Tag: Bordeaux

Posted on

Reindeer personalities

The longer we work with the reindeer the more we see their individual personalities, this is one reason I love working with these incredible animals! They are all so unique, and learning all their quirks and characters means we can work with and handle the reindeer better. This wee blog shows a few of their character traits…

The one with the puppy dog eyes…

Bordeaux has a sweet-natured soul with big, beautiful eyes which she likes to use on weak-willed reindeer herders. At the end of each Hill Trip she likes to wander up to the herders and batter her eyelashes at them in the hope she gets to put her head in the white bag containing tasty treats! To be fair to Bordeaux this is most likely a learnt behaviour. A couple of years ago she had a bad summer and came in off the free range in poor condition. We spent a couple of months carrying a special bag of food on to the hill for her containing an extra extra-calorific food mix in order for her gained weight before the harsh winter months. She clearly got used to this special treatment and now can’t understand why she’s not allowed any extra!

Bordeaux licking the evidence of her nose.

The labrador…

Busby is a very lovely and very friendly lad! When he was a calf he was actually rather shy and took a little while for his cheeky nature and fairly outrageous levels of greediness to really shine! The photo below sums his character up well: Isla trying to get past him and Busby making sure that he’s 100% been seen so surely there’s some food in that white bag for him. Reindeer don’t like to be stroked and patted but if there’s a bag of food around, Busby will tolerate most things! He’s also a great poser so often appears on social media especially over the summer months when he’s often in our hill enclosure here on Cairngorm.

Busby doing his absolute best to make sure Isla notices him!

The ‘Danger Reindeer’…

Pumpkin is a feisty girl with bags of attitude! She’s dark in colour and very beautiful so people often want to take photos of her or with her. She’s not shy around people and loves hand feeding from our visitors. BUT if you catch her in a bad mood then you may know about it, she’s well known for waving her antlers at people and even snorting! This means herders on Hill Trips are constantly keeping a wee eye on her and often have to apologise for her bad behaviour – “please don’t take it personally, that’s just Pumpkin!”

Beautiful Pumpkin – who wouldn’t want to get a photo of this beautiful lass! Photo from September 2024.
Even without antlers Pumpkin can be a bit scary! This was me trying to take a lovely photo of Pumpkin next to her daughter Lapsang, and I get the ears back look and snorted at!

The greediest of all…

Aztec! Arguable, but surely most herders would agree?! In 2022 he was officially crowned the title after herders voted on it – read that blog here. He is very friendly, the class clown, and even though Aztec will be 9 years old in the spring he shows no sign of slowing down. Multiple times, I’ve witnessed him jumping over fences from a standstill at the merest rustle of a bag on the other side – he’s very athletic! Aztec during hand-feeding sessions on Hill Trips adds a bit of drama to the day. He has no patience and inhales the food from one pair of hands in milliseconds before heading to the next pair of out-stretched hands, and then the next… Thankfully he grows relatively small antlers so he’s not wheeling around huge headgear. If you foolishly allow him to get into a white bag, then good luck to you! He ploughs his nose to the ground making it almost impossible for you to remove his head and can be rather embarrassing in front of 50 people on a Hill Trip. What a boy!!

Trying to take Aztec for some exercise whilst on Christmas tour is hard-going when the trees are covered in this much lichen!
Here he is free ranging in March 2024 looking all innocent!

Sweet as pie…

Diamond – she’s so lovely! She’s an old girl now at 13. She’s had a permanent limp since spring 2019 and since then she’s been retired from breeding as we don’t want her putting additional strain on her body. As she now doesn’t breed, she gets to spend most of her life out free ranging in the mountains. I’ve had several lovely encounters with Diamond on the free range where she always seems genuinely pleased to see you, and very gently and politely takes some food! The photo below is of Cameron and Diamond casually walking across the Cairngorm plateau. We bumped into her by herself, and she decided to follow us all the way to a lovely safe spot, closer to home. We got some funny looks as we strolled past hill walkers who were doing double takes at our four-legged friend! Hard to believe, but she is the granny of the ‘Danger Reindeer’ above – how is that possible when Diamond is this sweet?!

Cameron casually scrolling across the hill with the lovely Diamond.

The snorer…

Perhaps snoring isn’t a personality trait, but in the warmer summer months Clouseau loves to lie in the exact same spot, snoring away. It’s just off the boardwalk, right by the gate so all our visitors get to experience the sweet snores as he dozes off and waits for the next meal to arrive! He’s actually a rather cheeky chap but boy does he know how to relax!

Turn up the volume! The gentle sounds of Clouseau snoring away in his favourite summer spot!

The last one…

Vienna is a really sweet lass. She’s friendly, greedy, sweet-natured, and a beautiful, unusual colour. However, annoyingly she is most often at the back of the herd trailing along with no haste whatsoever! For other reindeer if they’re being sluggish at the back it’s a sign we may need to check their temperature as they could be feeling a bit under the weather. But we have learnt that for Vienna, that’s just her!

Surprise, surprise! Vienna is the last reindeer through the gate for her breakfast! December 2024.
Can you see the herd stretching out right into the middle of the photo? Yep, that’s Vienna’s bottom closest to the camera right at the very back as always.

I could go on and on but I think I’ll stop there… maybe I could write a second instalment in the future!

Ruth

Posted on

Photo Blog: May 2025

The start of May was a whirlwind! The first calf of the year was born on the 25th of April, then the cows left us in suspense for a whole week until the 2nd of May until the next one came along. It was then a flurry of calves being born all over the place – we had 19 within one week! Calving then slowed down and things became a bit calmer with the last one found on the 28th. In general we’ve had a very successful month and the vast majority of the calves and their mums are already out free roaming in the hills – I can’t wait to head out to see them over the summer.

On top of this we’ve also had two Hill Trips a day and all the usual business in the office. So I’ll leave it there and just let you enjoy the cute pictures…

As a reminder, we won’t reveal the names of the new mothers until after we’ve let our adopters know in the June newsletter so I’ve tried to be deliberately vague.

1st of May: Brew bored of me talking on a Hill Trip and finding a comfy seat on my rucksack! I’m sure a lot of visitors would empathise with her – I do tend to go on a bit.
1st of May: Sisters Zambezi and Juniper hanging out together.
6th of May: A gorgeous newborn male calf.
6th of May: Bordeaux and Turtle wondering what I’m up to on another beautiful day. I’m starting to forget what rain feels like!
7th of May: Amazon looking beautiful whilst out free ranging in the hills!
7th of May: Druid is a shy boy and doesn’t handfeed but he loves eating from the white bag at the end of the visit, as you can tell from the crumbs on his nose!
9th of May: Choc-ice is a bold and rather cheeky fella!
12th of May: This gorgeous wee one is just over a week old and already very settled around us, so long as mum isn’t too far away!
12th of May: A beutiful female calf.
12th of May: Cameron walking a calf into the ‘nursery’ area of our enclosure, the mum is just ahead, off camera and this wee one is less than 12 hours old.
13th of May: Andi feeding the main herd in the enclosure. Look at the size of Sherlock’s antlers next to everyone else! Busby closest to camera.
13th of May: A beautiful calf chilling out in a bog!
14th of May: Another gorgeous calf!
14th of May: Three ‘normal coloured’ calves in the wrong place on the other side of a fence to their (unconcerned) mums! Who do you belong to?!
14th of May: Another calf cooling down in a bog. Look at that row of bottom teeth!
17th of May: Spartan tapping his antlers encouraging their growth.
18th of May: The first batch of calves getting walked out! Here’s Cameron walking with a mother and her calf following on behind.
18th of May: Free ranging mother and calf! A beautiful evening waving them off!
18th of May: Another calf now free ranging in the hills for the summer. Good luck wee one!
19th of May: Kuksa yawning after a Hill Trip. Tiring work being this cute!
21st of May: A really funky coloured calf! What a cutie.
23rd of May: One year old Chai having a suckle from mum Cheer. Usually the calves stop suckling long before this but Cheer and Chai remain closely bonded.
27th of May: How Jimmy spent the majority of my Hill Trip – at my side giving me the puppy dog eyes!
28th of May: Another reindeer calf just for good measure!
28th of May: Elbe, the twin brother to his more famous sister Alba, looking great.
29th of May: Some of our gorgeous boys – Jester, Kulfi, Busby, Mivvi and Olmec.

Ruth

Posted on

Reindeer around food

For anyone that has visited the reindeer on a Hill Trip, you’ll know that we do a small talk about the reindeer before we feed them. If I’m not the person chatting, I like to stand back and enjoy the mischief that the reindeer come up with when they’re getting impatient waiting for their food. There are a few techniques that the reindeer use to try and get their food early and I thought it would make an amusing blog for you wonderful readers.

The final talk on a Hill Trip where a herder introduces people to the reindeer and we aim to tell you about some of their fascinating adaptations for life in the sub Arctic. We can get very distracted by misbehaving reindeer!
The green feed bag is like a magnet for our reindeer! Here’s Mivvi following Sheena down the hill.

Considering that reindeer have epic senses of smell, it isn’t surprising that they can sniff out where the food is (and to be honest we don’t hide it either) their food is carried up to the reindeer in big green sacks, so they’re super obvious. If one of us (herders) is taking a Hill Trip by ourselves, we are conducting a talk whilst trying to deter reindeer snuffling about our feed bags, kicking our bags or even trying to bite through the bags! Which I suspect leads to great entertainment for our visitors. So having an extra pair of hands there is always appreciated. Now down to the good stuff…

The first technique is to kick the feed sack, obviously in the hopes that food may fall out. But as you can imagine those big feet can cause a bit of damage to our poor feed sacks. Whilst chatting away, you will have a group of keen reindeer pawing away at the bag which is really distracting!

The worst culprits for this are usually the yearlings as through the previous winter they received preferential feeding from the green sacks and I suspect they’re frustrated that they can’t now eat from the bags- quite rightly so, extra food is always awesome!

This photo is from early spring 2024 when the ‘black tags’ (those born in spring 2023) were still getting preferential food. It’s a tough lesson when they realise they’re not the youngest in the herd anymore and not invited into the bag anymore. Some learn pretty quickly. Others are still struggling with the concept after years (yes you, Holy Moley aged 4 and Dr Seuss aged 7).
The 2024 calves feeding out of the bag first this September – the poor black tags have a bit of a shock when they are shooed away!
Isla and Cassie allowing the calves in the bag first to feed whilst the adult reindeer have to wait for the food to go out on the ground. Hemp is up on his hind legs in the background – pushing another reindeer away and making sure he gets to stand as close as possible to the bags!
Sometimes you just can’t wait like Yangtze as a calf mugging Joe!

For the next tactic, one specific reindeer comes to mind, and that is Magnum a very handsome 2-year-old who loves to chew our feed sacks and create holes from which he can steal food from. He is very skilled at it and if you’re not paying attention can quickly break his way through our feed sacks. Due to the way that we herders carry the food up the hill, holey bags lead to reindeer food going down the back of our shirts, which isn’t a great feeling.

Magnum trying to make a hole in our bag mid talk! It seems a bit mean to chase him away in front of our lovely visitors when that’s their first impression of the herd but he’s destroyed so many bags! He is relentless and it can be very distracting when we’re trying to tell people how lovely all our reindeer are.
Magnum trying his hardest!

If kicking the sack hasn’t worked, some reindeer then rush over to the visitors in anticipation for the sweet snack they get while visitors hand feed. This can often happen straight away, happening as soon as we have stopped the group to chat to visitors. Once the reindeer have had a quick smell of folks’ pockets, they will head back to the feed sack again. Yearlings Nile and Elbe are guilty of this and are prone to getting right into peoples faces hoping for food.

This is Beret! She’s now learnt how hand feeding works, but it took her a while to cotton on! She spent a whole winter (gently) jumping on people and rubbing her face on our visitors to see if she then got hand feed. Photo: Yvonne Bannister
Hemp being his usual cheeky self! We don’t allow our visitors to touch the reindeer but the rule doesn’t work both ways. Hemp is probably one of the worst culprits for touching visitors. This is him rubbing his face on somebody’s bag! Thankfully this lovely visitor found the experience funny, but for our more nervous visitors this cheeky behavior can be overwhelming so it’s certainly not encouraged!

One of the final techniques I will mention is the puppy dog eye approach. This usually occurs when the group has dispersed, and visitors are off taking pictures of reindeer. Herders will stand holding the empty feed bag and a few reindeer like Druid, Bordeaux, and Olympic will stand next to us patiently waiting for extra food to come their way. Don’t tell the reindeer, but this is usually the best way to manipulate a herder into giving them extra food! When it comes to some of the tamer reindeer, like Nile, Winnie and Elbe puppy dog eyes progress into snuffling through human pockets, leaning their heads on humans and general personal space invasion until they break us herders and we give in.

The Druid approach: “any food in that white bag of yours?”
A classic Bordeaux face – hard to resist!
Elbe making sure herder Hannah can’t miss him!

Amy

Posted on

Bordeaux

For any of you that have visited us on our Hill Trips at the end of last year, you may have noticed a young female hanging around us herders, ever hopeful that she can mooch some extra feed. She is a 5-year-old female called Bordeaux, who is very non-descript colour wise and was born in 2019 – which was the year we decided to name our reindeer after European places. She was born on the free range after her mother, Sika decided to go AWOL the day before we were due to bring the pregnant cows into our hill enclosure for the calving season. Doing this allows us to check that both cow and calf are healthy before sending them out to free range for the summer. But Sika must have known that a short stint in the hill enclosure was pending and decided it wasn’t how she wanted to spend the next couple of weeks!

The lovely Bordeaux – any visitors recognise this face?

Bordeaux’s mother is a sweet reindeer that is relatively independent. At the ripe old age of 16 she is now enjoying a retired life free ranging in the cairngorms.  Both Bordeaux and her mother look very much alike, which helps me confidently ID at least one of the retired females out on the free range. To learn more about Sika have a read of Hen’s blog here.

Sika (left) and Bordeaux (right) in January 2023. Both have exactly the same facial expression when stood near a herder with a white bag.

In 2022 it was time for Bordeaux to continue her family line and she gave birth to a male calf in our hill enclosure. However, once out on the free-range Bordeaux sadly lost her calf – it is not unusual for first time mothers to lose their calves out on the free range, as reindeer build up resistance to some illnesses that they may encounter as they age. We found Bordeaux hanging around the ski road in rather poor condition, so we decided to bring her into our hill enclosure so we could fatten her up before the winter set in again.

Bordeaux in October 2022. She grew very small antlers that summer and her winter coat was rather scruffy indicating she was in slightly poorer condition than we would like so it was time to spoil her!

Being a super quiet reindeer, Bordeaux always hung about on the sidelines, when food was being set out for the herd – suggesting she may have been quite low in the pecking order. This meant that us herders began to feel sorry for her and decided that we would give her extra feed on the Hill Trips too! It has been well over a year since we started feeding Bordeaux and it is very clear that she now expects extra food whenever she sees a herder. But in comparison to other reindeer, she is very polite about it (Editor’s note: Usually. She did kick Hen earlier this year when demanding food…). She has opted for the puppy dog eyes and patient wait tactic, which of course we can’t ignore because she is being so sweet about it!

Bordeaux in February 2022 – looking much better but we just can’t resist those eyes.
Bordeaux posing beautifully.
How can we resist this face?
Tell tale signs – crumbs all over her face!
She must get it from her mum! Sika (left) licking her lips and Bordeaux (right) posing beautifully.

Another tactic I’ve noticed her doing  is to stare at you from afar – there have been a few times now that I have noticed her keeping surveillance on the white bag and as soon as you go to feed another reindeer, she is straight in there too.  I’ve also been told that she can be quite pushy and rude with Hen, which I find quite hard to believe – Sorry Hen! (Editor’s note: Hen insists this is absolutely true!). So even now that she is in better condition, we still slip her the odd mouthful of feed as she is a super sweet lass, and it is great to have her around.

Whilst the calves get to feed from the bags, Bordeaux tries to stare down Amy.
Bordeaux sticking her tongue out behind Emm.

So, there it is, a little history on a fairly popular little reindeer that has brought lots of you wonderful visitors a large amount of joy with the added pleasure of some lovely pictures!

Amy

Posted on

Volunteer Blog: From the rutting season to the calving season

Sherlock during the rut in 2023.

I first visited the Cairngorm reindeer herd in August 2000 and since then have visited on many occasions with my husband and our three daughters.

Over the years we have made badges and paper antlers, hunted for elves, taken countless photos of our daughters sitting on the sleigh outside the shop, handfed the reindeer, and have never tired of the beautiful walk up to the hill enclosure.

Our last family trip was on Valentine’s Day in 2022 when we headed out in the pouring rain on the 11am Hill Trip to visit the free ranging herd high up on the mountain. It was following that trip that I heard about the chance to apply to become a volunteer and spend a week helping out at Reindeer House and decided to apply.

Jayne’s husband and daughter smiling despite the rain thanks to Gloriana. Hard to believe this soggy experience made Jayne wish to volunteer with us!

In October 2023 I packed my tent and drove up from Lancashire to spend the week at Glenmore. I was rather apprehensive turning up at 8am on Monday morning with a rucksack full of waterproofs and sandwiches but I needn’t have worried. I was immediately greeted by a room full of very friendly reindeer herders, several dogs and a handful of puppies!

My volunteer week was action packed. In the morning I helped with handling the reindeer down at the Visitor Centre, feeding them, cleaning up and getting everything ready for visitors to come in at 10am.

During October there is just one Hill Trip a day. I would go up onto the hill, carrying a bag of food and talking to visitors about what I was doing. Each day I would heat up some milk and carry it up the hill in a flask to feed two calves named Winnie and Alba who had been successfully hand reared and were now on the hill with the rest of the herd. Whilst I keep insisting that I don’t have a favourite reindeer I do have a soft spot for Alba!

Winnie and Alba, hard not to develop soft spots for these two girls!

October is the rutting season which was quite eventful! The hill enclosure was being used to manage the annual breeding as well as for daily Hill Trips so there was plenty to do. Two male reindeer had been selected for breeding. Sherlock was out on Silver Mount with some of the females whilst Jelly Bean was in another part of the enclosure with some of the other females. Daily checks were made of all the reindeer and extra food provided. It was quite an experience to see these normally very docile males displaying anything but docile behaviour and to see their interactions with the females as they came into season. I was certainly happy to stay behind the fence!

Sherlock out on Silver Mount with Bordeaux, one of his selected cows.

Volunteering in October also meant that I got the opportunity to be involved in the first week of the Christmas sleigh training. I’ll never forget being pulled up the hill from Glenmore Visitor Centre in a Sleigh!

Jayne at the front of the sleigh in hi-vis, on crowd control duty.

I learnt so much that week and thoroughly enjoyed it so it was no surprise to my family when I asked if they would mind if I abandoned them once again this year to spend another week volunteering.

My return to Glenmore was sooner than I imagined and I was back again at the start of May 2024 – approximately 220 days since my last visit – which quite coincidentally happened to be about the same period of time as the average gestation period for a reindeer!

How lucky was I – having experienced the madness of the rutting season I was now in the thick of the calving season.

One of our gorgeous calves.

Three calves had already been born when I arrived on a wet bank holiday weekend and over the course of the week that I was there another 12 were born on the hill.

During my second stint as a volunteer there was no Paddocks and Exhibition to attend to as it has been knocked down over the winter and is in the process of being rebuilt. There was plenty to do though with two Hill Trips a day, plus an early morning walk to find reindeer, check on them, locate newly born reindeer and help with a whole host of other daily jobs to be done.

New mum Vienna and calf Mocha.

Watching how quickly the calves developed and became so sure footed in such a short space of time was amazing and as the new mums relaxed into motherhood it was a joy to just sit and watch them interact. It’s hard to imagine that in just a few weeks the mums and calves will be out free ranging across the Cairngorm mountains.

During the time I have spent with everyone who works with the Cairngorm Reindeer I have learned so much about these beautiful animals. I have thoroughly enjoyed helping to take visitors up onto the hill, telling them about the reindeer and talking to them about all sorts of things!

Sherlock looking a bit different from Jayne’s last visit.
Zambezi and Shannon now yearlings in May 2024, in the previous October these were some of the calves that were being trained to walk behind the sleigh.

I feel so privileged to have had this opportunity and am rather hoping that I will be allowed back again next year ….

Jayne

Posted on

Tongues out for the camera

When we came off the hill today, I was having a flick through the photos I had taken in order to find a couple to post on social media. I found that two of the reindeer today had stuck their tongues out to me. They must have been unimpressed at having their photos taken. I thought that our blog readers might appreciate seeing some rather silly photos taken over the past couple of months.

Mangetout trying to lick the last bit of food off her nose.
It clearly runs in the family as here is Mangetout’s auntie Morven.
Olympic sticking his tongue out at a Primary school class who we visited.
Peanut, usually one of the most photogenic reindeer in the herd…
Bordeaux is also attempting to get the last bit of feed off her snout.
The tip of Torch’s tongue (there’s a tongue twister to be found in their somewhere).

It would be impossible to write a blog of tongue out photos without featuring the lovely Dug, king of the lolling tongue! Dug is one of the Reindeer House dogs and due to a combination of an unusually long tongue, and a slight overbite, he spends 99% of the time with his tongue stuck out. This causes great amusement to everyone who sees Dug, and we frequently look out our office window to passersby sticking their tongues out back to Dug. Thanks for making us all laugh Dug!!

Dug and his tongue catching the breeze!
Dug and Tiree.
Dug enjoying some afternoon sunshine!

Lotti

Posted on

Sherlock’s Antlers

Sherlock in September 2022.

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.

Tilly

Posted on

Photo Blog: December 2023

On the last Friday of each month throughout 2023 I have shared photos that I’ve taken on my phone to hopefully give everyone an idea of the goings on at the Reindeer Centre. What a complete mix bag of photos this is to finish the year off! December has seen me up and down the A9 and dotting around locally with beautiful teams of reindeer for lots of Christmas events. I’ve done the odd day at the Centre too catching up with the goings on here, with just enough office time to put together this blog. My wonderful colleagues have also been ridiculously busy on events and at the Centre keeping everything going. Getting through gazillions of adoptions packs, leading fully booked Hill Trips and of course Christmas Fun in the Paddocks. This selection of photos doesn’t really do December justice, but it’s a snap shot of what I’ve been up to at least.

30th of November: Couldn’t resist including this one from November. Moving our free ranging herd in the snow!
1st of December: Cassie feeding the calves out of the bag.
2nd of December: Very chilled out reindeer in Aberfeldy after a short parade. In the team we have Dr Seuss, Frost, Haricot, Lupin, Colorado and Limpopo.
4th of December: After two nights away here’s the same team as above returning to the snowy hills.
10th of December: Stenoa and Olympic posing at the front posing with Santa and a pantomime crew.
11th of December: Seven month old calves Colorado and Ob sharing the same puddle.
12th of December: Amazon needing a chin rest.
12th of December: Bordeaux’s beard blowing beautifully in a cold Cairngorm breeze!
15th of December: Walking a team of reindeer out of the enclosure for a local event at the Aviemore Ice Rink.
16th of December: Herder Melanie and I attend a wedding with reindeer at Raemoir House near Banchory. Here they are eating lunch before meeting the bride and groom.
17th of December: A day at Reindeer House for me and spending as much time on the hill as possible! This is the gorgeous Marple and her daughter Mekong with matching billowing beards on the afternoon Hill Trip.
17th of December: The lovely Chickpea has had an excellent year and is in fab condition.
18th of December: Olympic showing off his lack of top teeth at a visit to a primary school in Aberdeen.
22nd of December: Our team very settled at Gleneagles Hotel. From left to right we’ve got Mississippi, Aztec, LX and Olympic.
23rd of December: Mississippi being especially cute!
25th of December: Before spending a few hours in the display pen each day, we take the the the boys for a good walk each morning so they can stretch their legs. For reindeer this means stopping at every tree to have a nibble at the lichen! Here’s Aztec getting some tasty Christmas Day snacks.
28th of December: Turtle and her calf Amur on the hill.
28th of December: Isla’s last day of work (although I’m sure she’ll be back at some point!) so here she is spoiling Alba, one of our hand-reared calves.

Ruth

Posted on

Photo Blog: October 2023

Here’s a selection of pics taken throughout the month, hopefully giving a snap shot of what we’ve been getting up to. It’s been full on with the rut taking place in the enclosure, our breeding bulls do now seem a bit less enthusiastic after a busy six weeks for them! We’ve also been bringing two calves at a time down to the Paddocks to halter train them. They usually spend around four days here in which we take them out on morning walks to get them used to seeing traffic, bikes, their own reflections in shiny windows and whatever else Glenmore can throw at us at 8am! Christmas sleigh training for our three year old Christmas Reindeer begins too. So far Adzuki, Haricot and Hemp have been trained and they’ve all been total pros. During the October holidays when our 11am Hill Trip sells out we’ve been putting on an afternoon Hill Trip too. Funnily enough, during the rain and wind of Storm Babet we did not require this attentional visit. But after the storm we’ve been treated to some gorgeous autumnal weather and the first decent snow on the hills of the season.

Amongst all of this we’ve also managed to get the October newsletter written, printed and sent out to our lovely adopters! Until it’s safely in the hands of our adopters I’ve left all calf names out of the blog.

2nd of October – Sherlock watching over Bordeaux whilst she eats her breakfast.
4th of October – Haricot puling the sleigh like a pro -his second time ever!
5th of October- Olympic looking very handsome pulling the sleigh with very special cargo on board – Tilly and her grand children!
7th of October – Fly looking very soggy on an incredibly wet day! She’s 16 and is now of of the oldest reindeer in our herd.
7th of October – Emm, our wonderful volunteer, is here brightening up even the wettest of days, alongside Holy Moley and calf.
10th of October – Druid, excellent at striking a pose!
12th of October – Cicero and Lupin vying for their moment in the blog.
13th of October – A morning at the farm to help Tilly feed the bulls. Here’s Busby, cheeky as ever!
18th of October – Checking in with some of the cows in Sherlock’s breeding group. Here we have Pumpkin, Torch and Pip.
19th of October – An incredibly wet Hill Trip. Gloriana and Borlotti closest to the camera with the herd behind, waiting for their lunch.
23rd of October – Blue skies!! Jenga, Sunflower and Feta posing beautifully.
24th of October – Borlotti and her cute calf with a big pile of breakfast.
26th of October – Ryvita, Sambar and Sika leading a lovely free range group of girls.

Ruth

Posted on

Photo Blog: September 2023

I love September! The reindeer look super, we’re busy with free ranging reindeer, we name the calves and we start learning their individual personalities, plus the rut kicks off. Having said that, I planned a two week holiday in one of my favourite months – must remember not to do that again! So there is a big gap in the photos for this month’s blog, but I’ve made up for it by just sharing more from the same day.

Just a reminder – we don’t reveal the names of the calves online until our adopters receive their newsletter next month.

2nd of September- Sambar (in the background) and Okapi. Both now 15 years old and looking great for their age. This was taken on one of my reindeer retrieval missions.
3rd of September – Brie and her wee daughter. Back in the enclosure and both looking good after a summer free ranging.
4th of September -Mangetout looking beautiful on a lovely autumnal afternoon. Her daughter and her new sister (belonging to mum Dante) are the calves behind her.
19th of September (a) – After a TWO week holiday, I’m back to work and the first job is to split the reindeer for the rut. Exciting times! Here is Fiona putting some cows out on Silver Mount, an area within the hill enclosure.
19th of September (b) – Step two is to add the bull! Fiona and I took Sherlock for a walk to the enclosure. Here he is off to find his girls – a man on a mission!
19th of September (c) – Our other breeding bull is three year old Jelly. He looks a bit less sure about the situation compared to Sherlock but he quickly got the idea.
20th of September – Holy Moley and her calf behind. Holy Moley is delighted to be back in the enclosure after the summer in the hills. Here she is on the hunt for more hand feed.
21st of September – Sherlock with some of his girls – Bordeaux, Pip and Jenga.
22nd of September – Trying to get a nice pic of Mushy and Jenga but Bordeaux wants in on the action. Or maybe it’s the white bag under my arm.
22nd of September – Christmas Reindeer, Frost and Adzuki, looking handsome in the late afternoon sunshine.
26th of September – Emmental is the first to the feed bag on today’s Hill Trip.
26th of September – Girls out free ranging! These are some of our single ladies, either too young to breed or retired from breeding. From L to R: Vanilla, Sorbet, Diamond, Sambar, Lolly, Solero and Suidhe (sticking her tongue out!)
26th of September – Catching up with this old lady on the free range! Diamond is now 11 years old and looking super. She is stripping the velvet off her antlers.

Ruth

Book Now