First foal of the season born at nature reserve

The first foal of the season has been born at the Wicken Fen reserve in Cambridgeshire

A first pony of the season has been born at a nature reserve to help its biodiversity.

The konik foal arrived on Friday at the National Trust's Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire.

The reserve's oldest member of the hardy breed, which originates from Poland, was born 30 years ago.

The ponies, leave water-filled hoofprints and piles of dung, that help attract new species of flora and fauna to the lowland landscape.

Koniks play vital role in creating space for nature in one of Europe’s most important wetlands, the charity said

Koniks and Highland cattle were first introduced to Wicken Fen in the early 2000s from the Isle of Mull.

They clear "persistent shrubbery" and their arrival marked the charity's move from a combination of intensive mowing, cutting and scrub-bashing to more sustainable and climate-friendly conservation grazing, the National Trust said.

The trust's ranger Carol Laidlaw said: "They each graze in different ways - horses snip off selected plants with their incisors, creating a mosaic of cropped lawns, while cattle pull or tear at vegetation, leaving tussocks.

"This allows different types of vegetation to thrive and increases the diversity and complexity of habitats available to a wide range of species, from tiny dung beetles to mammals and birds like badgers and bitterns.

"The breeding season for the koniks runs roughly from late March to October, but the season is starting to expand a little, presumably due to the milder winters we are having."

The animals are "semi-wild" and can spar with each other

The first konik foal, Harry, was born on the reserve in 2005 and the first Highland calf, Meadow Rue, arrived a year later.

Konik stallions can sometimes rear up on their hind legs and spar with each other to show "dominance during the foaling season", the charity added.

The animals featured on Sunday night's Grassland episode of BBC One’s Wild Isles, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Koniks can form smaller social groups within the string, or herd, of ponies