Lambs will soon be seen once again in the meadows and can be stroked if you go to one of the many farm parks throughout the country but Kay Green wonders are they are intelligent?

Sheep once considered the epitome of silliness have over recent years been receiving a reassessment in the press. Researchers at Cambridge have found that they are not so dim after all; they are able to recognise other sheep.

The team led by Keith Kendrick found that sheep which were separated from the flock suffered acute separation anxiety but were calmed by a picture of another sheep which they preferred to an inverted triangle or to the picture of a goat. They found a picture of the same breed of sheep even more calming; best of all was a picture of sheep that they knew personally.

So that’s proves it; sheep are able to think after all.

However anybody who has more than a passing acquaintance with sheep knows that they may be able to think but most of the time they choose not to.

Take a drive through any of our National Parks, the Lake District, Dartmoor, Snowdonia or the South Downs and you will find a sheep who is happy to hurl herself in front of your car rather than be separated for an instance from her mates. Indeed, whereas most animals have learnt through bitter experience or hearsay that cars are dangerous; badgers, rabbits, birds, squirrels will all make an attempt to run away from cars, sheep have come to believe that vehicles are benign; after all how could a creature which at times brings hay or sheep nuts be anything but good?.

So, if she is sleeping or ruminating in the roadway and your car approaches she will open a yellow eye and decide that you are either a hallucination or, possibly, persuade herself that if she sits tight you will simply back away, or better still drop out sheep nuts.

Hooting and even a gentle nudge with a front bumper may make her clamber reluctantly to her feet eventually. This is in sharp contrast to what happens if you get out of your car. If cars are perceived as good, then people are perceived as far more dangerous. People, after all, own dogs. Any youngster who hopes to be able to stroke a sheep will find them tantalisingly always a few arms lengths out of reach as they amble absentmindedly, or maybe if Dr Kendrick is right, cunningly, away from the outstretched hand.

But the stupidity, even if it is an illusion, is endearing. The simple round face, the soft unfocussed expression is comforting in a stressed out world. Then there are lambs. In this age when supermarkets are stocked with asparagus all the year round it can come of something of a shock to find the seasons so clearly delineated as they are in the country. Lambing takes place from March to the end of May. Lambs at this time have unbridled joie de vivre. It does not last but for a time they will jump four legs in the air, chase each other in lamb races, up to the fence and back, with just a pause to  have a quick swig of milk from their mothers, vigorously butting her with their heads, little tails wagging enthusiastically. And those moments of dreadful panic when they lose their mothers.

By August it will be mostly over – they will be six months old and the tails will have been docked in a hygiene measure to prevent them becoming fly-blown. At the time when a human baby is just beginning to crawl, the lambs will be calming down, they will be beginning to want to sit, and ruminate and perhaps think about sheep nuts or maybe even great thoughts. But intelligent or not, they will not be such fun to watch.