Wednesday 30th October - 23 seen

Sussex cow 211 and steers 197 and 1626 were grazing near ///rudder.store.flexibly at 15:45 this afternoon. Cow 211 was very friendly, coming over to greet me with head rubs and plenty of licks. A bit further down the path, a group of twelve cows was gathered near ///vote.reefs.nurses. Cow 212 was still lying down, and it seemed the others had only recently got up. Cows 212, 214, 234 and 1396, along with steers 30, 210, 217, 220, 222, 230, 271 and 1640, all started to graze, stopping to say hello as they made their way west along the path. They appeared happy, relaxed and in good health.

At 16:15, cows 72 and 940, along with steers 20, 219, 227, 228 and 270, were grazing in the heather near ///skin.suits.teams. Despite the gunfire and bangs from a large military training exercise on Gelvert, they continued south through the thicket, all looking well. With three steers still unaccounted for, I searched around the covered reservoir and down by Bourley Road, but had no luck. By the time I returned, the group moved had to ///lively.mallets.shaky, where they continued grazing.

I then looped around James Bond Pond, returning to the first group, now spread out and grazing near ///width.desktop.crest at 16.45. Ten minutes later, I found older steer 21 deep in the gorse bushes near ///writing.bibs.jugs, wrestling with branches that gave away his position. I searched the surrounding area until 17:20, but by then it was fully dark, and I wasn't able to find steers 33 and 35.

The cows that were found were all good today.