As the seasons change and we transition from spring into summer our female reindeer will start to move from the lower grounds where they have spent most of the winter, higher onto the hills. This is partly to stay cool as the weather will warm up but also to follow the grazing. In the middle of the winter there will be more snow higher on the hills, meaning further for the reindeer to dig but in the summer the tops of the hills are where the best grazing is.
Waving the cows and calves off to spend the summer free-ranging.
For our reindeer this migration may be only a few miles but across the world, reindeer and caribou (which are genetically the same as reindeer but haven’t been domesticated) migrate long distances. In fact, caribou hold the record for the longest land migration of any animal, migrating a whopping 2,000 miles between their summer and winter-feeding grounds. The equivalent records are held by the humpback whale with the longest migration through water of 5,000 miles and the arctic tern with the longest migration through the air with a mind boggling 18,000 miles.
Long Distance Migration (Varpe and Bauer).Arctic Tern.Humpback.
2,000 miles is still an incredibly long way and takes the caribou first to their spring calving grounds near the coast. The spring calving grounds are highly fertile, providing lots of food for the new mums and free of predators, which is important as the young are born. This sounds like the ideal location to spend the summer and perhaps it would be if it wasn’t for the swarms of mosquitoes that arrive at the start of the summer. These mosquitoes, as well as the warmer weather, drive the caribou to migrate higher onto the hills. They spend the summer grazing on a plethora of different plants and lichens. Summer is a time of abundance in the arctic and sub-arctic regions.
Lace and Ryvita free ranging in the Cairngorms.
With long hours of light, the plants grow quickly, and the reindeer will graze on over 200 different species. This allows the reindeer calves to grow quickly, before the winter. It also allows bulls, cows and calves to all grow a set of antlers. The antlers grow over roughly 5 months and can reach a massive size. The largest set we’ve had in our herd weighed 8.9kg for the pair. It is also important that reindeer gain weight in the summer in order to survive the harsh winter.
Christie’s calf, Espresso, Christie and Borlotti enjoying the best of the summer grazing on the plateau.Glacée and Dante looking fantastic at the end of a summer of free-ranging.
As autumn approaches the reindeer will migrate yet again. As the temperature drops, there will be less to eat high on the hills so the reindeer will move to the lower hills in search of better grazing. It is also the time of year that the mushrooms emerge so many of the reindeer will come into the edge of the woodland to forage mushrooms. They eat many varieties, but the boletus family are their favourite.
In our herd the female reindeer spend the summer months free-ranging and the males spend it in our hill enclosure. This means there is another drive for the females to come to the lower slopes and into the hill enclosure, the boys! The cows know that the rut is held in our hill enclosure each year so when their hormones tell them it’s time to find a mate, they know where to come!
Dante munching on a mushroom.
The migration of the Cairngorm reindeer may be much smaller than reindeer and caribou elsewhere, but it is equally important. It allows the reindeer to move to the best location for each season, following where the best food and climate is.
Each winter, when the temperature drops, and we start reaching for our big coats and gloves. It always amazes me how comfortable the reindeer are in these conditions. It’s not a surprise really, being an arctic animal, they have evolved to cope with some of the coldest temperatures on the planet. Reindeer don’t show physiological signs of being cold until -35°C and have been known to survive right down to -72°C in Siberia. So how do they do it? I thought I would write a blog describing some of their incredible adaptations that keep them snug in the winter.
Cairngorm reindeer in a blizzard.
Coats
Reindeer have an incredibly insulative coat with hairs all over their body, in their ears, up their noses, between their toes. The only part of a reindeer without hair is their eyeballs! Their winter coat is so insulative that they lie on the snow without melting it. Their winter coat is formed of two layers, long guard hairs with a fine downy layer underneath. The long guard hairs are all hollow, with a honeycomb structure inside trapping pockets of warm air – an excellent insulator. They are also triangular allowing them to fit closely together without gaps to let the cold in.
Peanut lying down in the snow. In their winter coat, reindeer are so well insulated that they lie on snow without melting it.
Clicking
A question that we are regularly asked on Hill Trips is: what noise does a reindeer make? In the spring mothers and calves call out to each other by grunting and in the rut a bull reindeer will grunt to his females. During the winter though, reindeer don’t make many vocal noises. Instead, they make a clicking noise. This comes from a tendon sliding over a bone in their back legs with every step they take. This allows the reindeer to stay together as a herd during a blizzard when they can’t see each other without having to vocally call out to each other, which would lose body heat.
Herd of reindeer keeping their eyes closed during a blizzard.
Nose
Reindeer noses are amazing, definitely one of my favourite reindeer adaptations for the cold. During the winter time, reindeer generally keep their mouths closed, keeping the heat in, and instead breath through their noses. Inside their noses are amazing scroll structures which increase the surface area between the cavities where the air they are breathing in and the air they are breathing out are stored. This means heat exchange can occur and the air they are beathing out can warm the air they are breathing in, essential when the outside air is well into the minuses. Back in 2018, Ruth wrote a fantastic blog explaining in detail how amazing the nose of a reindeer is, it is well worth a read for more information, click here to see!
Glacée showing off her gorgeous velvety nose.
Feet
Reindeer have huge feet which serves two purposes: snowshoes and snow shovels. By being so big it spreads their weight out on the snow, stopping them sinking too far into the snow. Their back feet also step into the prints of their front feet and they will move as a herd in a single file line, stepping in the prints of the first reindeer, this makes walking through snow incredibly efficient. Sometimes when it’s really snowy here, we put out skis on to go and find the reindeer, in that case they will walk in our ski tracks instead. They can also their feet as big shovels to dig through the snow. Reindeer can smell lichen through a meter of snow and will dig through the snow to get to it.
Big reindeer feet with splayed out hooves.Lotti on skis with the herd following in her ski tracks.
Antlers
Last but certainly not least…. antlers! Antlers are absolutely amazing and definitely could be an entire blog by themselves (in fact I have linked some previous blogs about antlers below). They are made of bone and grow and fall off again every year and then regrow the following year. They grow each year during the spring and summer, and whilst the bone is growing it is encased in a specialised skin called velvet. The velvet provides the blood supply that feeds the bone as the antler is growing. Once they finish growing, the velvet strips off and the antlers can then be used as weapons! The males use them to fight with each other during the rutting season over the right to breed with the females. Once the rut is over, their antlers will fall off, they are too heavy on the males to keep them all winter. Our heaviest set weighed a whopping 8.9kg. So, what do antlers have to do with the cold? Well, during the winter, once the males have lost their antlers it’s only the females and the calves who still have them. This gives the females a physical advantage whilst they are pregnant and makes sure they get plenty of food to eat during the harshest time of the year. The females loose them too, in the spring, as the new antler grows through underneath.
Beanie showing off her beautiful antlers in March last year.Sherlock, who in March had not only lost his previous antlers but had also started to grow his new antlers already!
In early October, a few of us were up the hill with the reindeer at about 8pm (the time on the camera was set wrong – definitely wasn’t 3am!), when it was already pitch dark. One of our friends, Sam, had a thermal camera with him that he was playing with, so we thought a few of his photos would make an interesting blog subject.
We always talk about how good a reindeer’s coat is during the Hill Trips – up to 10,000 hairs per square inch of the skin, with a percentage of those hairs (the ‘guard hairs’) being hollow to trap in body heat, and the remaining hairs forming an incredibly dense undercoat. This coat is designed to keep reindeer alive in incredibly cold environments; the recorded coldest temperature that reindeer have been found alive in is -72 degrees Celsius. Thankfully in Siberia and not Scotland!
These are female reindeer Turtle and Mangetout in this picture. You can see that they don’t show up as much as you might expect, and this is down to that super efficient thick coat that is trapping their body warmth in. Most heat is lost around their eyes and muzzles, and you can see heat retained within their coats where the hair is slightly parted.
A little bit of heat is being lost around the base of Scully’s antlers too, but her antlers themselves are in hard bone just now, with no velvet skin covering them – as you can see there is no heat at all coming from them.
Another setting on the camera, showing in colour this time. Again the eyes and muzzle are most obvious, this time on Merida, along with her legs where her coat isn’t as thick.
This photo is interesting for a couple of reasons. This is me (Hen), and look at how much heat is being lost at my neck. My body is showing up relatively well too, although perhaps not as much as expected – however in this picture I’m wearing a long-sleeved thermal top, a t-shirt, a jumper, a bodywarmer and a waterproof jacket, as well as a neck buff and gloves (it was a very cold night, in my defense)! Yet still my body is showing up as warmer on average than a reindeer’s – with a couple less layers on I would have been glowing like the sun!
The other (more) interesting thing in this photo is the set of antlers in the middle of it, belonging to Pip’s big female calf, who’s grown amazing antlers for a calf this year. Unlike all the adult reindeer in these pics, the calf’s antlers are still covered with velvet skin – but one is dark and one is light. At this time of year the blood supply to the calves’ antlers is cutting off, so here the right hand antler is still vascular (has a blood supply) whilst the left hand one has already lost it’s supply. Sure enough when Sam pointed this out, I touched her antlers briefly and the right hand one was still warm but the left one stone cold. How cool – we’d have never have known without Sam’s camera!
The castrated male reindeer mostly still have velvet skin on their antlers just now, but unfortunately there were none in this group that we could point the camera at – it would be interesting to see how vascular they are still, if at all. Another time! In the meantime I’ll stand by my statement that antlers are one of the coolest things in the animal kingdom!
Many thanks to Sam Ecroyd for the use of his photos for this blog.
When sorting through antlers recently and selling various sets, I realised that female reindeer Marple has been kind enough to give us hers for the last three years in a row, which is very unusual. By ‘give’, I mean that she cast them in the hill enclosure, giving us a higher chance of coming across them as compared to losing them outside the fenced area – where they are rarely found. How kind of her!
Marple with a very characteristic expression!
Although I don’t have any of the sets here anymore, I do retain photos of each set sold for my records, so this seems like a good opportunity to talk about similarities from year to year for antler growth for a particular reindeer.
Marple grows what I would classify as a very ‘typical’ set of antlers for a reindeer – average size for cow antlers, with a ‘blade’ at the base on one side (the tine which comes down towards the nose), front points – originating a little higher – pointing forwards somewhat like a stag beetle’s pincers, and then upright shafts which have multiple tines coming off them.
One of my most regular questions on the Hill Trip is whether or not reindeer grow the same shape of antlers each year. The answer is emphatically a yes, though by no means identical. The photos below show Marple’s antlers from age 3, 4 and 5, and you can see they have the same basic layout from year to year.
Antlers age 3Antlers age 4Antlers age 5
But antlers vary hugely, so here’s a composite photo of a ‘pair’ of antlers from two very different bull reindeer, by way of illustrating the differences between individuals whilst still showing the basic layout of the blade, front points and upright sections.
Antlers from bulls Bandy and Gandi – Bandy’s is extremely simple up at the top and Gandi’s far more elaborate (but missing the blade at the base as it was on the other antler of the pair, of which I don’t have a photo).
So what affects how antlers vary from reindeer to reindeer? The answer is primarily genetics. Antler growth is genetically inherited, so a reindeer with parents with rather simple antler growth is unlikely to grow anything too fancy, and vice versa. One of the reasons that our big lad Sherlock grows such enormous antlers is that genes for excellent, huge antler growth run in his family line; both his mum Caddis and dad Atlantic grew huge antlers themselves – Caddis exceptionally so for a female. Marple grows very similar antlers to her mum Ochil, as seen below:
Marple’s mum Ochil (with Marple as a newborn calf!) showing the similarity of her antlers to Marple’s (inset).
Environmental factors affect antler growth too. Having enough energy to grow good headgear is dependent on being in good enough condition, so the grazing abundance and quality is important, which is obviously heavily influenced by the weather. Really hot weather can mean reindeer spend more time lying on snow patches to keep cool, or jogging about to try and evade flies that are buzzing around them, leading to less available grazing time. As I write it’s early July and 9 degrees and raining outside. I’m still having to wear a thermal top under my normal layers and I’m generally pretty grumpy about that fact, but the reindeer are loving life – grazing constantly with no flies around them at all. Every cloud…
Finally, a big part of antler growth is to do with body condition. This can be linked to environmental factors as we’ve just talked about, but other things also affect it, for example illness. A reindeer fighting an illness concentrates their energy on preserving body condition, and antler growth pauses as a result. It will start again if and when the reindeer recovers, but the damage is done and the antlers end up smaller, or slightly malformed, compared to a ‘normal’ year.
Merida with lovely antlers and no calf, and the following year with a much poorer set, but a calf at foot
Female reindeer raising a calf need lots of energy to produce milk, so their antlers often suffer over the summer months, being smaller and often rather wonky. Some reindeer are prime candidates for this – looking at you, Merida! – whilst Marple actually doesn’t struggle too much. At 6 years old she’s in the prime of her life and has energy to spare, so both a big calf and decent antlers in the same season are achievable. However, the difference is still noticeable to some extent: here are those three photos again – the first pair grown when Marple was three, with no calf at foot, and the second two grown in the subsequent years but both times with a calf at foot. The first pair are slightly taller and perhaps a little more elegant, whilst the others are a touch shorter and a bit ‘squatter’ (although a little chunkier as Marple matured).
Back in late May, our thoughts start to turn to getting the cows and calves out of the hill enclosure, so they can spend the summer months free-ranging on the mountains, getting peace and quiet and the best of the grazing, and the cows can teach their calves the lie of the land too. In recent years, we tend to take them out in two batches, allowing each batch to spend a couple of weeks in the main section of the hill enclosure first. This has two-fold benefits – it helps to strengthen the calves as they move around more than they do in the smaller ‘nursery’ area, but most importantly it exposes the calves to visitors. This makes our job in the autumn easier when the female reindeer return to the hill enclosure, as the calves are much more relaxed in amongst people than they otherwise would be – even though they’ve barely laid eyes on a human in the interim.
Setting off up through the top part of the hill enclosure
Prior to leaving the enclosure, the cows and calves are all checked over, and given Spot-on to help ward off ticks. We then halter up all the adult females, as it’s a far less stressful process to just lead the reindeer out of the enclosure rather than to try and herd them. We do this in an evening rather than during the day too, as it lessens the risk of us bumping into hill-walkers, who may have dogs in tow. Any young females of a year old who are tagging along with their mums and new siblings aren’t haltered, as they will just follow anyway.
There’s a lot of grunting to start with, as everyone establishes where their calf is, and the calves wonder why there are so many human legs in their herd suddenly!Out through the gate at the top of the enclosureEveryone has settled down and is enjoying the evening wander!
We take the group about a mile or so from the top gate of the enclosure, although the spot we leave them in is only actually a couple of hundred metres from the fence and the far end of the enclosure.
A good year for the cotton-grass this year!I ran ahead ahead to get some photos, meaning I could sit and relax in the sunshine once I’d got into position!Progress isn’t particularly fast with so many reindeer on halters, so there was plenty of time to chat along the way!
Some years in the past the cows have taken off at speed into the distance as soon as they’ve got the chance, but this batch were more than happy just to graze and chill out once we’d taken halters off and released them. This little chap (above) was born a bit prematurely, so had to be bottle-fed for a while whilst mum’s milk got going, so he’s very tame!
The face of a Lotti who’s just realised that two birthday cakes and a birthday present have been carried the whole way out as a surprise!Birthday cake all round!And in classic unpredictable Sheena-fashion – a watermelon! ‘What is the heaviest and most unexpected snack I could possibly bring?!’Some time to chill out for us too (although the sun had sadly disappeared behind the hill by this point).At this time of year the reindeer have started moulting around their eyes, their darker summer coat showing through and giving them all ‘panda eyes’.Time to go, for us and them.Heading home! How could I not finish with this photo?
Through the summer months we see very little of the female reindeer and their calves, leaving them to graze in peace after spending around 6 weeks in the hill enclosure. We will head out to look for them occasionally though, when time and weather allow, but the next time we have proper contact with them again is from August onwards, as they start to return to the hill enclosure in dribs and drabs. It’s like catching up with old friends again!
Manouk popped into Reindeer House a wee while ago and had picked up this book from a charity shop in Aviemore. It is the Forestry Commission guidebook for ‘Glen More Forest Park’ and has no date on it but was published sometime in the 70s. It has a section about the Cairngorm Reindeer. I had a flick through it and thought others might enjoy the prints and information about the reindeer which was written by Dr Ethel Lindgren (who along with Mikel Utsi, reintroduced the reindeer herd in 1952).
Things have changed a lot in the last 50 years or so. You may read that back in the day some of the reindeer born in the Cairngorms were sold elsewhere and some of them even used for meat. You’ll all be pleased to hear that for a long time now, all of the reindeer born in our herd have been able to live out their natural lifespan (roughly 12-14 years) here in the Cairngorms. Nowadays, we keep our numbers at roughly 150 by controlling how many females we run with a bull during the rut and therefore how many calves we hope will be born each spring time. Below is the article, some photos of the reindeer, as well as some beautiful prints of the Cairngorms. Enjoy!
As it says in the book “Arrangements can usually be made at Reindeer House, a stone-faced lodge east of the Glen More campsite” this is true even today but not for much longer! By the end of 2024 we hope to be operating from the new Reindeer Centre, right next door. Photo from 1962.Outside Reindeer House in 1963 with reindeer Nikka, Per, and hand-reared calf Boko.A herd of reindeer behind Reindeer House in 1963 – this is where our new building will be.
In January 2021 we embarked upon a project of a lifetime here at The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre. For many, many years we have operated out of Reindeer House, with a modest shop/reception area and to say the least a cramped office.
Visitors arriving would sometimes come in and say ‘where’s The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre’, slightly incredulous that our place, with such a grand name was so small and homespun. But equally many of our visitors and supporters have loved the way it is and I suspect are slightly worried that any change may be for the worse.
We hope the new Centre will bring as much joy as this to everyone who visits the new Exhibition and Paddocks! Photo by Joanne Weston, taken in October 2023. Thanks for sharing it with us!
But please be rest assured that the reindeer, the herders and the passion for our unique herd of reindeer will be no less than it already is and our new facility will tick lots of boxes for everyone, whether able or unable to make it out onto the hill to see the free-ranging herd. It will also be a game changer for our dedicated reindeer herders who will be able to work out of a purpose built work place where they can ‘come in from the cold’, dry their clothes and work in a comfortable spacious office with a dedicated area to have a break.
Taking down the old Exhibition in January 2024 – the end of an era!A tractor was recruited from the farm to help with the clearing of the old Exhibition.The clearing continues.
The site for the new building is in our reindeer Paddocks, which is quite a steep bank, so there was an initial dig out to provide a flat surface at the same level as Reindeer House on which to place the foundations. That started in mid February and without a doubt the snowless winter worked in our favour. Since than the foundations have been laid, the concrete floor poured in and then in a flash a very large crane arrived, the site was buzzing with tradesmen and a lorry came with prefabricated panels. The crane lifted the panels on to the site and the internal walls and roof of the building went up in double quick time.
A great big hole!The gabion baskets go in behind where the new building will be – March 2024.The freshly poured concrete floor.
Right from the start, after we received an extremely generous donation from a long term supporter the process of finding an architect, doing a feasibility study, drawing up plans and finally going for planning permission has been seamless. Much credit needs to go to our architect Catriona Hill, from Oberlanders, who has been our guiding light/guardian angel throughout the process. And here we are now more than half way through the construction and a completion date pencilled in for the end of October.
By the middle of May we could really see what space we will have for our shop, exhibition, reception area, toilet, office, plant room and staff room. We are limited for space because we still need as much room as possible for the reindeer Paddocks, but we are extending their range into the wood to provide them with shelter from the hot sun and rain (they of course won’t need shelter from the snow!).
And just like that, within a few days the building went up and the roof went on.The new Exhibition space.Huge window in the Exhibition!
So, when we are all finished and everything is open as normal visitors will arrive and come into the new Centre before making their way through the new exhibition and on to the reindeer out in the Paddocks. With the incredibly successful crowd funding we will be kitting out the inside of the Centre and the Paddocks with all our fascinating facts about reindeer, the history of the herd and the amazing world of reindeer herding. We also intend to have some immersive film of our reindeer in the different seasons. In particular to be able to show visitors, who are unable to walk out onto the mountainside just how friendly and well adapted our reindeer are to their mountain environment.
I thought I’d write a bit about some of our biggest reindeer pet peeves this week – and undeniably, there are quite a few… Pet peeves 1-4 are tongue-in-cheek, so don’t take offence if you’ve made one of these slips in the past – no doubt some of us did too before becoming reindeer herders! But peeves 5 and 6 are serious, and a cause us a constant headache – please don’t be *that* visitor…
Number 1: ‘Reindeers’
The biggest pet peeve of all is most definitely… ‘reindeers’. The plural of reindeer is reindeer, with no ‘s’, and whilst I’ve never heard anyone say ‘sheeps’, ‘reindeers’ is a very common mistake. It’s only a little thing and it’s hardly going to change the world if you say it right or say it wrong, but it’s just something that grates so much. You will see a tiny shudder of horror pass over any one of us if you see us talking to someone who uses the word ‘reindeers’. Not to mention my roar of disgust earlier this year to open our local paper – who really should know better – to find that they had used ‘reindeers’ (in very large font) in the title of their article about us. Face plant.
One REINDEER……multiple REINDEER.
Number 2: ‘Horns’
I guess there’s really no reason for people to know or understand the difference between antlers or horns, unless they have background knowledge in biology. But still, when reindeer’s antlers are referred to as horns, it’s something that makes my eye twitch – the word just sounds so wrong. To educate anyone that doesn’t know (every day’s a school day), animals that grow horns, such as cows, sheep and antelope, only grow one set in their lifetime and the horn is made of keratin, the protein that your hair and fingernails are made from. In contrast, antlers are made of bone and are grown by members of the deer family only, and they are grown annually, falling off each year. Technically therefore, they are classed as ‘deciduous’ – not a word normally used other than in relation to trees.
Reindeer have antlers. Whilst sheep have horns. Photo: Alex Smith
Number 3: Reindeer imagery at Christmas
Oh god… where to start? I think 99% of ‘reindeer’ imagery used on Christmas cards, decorations etc, are not actually reindeer at all.
Where to start?! Santa’s sleigh pulled by… fluffy white Wapiti? They certainly ain’t no reindeer….Don’t get me started on the fact that reindeer and penguins are found in different hemispheres. They live at opposite ends of the planet, and always have (other than the introduced population of reindeer on South Georgia who lived there for around 100 years before being eradicated about 10 years back, but I doubt that this Christmas card designer was aiming to represent the fauna of a South Atlantic island). In fact, don’t get me started on the (lack of) connection between penguins and Christmas at all…Granted, it is a reindeer. But with a set of… red deer antlers on it’s head. Backwards on it’s head. I don’t even know where to go with this. The worst thing is it is an advert for a reindeer parade where the providers of the reindeer were – us. We send the organisers of all events we take part in a link to a load of beautiful press photos for them to use for promotion purposes, which, funnily enough, does not include the abomination above.
Number 4: Carrots
If you happen to have a child who still believes in Father Christmas and are reading this aloud to them… stop now. I don’t want to be responsible for breaking hearts. If you’re an adult however, and think that reindeer love to chow down on a carrot or two – prepare yourself for a shock. Reindeer DO NOT eat carrots. It is a myth. I’m sorry, but there it is.
Santa will eat the mince pie and he’ll no doubt enjoy the dram, but if the carrot vanishes overnight, it’s not Rudolph. Perhaps Santa’s just making sure he can see in the dark? Photo: Scotsman website
Once again, let’s shoe-horn in some education. Reindeer are ruminants, meaning they have four stomachs, like cows and sheep. They have similar dentition too, having tiny teeth at the front of the bottom jaw, and a flat, bony palate at the front of the top jaw (plus molars top and bottom at the back). This means they nip away at the vegetation with the small front teeth, swallow it into the first stomach – the ‘rumen’ – and then bring it back up to chew again with the molars before it progresses through all four stomachs. Tiny front teeth can’t easily much up a carrot, and nor do carrots grow naturally anywhere that reindeer live, so they do not form part of their diet. I am actually aware of reindeer in permanent captivity in some places being fed carrots – but any reindeer that actually eats, or tries to eat, carrots is doing so out of desperation because they are not being fed a sufficient diet.
A reindeer’s teeth. Not designed for eating carrots!
Working here taught me to quickly work out when to lie to people – if an adult brings us carrots for the reindeer then I will tell them the truth. If a small child gives me a carrot at a Christmas event, to give to the reindeer? Then perhaps they do eat carrots after all, but only on Christmas Eve. Not right now. Makes ‘em fly, you see.
Number 5: Visitors who don’t read any information when booking their tickets
I hesitated to include these last two pet peeves… but my fingers have just kept typing, and realistically, they are the ones that actually cause us herders problems, rather than just annoy us. Visiting the reindeer here at the Centre is wonderful, and we do our utmost to make sure everyone has a lovely time. But you need to know what you are getting yourself in for, and you need to know what clothing and footwear you need to bring, in order to visit the reindeer safely and with maximum enjoyment. The people who book tickets, tick all the required boxes to say they will have the right footwear etc; they understand they need to use their own car; they realise they have to walk to the reindeer, etc etc etc – and then turn up having not actually read ANY of this info, make us want to cry. Hill Trips change throughout the year, starting from different car-parks and using different routes, so having visited before doesn’t mean you know what to expect.
We have all been shouted at by angry people over the years when it’s entirely their fault and not ours that they’ve (delete as appropriate) missed the Trip/have the wrong footwear/are completely unsuitably prepared. Please. Just. Read. It. All. First. Please.
Number 6: ‘That’s not actually waterproof…‘
Peeve number 6 is linked to number 5. We ask visitors to bring a waterproof jacket with them for the Hill Trip at all times, and in the winter season (Oct – Apr) we ask them to bring waterproof over-trousers too. Obviously we can’t predict the weather and whilst waterproofs might not be needed on the day, at times they really are essential, and it is for people’s own safety that we have to insist they are wearing full waterproof clothing. Hypothermia becomes a risk quickly in winter conditions, and much more so if someone is wet to their skin.
Please understand we don’t want to turn people away, nor force them to purchase waterproofs they may not wear again, but as a company we also REALLY don’t want to be responsible for cases of hypothermia either. Safety in the mountain environment has to be foremost so you MUST come prepared for the worst weather, and just be grateful if you are lucky to get nice weather on the day. It’s also a matter of your own enjoyment – we want you to have the best time possible and you have more chance of doing so if you are not soaked through and frozen.
A wild day on the hill. Note the snow plastered down Eve, from her head to her feet, and on the reindeer too. This weather can occur anytime in the winter season of Oct – Apr. Photo: Getty Images
However, it seems the problem is deep-rooted in that a surprisingly large percentage of people seem to have no understanding as to what the word ‘waterproof’ actually means. It’s really not hard – it means… ‘waterproof’. Water can’t get through. Wet one side, dry the other. Not ‘water-resistant’, not ‘shower-proof’ – ‘WATERPROOF’. No, your ‘hiking trousers’ aren’t waterproof. Nope, nor your puffer jacket. Nor your ‘yoga pants’ (I kid you not – I have had this conversation with someone in our shop).
Cameron suitably dressed for the mountains in winter – hiking boots, waterproof jacket and waterproof over-trousers. Lots of layers underneath too. And look how warm and happy he is!
We’re rather at a loss as to how to get it across to people? We’ve tried everything. I’ve resorted lately to literally asking people if they would remain dry if I chucked a bucket of water at them. No? Then your clothes ARE NOT WATERPROOF.
As I write this today (in late March) 6 of the 26 people booked on the Hill Trip had to buy waterproof trousers in our shop (we have some ’emergency’ pairs for sale) before we would let them take part – despite knowing perfectly well upon booking that they needed to bring them, ticking a box to declare that they had them, and being reminded in three separate emails. March is not necessarily spring here – today it was full on blizzard conditions on the hill.
I can go into all sorts of other pet peeves, but I’m starting to feel a bit frazzled just thinking about it all, and I notice my use of capitals is increasing throughout this blog as I feel more and more shouty, so it’s probably time to stop here.
Despite spending the last 40+ years devoting my life to the Cairngorm Reindeer I am still fascinated by the annual cycle of reindeer growing their new velvet antlers, then stripping the velvet to reveal hard bony antlers and finally casting their antlers and growing a new set next year.
It is an amazing process, hugely demanding on their resources, but very beneficial to the individual whether they are males competing for females in the rut or females and young males competing for food in the winter.
The older mature males grow the most impressive antlers and for them the process of growing their new velvet antlers begins before the end of the winter and continues until they strip the velvet from the antlers around the middle of August, in preparation for the rutting season. The bigger the antlers the more likely they are to ‘win’ a fight and so claim a harem of females, so big antlers are important.
Sherlock – 8th of April 2023.Sherlock – 9th of May 2023.Sherlock – 6th of June 2023.
One of our main breeding bulls Sherlock showed all the signs of growing a pretty big set of antlers last year and by the autumn he didn’t disappoint us. Luckily for us he is a real gentleman among reindeer and although he sported these great weapons on his head, he was never aggressive towards us and we could still safely go in beside him and his breeding females on a daily basis to feed and check them all.
Sherlock – 29th of August 2023 – stripping the velvet.Sherlock in the rut with Bordeaux in front of him on the 2nd of October 2023.
But their glory doesn’t last long and having spent 5 ½ months growing their antlers the breeding males are the first to cast their antlers at the end of the rut and before the winter sets in. So only about 10-12 weeks of glory with big hard antlers to fight with!
Spartan, who is a couple of years older than Sherlock was first to cast his antlers in the middle of November so I knew it wouldn’t be long before Sherlock was antlerless too. Two weeks later and off came one of Sherlock’s antlers making him very lopsided! Then a couple more days and the other one had fallen.
So now we are in 2024 and Sherlock, who was so dominant in the autumn, has been at the bottom of the pecking order over the winter.
Sherlock with no antlers in January 2024.Sherlock just beginning to grow his antlers on the 28th February 2024.Sherlock on the left on the with his lovely velvet antlers growing well, still free roaming in the hills – 30th of March 2024.It’s in the genes! Sherlock’s mum, Caddis, grew very large antlers for a female.
My chosen reindeer to write about this time is Lute, who was already a middle-aged female when I first started as a reindeer herder, back in 2007. She died quite a few years back now so the younger staff here won’t remember her at all. But I do, and writing these blogs is not only a nice way to get something written down about a reindeer who may otherwise gradually fade from the mists of memory, but also an enjoyable excursion for me in to my own memories.
January 2011
Lute was what we call ‘normal-coloured’, i.e. the standard brown colour that is most common amongst reindeer. But she stood out immediately in the herd and was therefore one of the very first reindeer I (and any other herders of a certain generation) learnt to tell apart from the others, as she walked strangely, crabbing along on a diagonal the whole time rather than walking straight. She must have injured her back at some point and damaged nerves permanently to cause this, but it wasn’t something that occurred in the hill enclosure where we might have been able to treat her, but rather out on the mountain free-range..
Lute with one of her calves, Ludo, displaying her typical squint stance. To add to the overall ‘odd’ look, she also had quite bulgy eyes!
Bit of a nuisance for a reindeer, come to think of it, as they normally conserve energy by their hind feet tracking right into the hoofprints left by their forefeet, saving energy when walking in snow for example. Perhaps Lute always made sure to walk in the middle of the herd where her hind hooves could follow someone else’s tracks? Despite her ‘disability’, Lute never really seemed to have any issue keeping up with the herd, so it had just become a quirk specific to her by the time I arrived on the scene. It did mean you could pick her out amongst the herd a couple of miles away through binoculars sometimes, making you look good in front of unsuspecting visitors/volunteers/new staff members when you said knowingly about the dots running down the hillside ‘ah yes, there’s Lute’.
Lute also stood out that first winter for me as she’d grown excellent, enormous antlers for a female reindeer. There must have been something in the water that year, as many of the females had incredible antlers, some despite also having a calf at foot (which normally saps their energy enough to reduce their antler growth). Most years, in the second half of her life anyway, she tended towards growing rather twisted, oddly-shaped antlers. Matching her twisted, odd gait!
Lute when I first knew her – her tall antlers contrasting nicely with Polo’s rounded ones, and Ring’s much smaller, simpler ones.
Good genetics ran in the family, it seems. Lute was one of 11 calves for her mum Ferrari, back in the days when we would let reindeer breed every year. Nowadays we tend to give them a year off from time to time. But Ferrari popped out calf after calf no bother, with Lute being the eighth. Lute herself went on to be a very productive cow too, also with 11 calves to her name, although not all of them survived to adulthood. When I started she had Bean at foot, and then in 2010 her calf Lace was the first newborn reindeer I ever saw. Lace is still with us today, now nearly 14, and has become a real leader amongst the herd. By this I actually mean ‘dominant and bossy’. She’s a much bolder character than her mum ever was – I don’t really remember Lute being anything other than gentle and mild, a real sweetheart.
Lute with Lace as a calf. Presumably mum Ferrari never taught her not to pee in the pool?
Lute bred some relatively shy offspring too, in particular Fada. But characteristics seem to skip generations sometimes, as Fada bred lovely calves usually, the standout being Hopscotch. Hopscotch is still with us today and is now the matriarch of a dynasty of reindeer, including Busby, Pip, Tub and Juniper among others. Quite a legacy for Lute’s family line!
Granddaughter Hopscotch and great-granddaughter Kipling.
Born in 2000, Lute (who was named in the ‘musical’ theme), lived to a good age, passing away out on the mountains in the autumn or early winter of 2013. Daughter Lace is a little older than that now herself, and another daughter, Wapiti, got to around 15 years old, so there are some good long-living genes running in the family still!
