this time the evolutionary power of natural selection has affected the breed, with only the tough surviving the bleak windswept conditions of the islands.

This process resulted in a distinctive breed known as Shetland cattle, which are renowned for their tough and hardy nature.

As soon as you mention Shetland cattle, people often presume them to be a dwarf species like the world-famous ponies, but this is not the case.

The cattle are a little smaller than the better known breeds, but not greatly so.

The breed has a shaggy coat, which is usually a variety of patchwork shades of white, black, brown and ginger.

They have short, practical forward pointing horns and relatively large, stout tails, perfect for swatting off irritating flies.

However, it is not their appearance that is their most startling feature, it is much more their palate.

Even young cows seem quite happy munching down tough vegetation like bramble leaves and even dried willow herb stems.

Despite the breed's amazing ability to feed on even the roughest of pasture, Shetland cattle nearly became extinct in the 1980s.

Only a recent upsurge of interest in traditional cattle breeds has saved them.

Even so, these days this breed is very few and far between so it is quite the novelty to see them out grazing the rough pasture of Kidderminster's heaths.

The only other place I know where this type of animal is being grazed in England is on the equally bleak salt marsh nature reserves grazed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.