March has been a great month for us here at the Centre. We’ve become so used to working in the new Centre it’s hard to imagine life working from Reindeer House! March is always a relatively quiet month for visitors so it’s meant an excellent ratio of reindeer to people on our daily Hill Trips. Things will start getting busier in April with the school holidays, and reindeer will be back in our Paddocks from Saturday 29th of March. The Paddocks will be a work in progress for some time as we continue to landscape, but at least the reindeer will be back on display for folks to see! Have a read here for up to date info about what’s on offer in the Paddocks: https://www.cairngormreindeer.co.uk/paddocks/.
Here’s lots of lovely photos of some of our gorgeous reindeer taken throughout the month!
3rd of March: Chai is such a cutie, and she knows it!3rd of March: Two girls with big antlers! Mangetout (born 2020) has the biggest set of antlers compared to the females in her year group and Pukka (born 2024) has the biggest out of hers, including the boys!4th of March: Fiona, Lotti and I walked three cows and their calves up the hill to join the free ranging herd we have here on Cairngorm. Previously they’d been free ranging at our second winter site. Feta and Earl Grey, Beanie and Coffee, and Christie and Espresso. 5th of March: We’re so proud of these two! Alba at the front and Winnie behind. Both hand-reared in 2023 and now proper free-roaming reindeer! Go girls.12th of February: Snow! And Cuppa’s awesome eyebrows.12th of March: The top of Ryvita’s head. She’s usually the first cow to start growing her antlers. 13th of March: Winter has returned. Sundae looking particularly beautiful!13th of March: Zambezi and the herd on their way in for breakfast. 13th of March: Winnie and Cameron. 14th of March: Torch making sure Cappuccino is looking good for our visitors. 17th of March: Shannon on St. Patrick’s Day. Shannon was named by herder Amy after the river in Ireland. 17th of March: Ryvita up to her usual tricks! She’s an old girl so I may have allowed this for longer than I would have if it was somebody younger! 18th of March: Trilby leading the herd on a beautiful day. 19th of March: Another old girl enjoying our backpacks – this is Oatcake. 21st of March: Amy and I went over to our second site to help Tilly which was very fun! We got to see all the male reindeer including this greedy chap – Aztec!21st of March: Spartan looking very handsome and enjoying free ranging. He’s just beginning to grow a new set of antlers. 22nd of March: Peanut is a beautiful reindeer. She’ll turn 5 in the spring and is relatively shy in nature but very sweet!22nd of March: Zambezi wondering if I’ve got any food!23rd of March: Sunflower and Fika being very sweet!25th of March: Christie cast her anlters a couple of weeks ago but still looks gorgeous. Her new antlers will begin to grow before too long.27th of March: 10 month old Coffee leading the herd this morning. He’s a very confident chap!
All summer our cows and calves free-range in the Cairngorms. Finding all the best spots to graze and generally keeping themselves to themselves. At the end of the summer, the temperature starts to drop on the tops of the hills, this brings the reindeer lower down and coincides with us bringing the cows and calves back into the enclosure. We bring them in partly so we can train the calves, who are now 3-4 months old and so we can bring the females in for the rut, which is held in the hill enclosure.
Coffee as a newborn calf.
For many of the reindeer, bringing them in consists of spying a group of them on the lower slopes of Cairngorm. Calling them, catching a couple of the adults and walking them into the enclosure with any calves following through the gate. For a few of the reindeer things are a little trickier. Some of them walk off the hills into different glens and have to be fetched in Brenda, our livestock truck. If these groups are adults then it is easy enough to catch them and walk them into the truck to bring them home again. Sometimes though, the group includes calves, who are not yet halter trained. That’s when things get a little trickier.
In this case our group consisted of almost all adults apart from Beanie’s calf, who we have named Coffee. I had seen Beanie and Coffee earlier in the week and he had been very shy (fair enough having not seen many people all summer), he hadn’t wanted to follow Beanie and the other reindeer that I had haltered up and eventually I had let Beanie go so that she could go and find Coffee. I knew that catching him would need a bit of patience.
Beanie and Coffee with Tap and Sundae behind, on the day that Coffee did not want to follow!Northern white-tailed bumblebee on a Devil’s Bit Scabious flower.
I headed out into the hills, up through the woodland (passing this beautiful bumble bee who I thought deserved a mention) and managed to find the group of reindeer. Ironically Gaelic name of the hill I found them on translates as the ‘hill of the gathering’. I was delighted to see that the entire group were very friendly and greedy, setting a good example to young Coffee. I knew I had a good couple of hours to win him over before Ruth and Isla could come out to meet me and help with the actual catching as they were currently taking the morning hill trip. That left me with a very wonderful job, hang out with a lovely herd of reindeer, eat my lunch and generally try to be calm and approachable.
Glacée and Dante looking majestic.Darling feasting on lots of lovely lichen. Coffee lurking behind!Coffee attacking Lotti’s backpack.Lotti and Coffee who was slowly becoming braver!Coffee getting closer.Isla sitting patiently whilst Lotti and Ruth catch Coffee.
For the first hour or so, Beanie and the other greedy girls were at my side at all times. Coffee stayed within view but a good distance away. Over the next couple of hours he got closer and closer until he was within a couple of feet of me, he even started kicking my rucksack at one point. Rude!
Fairly soon after this a hill walker came past and chatted to me, Coffee ran off at first but then fairly quickly re-appeared clearly realising that he wasn’t a threat – all great desensitisation. Next, Ruth and Isla both arrived. Again Coffee was a little unsure at first, but very quickly came back over to investigate. Ruth managed to hide her body behind Beanie and get a hold of the Coffee’s back leg, after which I was able to put a halter on him. Inevitably, Coffee was pretty unimpressed at first and spent the first few minutes pulling on the rope. He walked him off the hill along with Beanie and 4 other young females. By the time we had reached the woodland, he was munching away on mushrooms and seemed to mostly have forgotten about the halter around his face.
Isla with two single cows and Lotti behind with Beanie and Coffee.Coffee munching on a mushroom.
We drove the reindeer back to Glenmore and walked him up to our hill enclosure which is where he is just now still. It can be a bit of a baptism of fire catching a calf out on the hill like that but doesn’t affect their training. Coffee has spent the last couple of months in our hill enclosure getting tamer and tamer and more recently, has been halter trained properly. If you’d like to read back on how we halter train our calves, then read this blog, written way back in 2015.
