When we turned back we met the inscrutable gaze of forty pairs of bovine eyes. While the scout cows in the coulee distracted us, forty of their sisters snuck silently to within ten feet of us. They planned the diversion before they snuck. Scientists should be asking how. Cows long ago resolved that very contentious issue, care of the young.
Calves gather in a selected spot under the watchful protection of two or three cows.
The rest of the mammas go off happily grazing, confident that their little ones are safe. There must be a system. Maybe there's a lesson here for humans. Cattle obviously have complicated and interesting lives. We should know them better.