Reindeer Around the World: The Svalbard Reindeer

Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus

A wonderful past blog written by herder Hen detailing how the species Rangifer tarandus (more commonly known as reindeer) is broken down into seven different subspecies, got me thinking that I didn’t know too much about these differences. What adaptations did each subspecies have to equip them for their differing environments? I decided to start my research with the Svalbard reindeer – the smallest of all the reindeer and only found within the islands of Svalbard.

Svalbard reindeer.

It is estimated that Svalbard reindeer became isolated from other populations of reindeer around 10,000 years ago when the vast ice sheet covering the Barents Sea melted as the earth warmed after the last ice age. Svalbard then became cut off from mainland Europe, effectively trapping any land mammals.

Map displaying the Barents Sea.

So, what happened to them 10,000 years ago to equip them with living on an open, isolated, arctic tundra landscape? Unlike other subspecies of reindeer, the Svalbard population dropped its need to migrate, only needing to cover short distances on a regular basis, remaining on mountain ridges and plateaus – continuously exposed to the elements. They also lacked forests for cover and fed primarily on short-growing lichens and vegetation.

The home of the Svalbard reindeer – open plains and Arctic mountains.

Apart from the occasional polar bear… the Svalbard reindeer also doesn’t have the worries that other subspecies have regarding predators. Due to these changes in their food chain and environment, the Svalbard reindeer evolved to have far shorter legs than the other subspecies. They could still reach a maximum speed of 60 to 80km/h but didn’t require the longer legs of other reindeer – so to conserve body heat, their legs became shorter.

Body heat is lost through a reindeer’s legs due to less fat and blood vessels near to the surface of the skin, so if you don’t need to migrate – grow shorter legs and stay warm!
Svalbard reindeer running, perfectly displaying how disproportionate their bodies are to their small heads and legs. Perfectly adapted to an environment that doesn’t require movement, but encourages good fat reserves. (Photo credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)

Another unique adaptation to the Svalbard reindeer is their difference in circadian rhythm to other subspecies of reindeer. Svalbard has an extremely reduced day length in winter months. There are between 100 to 150 days per year during which there is no light and the sun does not rise above the horizon. Research has concluded that the Svalbard reindeer has a mutation in a gene associated with maintaining circadian rhythm, allowing their bodies to cope with lack of sunlight (vitamin D etc.). Another change in the genetic make up of this subspecies in comparison to the others, is a change in the genes associated with eye/ optic nerve development – allowing their eyes to adapt to winter conditions.

Svalbard reindeer have dark eyes, that like other subspecies are able to see into the shorter end of the light spectrum. This allows them to use UV light during twilight periods of the year to see their general surroundings – identifying food sources, other forms of life, etc.

Their diet is very similar to other subspecies of reindeer, feeding on low growing vegetation found along ridges, plateaus and mountain slopes. Feeding to excess on healthy vegetation during summer and then relying on fat reserves and limited grazing during winter when vegetation is limited, but lichen can be found in abundance. The Svalbard population is more of a solitary subspecies than the typical social herd structure of other populations of reindeer. They are often only found in groups of three to five and so over grazing is not as much of a concern in a smaller region, such as Svalbard. However, despite this, starvation is the most common cause of death due to worn teeth grazing on sparse vegetation growing amongst rocky landscapes, or from food frozen into ice pastures.

Svalbard reindeer grazing on vegetation with areas of ice pasture seen behind them.
Pick out the areas of low quality grazing amongst the rocks.

Despite their challenges and differences, one thing is for sure… the Svalbard reindeer are one darn cute animal!

Pocket-sized reindeer!
Trying to think of something professional to say here, but all I can think is… STOP IT!

Okay, no more cute photos! I’ll leave it there until next time when we look at the cool adaptions of another subspecies of the Rangifer tarandus.

Daisy


More reading:
https://polar-latitudes.com/discover/wildlife/svalbard-reindeer/
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-eurasian-arctic-during-the-last-ice-age
https://www.aurora-expeditions.com/eu/wildlife/arctic/mammals/svalbard-reindeer
https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/17/9/evaf160/8233719
https://npolar.no/en/species/svalbard-reindeer/#3

A Reindeer Christmas

A Christmas Eve tradition of my family is to go see the reindeer parade in Kingussie. When I was younger I often got to go on the sleigh, of course to my delight. Last year Fiona surprised me and I got the chance to pull the front of the sleigh with Akubra and Poirot. This year I had a feeling it would happen again and it did! However, Fiona did give me a warning in the lorry this time. She is known to surprise you…

Maisy with Poirot and Akubra at the 2024 Christmas Eve parade in Kingussie.
Maisy on the sleigh as a wee girl!

As a Christmas present to my family this year, I decided to take them up the hill to see the reindeer. The Centre is closed on Christmas Day but the reindeer in the enclosure still need to get their feed for the day. Fiona said if no one else said they’d do it; I could with my family. After a bit of persuading they agreed, and I took a couple from my family and a few friends up the hill. You can’t get a better Christmas than that! All photos here are taken by either myself, my dad or my brother.

When we got to the enclosure, we had all the reindeer on Cairngorm waiting for us. The girls who were on the free-range were asking for a wee bit of extra food too. We picked up the food for the reindeer in the enclosure and headed up the hill. It was a frosty morning and cold, but it was so beautiful. The sun even came out for a while which was lovely.  We were all wrapped up but of course the reindeer were very well insulated with their winter coats. We usually feed the reindeer in the hill enclosure a couple of times a day depending on what time of the year but since we were only feeding them once we had a lot of food to take. Thankfully the team on Christmas Eve took it all up to the bins on the hill so we didn’t have to carry it all the way up.

My cousin Magnus leading the reindeer up the hill.

We wandered around the hill introducing the reindeer and answering questions all about how awesome they are. We also had our friends Lorriane and Massa too and they were just amazed. It’s so nice to show people that you know where you spend a lot of your time and where you just love to be. I’m sadly coming up to my exams so I will be cherishing my time with reindeer, Christmas definitely wrapped it up so nicely.

We then headed over to see the free ranging reindeer and I hadn’t seen any of those guys in such a long time, so it was so nice to see them. I was rusty at identifying them, so I had to get my trusty back up plan of a photo from the board in the office which keeps track of the whole herd.

The free ranging girls, left to right Nuii, Pumpkin, Brew, Alba, Camomile.

The girls on the free range haven’t had a chance of hand feeding for quite a while due to them being on the free range for the past year or so. Some exceptions for a couple of the breeding females. They can sometimes be quite wild and excited when they haven’t been around people for a wee while. I turned around to swap bags with my mum as I had an empty sack and she had a full bag of hand feed. As I turned, I saw my mum standing there whimpering. Ryvita, a 14-year-old female with no antlers, had her nose right up against her bag. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. Sadly, no one was quick enough to get a photo or video of the moment of her being scared out of her mind. 

Latte being a yearling is now getting to enjoy free ranging on the mountains.

For my Dad’s Christmas present, (which he didn’t know at the time as I’m a very last-minute person who left it too late,) was an adoption of Vanilla. You can find out what you get if you were to adopt a reindeer here. We’ve been in the hills together quite a few times and when we’ve come across a few reindeer, she’s usually always there. She’s such a beautiful girl and every time he always gets a good photo of her, so I thought they’d be a good match.

Vanilla posing on Christmas Day beautifully.

Sadly, not everyone was able to make it on the 25th so I promised to take them up another time. That just happened to be on the 3rd of January. I took my brother and his girlfriend up the hill on a very snowy day. It feels like magic when you’re with the reindeer in the snow, kicking the snow up to get the lichen and deer grass, or them walking in the snow easily while all the humans are falling in streams and falling down snowholes. Although in typical Maisy fashion, I faceplanted off the boardwalk in front of a whole group of visitors.

99 and Cowboy begging Maisy to give them more hand feed.

I sadly had not learnt my lesson and buried my hand feed bag underneath the snow because the reindeer kept pestering me when holding it. I’m not saying any names, but it wasn’t Dr Suess, Cowboy and Tub. I then had a hard time trying to get their big noses out of the bag within all the snow, if you know anything about trying to get a Christmas reindeer nose out of a white bag it’s hard considering their brain is controlled by their stomachs. Which is the same with me, I’ll be honest. 

Holy Moley enjoying the winter which has finally arrived.

The reindeer look magnificent in the snow when it all just sits on their nose, and of course it doesn’t melt because they are so well insulated that they don’t let the heat out to melt the snow. However, all the humans do not look magnificent and are bumbling around in the snow trying not to fall in a snow-covered burn. Unfortunately, yes, three of us did fall in the same burn at the same time.

Popsicle dunked her nose into the snow.
Orinoco in the snow.

They couldn’t get rid of me that quickly. As the next day I came back up to Glenmore the to go up a Meall a’ Bhuachaille with Sanna and Echo the dogs. The best hill in Scotland and some of the best snow I have ever seen up there. So much fun although, so much more energy goes into walking in deep snow especially at some points I was sinking above my hips and the dogs kept vanishing under all the powder.

Sanna and Echo between her ears near the summit of Meall a’ Bhuachaille.

Maisy

Photo Blog: February 2026

February is the month that we ease ourselves back into Hill Trips again after being closed for a month. From mid-January to mid-February, we are trying to catch up with general maintenance and into February prepare for being open to the public again.  The start of the month consisted of feeding reindeer, ensuring we are prepared for opening and we also spared some time to visit one of the Lynx reintroductions drop in’s that have been happening in the area.

The 7th of February was our first day open to the public. It is always a bit of a daunting thought, and you’re left hoping that you remember how to talk about reindeer and that you have hopefully remembered everything that needs done first thing in the morning. But these anxious thoughts were soon squashed by our first Hill Trip of the season, the weather was good and how to be a public facing reindeer herder came flooding back!

The weather at this time of the year can be challenging and trying to take a picture that encompasses how brutal the weather is on a hill trip is hard. Daisy and I did a Hill Trip on the 11th, and the conditions were rather wintery. The met office report for the day told us that the max wind gust at Base Station was to be 26 MPH, our Hill Trip that day was lower than Base Station and the wind was enough to knock you off balance, so I feel it may have been a little stronger than that! I do love the variation that we get in weather as it makes the good weather days feel special.

4th of February: Left to Right- Suebi, Orinocco, Bolero, Ceilidh and Glacée on a very blustery trip out to feed the herd before we begin Hill Trips again.
5th of February: Ruth and Lotti enjoying biscuits whilst completing their Lynx questionaires.
7th of February: Myself, Kate and Maisy with Ryvita after the first Hill Trip of the new season.
8th of February: Trilby leading the herd in for our morning Hill Trip with Disco on her left, Tango and then Pip.
11th of February: On the walk out to the reindeer myself and Cameron noticed some unusual prints in the snow… Possibly Badger prints?
11th of February: Cameron teaching his merry band of calves bad habits
11th of February: Above is Beautiful Solero. This was the first day of good weather we had seen in a while, so plenty of pictures were taken!
15th of February: Another mission to collect the reindeer before our 11 am Hill Trip. In the fore ground (left-right) we have Dante, Disco and Bolero.
18th of February: The first day of the season where we had to cancel the Hill Trip due to the weather. Sanna, Fraoch and myself agree that it was the best call!
19th of February: Daisy clinging on for her life on a very windy walk out to collect the reindeer in the morning.
22nd of February: Vienna, often found snooping around us herders looking for extra food.
25th of February: Polka leading the herd in before our Hill Trip.

Amy

Photo Blog: Reindeer in the snow

Breaking trail and the herd following in my footsteps. Holy Moley right behind me.
Breaking trail and the herd following in my footsteps.
Cheer.
Cold snow giving Zoom a red nose.
Colder temperatures bringing them lower towards the tree line.
Counting reindeer as they walk towards me.
Counting reindeer on the line of feed.
Feeding free rangers during the first snowfall.
Fuzzy noses keeping them warm while they snuffle into the snow for low growing vegetation and feed from us herders.
Hanging out with the herd.
Holy Moley and her snowy nose.
Morven’s antlers turning into icicles.
Munching in the snow.
Shannon.
Winnie demonstrating how their thick coats allow the snow to settle, so well insulated it doesn’t melt.
Vanilla blending in.
Wrapped up warm with the reindeer.

Daisy

Hen’s Christmas wall of shame – 2025

I thought I might start an annual blog of photos I’ve taken over the winter season, of things that are supposed to be reindeer – and aren’t. Although it turns out that being as I didn’t really go anywhere this winter, I didn’t take that many photos. Will try harder next year…

First up, shortbread. The commonest offender at Christmas I reckon, every shop has Christmassy tins of red deer, blatantly assuming they are reindeer. Or maybe just assuming that ‘deer are deer’ and they’re all the same… (arggh).

Shame on you, Tesco.

Ah, wrapping paper. Also a common offender. I’m not even sure what this (below) is supposed to be. It ain’t no reindeer, that’s for sure…

Another image I saw online that I thought warranted a mention, despite not being my own photo, was a new Banksy on a wall in Birmingham. The ‘reindeer’ (prancing Christmas affairs) are pulling a sleigh represented by a bench that is often used by homeless people; in the Guardian’s words: A Christmas cracker with a bang of reality. I like Banksy’s artwork, but ya know, would have been better if the mural showed actual reindeer…

Whilst I mostly failed miserably at remembering to take photos of the Christmas monstrosities masquerading as reindeer (quite possibly because I usually take a wide berth around the Christmas aisles in most shops), my winner this year (below) came looking for me at the Reindeer Centre, arriving in a box of stationary I’d ordered from Viking.

Eventually, having stared for too long at the vaguely fallow deer-esque antlers, still in velvet, on a head that isn’t a fallow, I realised it’s an AI picture entirely (as opposed to some bubble wrap and a ribbon being photoshopped onto an actual photo). God help us. So I’m naming and shaming you, Viking Office Supplies!

I’ll be back in a year with the Christmas 2026 edition of this blog…

Hen

Photo Blog: January 2026

As months go, January generally has a pretty bad reputation for being dark, cold, and really a bit depressing. Unless you are a reindeer herder, in which case January is likely to be one of your favourite months. Every year, from the end of the Christmas holidays to the start of the February holidays we close to the public. As much as I love taking hill trips and watching so many people spending time with the herd, after such a busy few weeks over Christmas, we all heave a sigh of relief once we can turn our signed to ‘closed’ for the month.

Despite being closed, January is still a really busy month. We spent the first few days getting all of our reindeer to the correct places to spend the winter free ranging. This year that coincided with a very snowy week, so we had lots of snowy walks and drives between Glenmore and our farm, to get everyone in the right places. We have been kept busy doing all the jobs that we just can’t do whilst we are open. Painting, cleaning, building, washing, repairing – you name it. Oh, and of course, we are still heading to the hills to feed the reindeer when we need to, we don’t feed the reindeer everyday so you will be treated to some extra dog photos this month – what’s not to love!

1st January 2026: Herders Lotti, Joe and Zoë with the lovely Winnie for the new years day feed.
1st January: The herd and herders walking up the boardwalk for their feed.
3rd January: The lovely Lupin with a wonderfully snowy nose!
3rd January: A very alarmed Daisy at the state of the shop floor after a busy, snowy day.
4th January: Daisy leading the herd for their breakfast.
4th January: The reindeer in the trees at the end of the hill trip.
6th January: Fiona walking some of the reindeer onto the free-range hills.
8th January: A very snowy walk from the enclosure with the boys getting them ready to free-range.
8th January: The boys heading up onto the hills.
8th January: The most enormous Icicle at the farm (Kate for scale).
9th January: The very handsome Rowan was our office dog of the day!
12th January: Sanna helping Fiona with her computer work!
12th January: Cameron coming up with creative wet-weather clothing solutions.
13th January: Suebi leading the herd over. With the deep snow and high winds we’d not seen the reindeer for 5 days. They were delighted to see us.
13th January: Foxtrot and Beanie saying hi!
13th January: Shannon on a snow patch.
16th January: Cameron delivering the all important tea run!
17th January: Cameron, Daisy and Hen feeding the herd on a rather dreich day.
17th January: Helsinki and River being very lovely and Latte photobombing absolutely covered in feed! 😂
19th January: Fiona and Lotti sporting rather fetching sunhats to keep the low, afternoon sunlight out of their eyes.
19th January: As we arrived on the hill that afternoon the reindeer were looking very majestic on the skyline.
20th January :Feeding the herd on a rather dreich day.
25th January: Andi surrounded by a sea of calves!
29th January Some very impressive snow drifts on the drive up the hill.
29th January: Glacee, Pip, Suebi and Jig crossing a snowy patch.

Lotti

A busman’s holiday – AKA the delight of bumping into reindeer on your day off

Now we’re in the middle of winter, it’s hard to imagine the hills in summer time. But I found these photos on my phone from a day off in August and thought I would share them in a blog.

I was off for a walk with a friend around Cairn Gorm. During our walk we saw three groups of free-rangers, in different places on the hill which was really wonderful. The first group consisted of Orinoco, Nuii, Vanilla and Solero. The second group was Helsinki, her calf River and Brew. The final group was Sundae, her calf Salsa and Mississippi. My friend Hannah was visiting for the weekend and she had come on a Hill Trip to see the reindeer the day before so it was a real treat for her to see some of the girls out free-ranging. We also had my friend’s dog with us, Foss, so we had to take it in turns going over to see the reindeer whilst one of us waited with Foss at a good distance. We all had a wonderful walk and seeing the groups of free-range reindeer certainly made my day.

Orinoco, Nuii, Vanilla and Solero hanging out in the ski area.
Vanilla and Solero looking wonderful!
Foss at the top of Cairn Gorm.
Brew walking over to say hi.
Helsinki with her calf behind her (River) and Brew to the right.
River, Helsinki’s calf.
Our final group – Sundae and Mississippi.
Sundae and Mississippi with Sundae’s calf (Salsa) close behind.
Finally we stopped for a swim in Coire an Lochain on our way down.

Lotti

Photo Blog: December 2025

The last photo blog of the year! I’ve actually been rather rubbish at taking photos this month as it’s just been so busy (and rather dark with the shortest days of the year) but here’s a wee look at some of the pics I’ve taken on my phone over the past few weeks.

Christmas events went well with teams making us all very proud. Hill Trips have been mostly sold old for weeks (well done if you got tickets) and Christmas Fun was mostly sold out too – it’s been great to see so many people enjoying the brand-new Exhibition and folks getting to meet Santa! Meanwhile up on the hill the reindeer have all been well and unaware of the slight frazzled state of the herders down at the Centre.

Enjoy the photos and Merry Christmas! A big thank you to all who have read the blog over the last 12 months.

4th of December: Brie is having a wonderful end to 2025 free ranging in the hills.
4th of December: Another reindeer from the ‘Cheese’ year! Feta is also having a wonderful time out free ranging. She’s grown a cracking set of antlers this year.
5th of December: Ceilidh coming over to see if there is any spare food for her.
6th of December: Santa is here!
9th of December: Tub on a very soggy day.
10th of December: Moving the free ranging herd – easiest way to get them to where we wanted was just to walk up the road! Old girl Ryvita leading the way.
13th of December: The ‘Christmas Fun’ team for the day – Sherlock, Stenoa, Bond, Charleston and Quickstep.
14th of December: Leading a team of reindeer off the hill ready for their event at Landmark – Lupin and Magnum at the front.
15th of December: Ballet and Sorbet.
15th of December: These boys have all been superstars on Christmas events this season – Jester, Busby and Dr Seuss.
16th of December: Disco and her beautiful mum Dante.
16th of December: Lochi and Beanie.
16th of December: Marple and her son Mosh. He’s such a cheeky wee thing!
19th of December: The herd coming in for their breakfast.
23rd of December: Lochi being all cute.
23rd of December: Salsa lying down after a Hill Trip.
23rd of December: The handsome Zoom.

Ruth

Wee calfie antlers!

With autumn being the season that the calves return to the hill enclosure, along with their mums, it’s always exciting to see them and to start to get to know them as characters. Having spent all summer with males only in the enclosure, it’s suddenly a bit overwhelming to have a sea of ‘new’ reindeer to get to know once again! The calves are the hardest to learn who is who.

Last time we saw them properly, in late spring, they were tiny and heading out to free-range in their calf coats, which are quite different in colouration to an adult reindeer’s coat. By autumn they’ve moulted, grown their new winter coat, and are many times bigger – i.e. they look COMPLETELY different! Other than very obvious colour variation and face markings, their wee antlers are the easiest way to tell them apart. The photo below shows Macchiato at 4 months old, looking about as generic as is possible for a reindeer calf – very average size and shape antlers, along with being very much the ‘normal’ body colour. Difficult to tell one from t’other, looking like this!

Macchiato, aged 4 months

So I thought I’d show some of the antler shapes of calves over the years in this blog. The memorable ones tend to be the biggest ones, of which the outright winner – by a country mile – is Gandalf. However, he was born in Sweden, and many of the Swedish calves we’ve imported over the years (to increase our genetic diversity within the herd) have had very big antlers so maybe he should be disqualified my list…

But here’s a photo of Gandalf anyway. Compare those antlers to Macchiato’s in the photo above!

So… my winner for sheer height of antler is Jester, who definitely looked a bit out of proportion as a calf. He’s gone on to grow enormous adult antlers too, though tending towards wider rather than tall.

Jester.

Some calves have really complex antlers – not quite as tall as Jester’s but more elaborate with several points on each. Examples include:

Murray, born in 2012. Look at that headgear!
Christie (antlers still in velvet here) – exceptional as she is female. As an adult she’s gone on to have very big antlers each year, a family trait inherited from mum Caddis and granny Haze.
Cream – these calf antlers always reminded me of water divining rods!

Duke gets a bonus point for having a forward-pointing tine at the base of one of his calf antlers – perfectly normal in an adult reindeer, but rare in a calf.

Duke.

Whilst not the biggest calf antlers ever, Fez wins my ‘prettiest’ antlers award. Small and perfectly formed, with several points top and bottom. Beautiful!

Beautiful in antler – and face!

But sometimes, it all goes wrong. Calf antlers, being thinner than adult antlers, are easily broken, especially as adult reindeer show no love whatsoever for anyone else’s offspring other than their own, and are all too willing to whack a calf on the head with a hoof should they get in their way. This results in antlers breaking, and this happens whilst the antler is still growing, they will sometimes fuse at the break and the calf is left with a flopped-over broken point.

One of this year’s calves, Lochi, with the classic ‘been-walloped-on-the-head-by-a-hoof’ look.

If this happens early enough in the season, the antler will, once the break is fused and healed, start to grow upright once again from the break. Here’s Fava below, who had managed to break his right hand antler not once but twice, resulting in two downward pointing bits. His antler shows a centimetre of new, upward growth from the break – and then he ran out of time to grow any more!

Fava.
Hopscotch.

Antlers broken right at the base can cause a problem with obscuring vision, poor Hopscotch here had to have this disaster (above) sawn off once it had lost all feeling in the autumn, so she could see where she was going!

And sometimes, it all just goes terribly, terribly wrong…

Poor Heinz! Two broken antlers, bound in place to keep them as still as possible, waiting for the vet to arrive.
Holy Moley.

Holy Moley’s broken antler resulted in a shaved head after the vet had to remove the broken bit right at the base to prevent further damage. Some of you might remember watching her story on our Channel 4 documentary in 2020!

Hen

Photo Blog: November 2025

November has whizzed by. Even more so because I took a week off at the beginning of the month. Don’t worry though, this blog has just as many photos in as normal!

When I left at the end of October the rut was still underway for a couple of our breeding bulls. On my return the rut was well and truly over, and sleigh training had started! One reason I love this job is that every season is different with new things happening every few weeks.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy this snapshot of November. The snowy days were some of my favourites!

13th of November: Morven with her crazy curly antlers!
13th of November: I’ve only just noticed Beanie and Quickstep (Pinto’s calf) have matching coloured hooves!
13th of November: Sleigh training on a soggy afternoon in Glenmore. Kulfi and Jester at the back.
14th of November: Kulfi and Jester in the Paddocks. Kulfi drinking from the burn that flows through their night-time (off show) enclosure.
14th of November: Six-month-old Jig looking handsome! He’s Chickpea’s calf.
14th of November: Beautiful Beret on a cold morning.
14th of November: Salsa and her mum Sundae behind.
15th of November: My first Christmas event of the season in Buckie. The team were amazing.
17th of November: I helped out on a photoshoot trying to get the reindeer into position for two models. Kernel, Zoom and Dr Seuss were very obliging… if food was on the cards!
18th of November: Reindeer on the ski road! A regular sight at this time of year.
18th of November: Sanna and Tiree keeping me warm in the lorry.
18th of November: Sleigh training in the snow! Zoom pulling for the very first time alongside Mivvi.
20th of November: Snow has arrived!! Alba looking amazing.
20th of November: Florence leading the herd through the snow.
20th of November: More snowy reindeer – they’re all so stunning. This is Popsicle closest to camera and Cheer behind.
20th of November: Vanilla camouflaged for the first time since last winter!
21st of November: Haka suckling from his mum Christie.
21st of November: Another white reindeer in the snow! This time six-month-old Morris.
22nd of November: Patchy snow on the hill this morning after a warmer spell. This is Oro who potentially has the best tuft of all calves this year. He belongs to Emmental.
22nd of November: Sorbet and daughter Ballet sharing a pile of food.
27th of November: Cicero patiently waiting for breakfast.
27th of November: Some of this year’s gorgeous calves Bolero, Waltz, Lochi, and Foxtrot’s nose!

Ruth

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