A dramatic rescue took place after one of Moorhouse Farm’s Highland calves fell down the cliffs at Langness and ended up in the sea.

Farmer Paul Costain said it took two hours to get the calf back up to solid land after Leona and Dean Marchbank sighted it and notified the farm.

The 18-month-old calf had swum out to sea and was still in the water when Mr Costain arrived, but it managed to make its way into an inlet and onto solid ground.

However, Mr Costain said the steep sides of the cliff made for a difficult recovery, adding that the calf ’knew where she wanted to go but couldn’t get up there’.

The animal was then pulled up the cliff by a number of people who turned up to help with ropes and was safely lifted out in a harness with the assistance of JCB forklift truck.

Mr Costain described the calf as having ’a few scrapes’ from the rocks but nothing major.

He said that a livestock had never ended up at the bottom of the cliffs before.