Summer is well underway with Scottish schools off and English schools just breaking up and here at the Reindeer Centre we have certainly noticed the rise in visitor numbers. We now offer three guided tours onto the hill daily over the next two months with our additional 3.30pm tour on Monday – Fridays. Trekking has been running for a month now and already we have taken over 23 groups made up of 68 people of which two of them were hardy 5 and 6 year olds! It has all gone very smoothly and the reindeer have been absolute stars. On the whole we have been very lucky with the weather with only a couple of wet trekking days but if you come to Scotland to go trekking in the Cairngorm mountains you have to come with the frame of mind that you may experience all four seasons in one day!
Rubiks and Boxer admiring the view with their trekkers at the summit of Silver Mount
The reindeer that have been trekking already this year are – Marley, Puddock, Caribou, Gnu, Topi, Paintpot, Oryx, Grunter, Strudel, Macaroon, Hornet, Beastie, Tanner, Spider, Hamish, Horse, Rummy, Domino, Origami, Monopoly, Bingo, Svalbard, Rubiks, Stenoa, Olympic, Second, Nutkins, Monty, Balmoral, Duke, Minute, Boris, Mo, Orkney, Ost, Drambuie, Jonne, Kota, Gandi, Bovril, Hook, Boxer, Gin, Max and Nutti. Grunter is used for our younger trekkers. He is what I’d describe as a bombproof reindeer. He is quite happy either at the front of the group or at the back. A wee Dutch lad who led him a couple of weeks ago headed off on his own route jumping all the puddles – I think him and Grunter covered almost twice as much ground than us!
They have all got their different characters, some love the attention and a good fuss while others are quite happy to plod along at the back at their own pace. Some reindeer are super cheeky and others know how to ‘take the mick’ out of trekkers who maybe aren’t so confident in their leading so what I always like to do to match up characters of reindeer to the characters of my trekkers and 90% of the time I get it right. I’ll let my previous trekkers work out how I see their characters compared to the reindeer they led 😉 The 10% I get wrong is my fall back excuse!
As well as our additional summer activities we are still doing our day to day work both out on the hill checking the free-ranging herd of cows and calves as well as here in our office putting adoption packs together, so naturally we need a few extra hands at this time of year and therefore employ more staff. Our latest member of the team has taken to the reindeer herding life very well indeed. She is super fit which is great when out in the hills and although still a bit shy with our visitors she is only young so confidence will come and by the end of summer I’m sure she will be on full form. Recently we have been showing her how to set up adoption packs as we have a great support network of adopters all over the world and each pack has its very own hand written letter because we really feel they deserve that personal touch. She does a great job and who knows we may even keep her on after the summer months if she continues to show hard work and commitment to the job in hand. Everybody, meet Tiree! She is my 10 month old Aussie Shepherd pup and is by far the best looking member of our team here…
Every year we reindeer herders have a little flutter into betting around calving time of year – the idea is to pick a reindeer you think is going to calve first and if your reindeer calves last you have to take an icy dip into Loch Morlich. As you can imagine this makes it all the more serious and some proper consideration should always go into picking your ‘bet’ reindeer. This year turned into a two handed contest between Abby and Hen, and it was never going to end well for one of them…
The contenders: Hopscotch versus Lulu
Abby: Last year (my first calving) I took all the advice on board, I learned about families who calve early, I checked out tummy size and I looked at udder size; and ended up with a female who calved pretty near the beginning.
You would think that after a year of reindeer herding I’d enter this year’s bet with a bit more wisdom and expertise: after all, I’ve got to know the reindeer pretty well now. However, I committed the cardinal sin, and chose a reindeer who I just really liked before weighing up the facts properly. A lovely four year old called Hopscotch, and indeed she was pretty rotund looking when I picked her but there was no sign of an udder, but I’d made my choice and had to stick by it.
Hen: Bets have to be in by the end of April, and this year I went with Lulu. I had dutifully peered between hind legs at udders, assessed general belly size, and considered previous calving patterns, and Lulu seemed like a pretty safe bet. Everyone else made sensible bets too, with the exception of Abby. We ripped her to shreds continuously as she was very obviously going to end up in the loch, and deserved to as well – Hopscotch (daft choice, ha!) was looking pretty slim compared to everyone else’s bets, who were waddling around huffing and puffing.
Checking the pregnant cows early in the morning
Abby: By the 30th of April it all kicked off and the calving storm began – one by one the females started popping and one by one my colleagues became safe from the dreaded swim. By mid-May most of the females had calved and all that was left from the bet was me with Hopscotch and Hen with Lulu. Lulu was the size of a barge with an udder to match, and was like the vision of doom every time I saw her up the hill. I began to think myself very foolish indeed and resigned myself to the fact that a very cold swim was coming my way as there was no way Hopscotch would calve before an old pro like Lulu!
However, much to my surprise on Monday the 18th of May Hopscotch was missing, I was all a-flutter and stoked thinking that I was free of the swim and off we headed to track down her and her new calfie. We were, however, a wee bit disappointed, finding her on the top of Silver Mount (which is a very popular calving spot) chillin’ like a villain. There would be no calf today it seemed. It’s very common for reindeer to go off and faff about for up to a week before they actually give birth and I resigned myself to fact once again that I’d probably end up in the water. However the next day the same thing happened, no Hopscotch, hopes were high until once again she was found and pootled back to the herd quite happily but by our afternoon visit she was once again gone… this was it I thought. If a female goes missing in the afternoon a herder will head up the hill at the ungodly hour of 5am to track her down and this is just what I did! Once again she was on Silver mount (a bit of a shock for my legs that early in the morning – this is why reindeer herders get through so many biscuits!), but she didn’t look quite right and upon taking her temperature I realised she had an acute case of ‘Man Flu’! She got a wee dose of antibiotics before I popped her in with the cows and calves. 10 yards later she went down and in my head my thoughts ran along the lines of ‘Oh my god, I’ve killed a reindeer!’ until she started huffing and puffing away… she seemed to be going into labour! I left her to it and waited with glee to meet a new calfie in the afternoon.
Hen: I had foolishly chosen this week to have a few days off, and was away from home too. A smug text message on the Monday told me that Hopscotch was away to calve, but frantic texts from me after that, trying to gauge what was happening, mostly seemed to go unanswered or got a cryptic reply that didn’t really tell me what was going on. I started to sweat. Surely I wasn’t going to be beaten by Abby?! Having been here for a year, she is still ‘new’ compared to me – I’ve been a reindeer herder for over seven years and have experienced a lot more calving seasons than Abby, I should have been able to sail through the bet with no problems! Towards the end of the week I started to doubt myself.
Abby: By Wednesday afternoon Hopscotch was acting completely normally and stuffing her face with glee and was most definitely not giving birth. At this point I felt it was all a bit cruel and gave up on the idea of no swim and as Thursday rolled around with still no sign of a calf I decided it was definite.
Hen: I arrived home from my days off to discover Hopscotch had had a temperature but nothing else, and all was back to normal up the hill. Huge relief, false alarm and all that, and I went back to teasing Abby relentlessly about when she was going swimming! I was stupidly overconfident once again that I was completely safe, Lulu must surely calve any minute, but reindeer have a nasty way of bringing you back down to earth and the ringing phone the following morning signalled the end for me… Andi’s voice sounded like she was stifling the giggles, informing me that she’d just found Hopscotch with her new-born male calf. Abby collapsed in relief and I cursed Lulu, Hopscotch, everyone else and to be honest, reindeer in general.
Hopscotch and her new-born calf Kips
Being as it was about 8°C at this point, I was given until the end of June to swim. Loch Morlich is only a few hundred metres from Reindeer House, but at this time of year consists mainly of snow melt, and I am not someone to throw myself into cold water with abandon unless there’s a damn good reason.
Walking to my doom… Note the laughter on everyone else’s faces!
Summer didn’t arrive right until the end of June in the Cairngorms this year, so I bided my time and kept an eye on the forecast. I left my swim right till the bitter end, on 30th June, and at least the dogs had the decency to come in with me, although everyone else stuck to paddling! I don’t appear to have hypothermia either. Or at least not yet. Maybe it’ll be slow onset hypothermia.
Sookie at least joined me in the loch!
Lulu did eventually calve, far too late for Hen of course, completely unaware of everything that had been riding on her!
Willow Warbler – photo courtesy of Jack Ward of Alba Wildlife (much better photographer than me!)
While the other reindeer herders are spending the first part of the year watching the female reindeer gradually expand outwards and wondering who is going to calve first, I am often preoccupied with the return of the birds – the first fluting song of a Willow Warbler is one of my annual highlights, heralding the onset of summer. An ‘outdoor job’ in such a beautiful location as the Cairngorms means I’m in the right place at the right time to see, bit by bit, the changing of the seasons – and nothing makes me happier than to see winter finally receding! And added to that, I’m lucky enough to work in an area with outstanding birdlife, some of which is very rare elsewhere in the country.
Christmas Day 2010 (left to right Veikka, Fiona, Kermit, Bee, Eco, Tilly and Go)
The first sign I look out for is the birds starting to sing once again and I can remember, on Christmas Day in 2010 in Coylumbridge, taking photos (above) in the snow of Fiona, Tilly and our team of reindeer just before our first parade of the day (we do four parades at local hotels on the big day itself) and hearing a Coal Tit sing – the first of the new breeding season. A new season starting before the other had even finished. Ironically that is my most vivid memory of the whole day! That might just have been a particularly enthusiastic, or at least optimistic, bird however, as this year I think it was into February before I heard anything singing.
After that excitement there’s a long lull as winter drags on, seemingly never-endingly, but the days tick by as we retrieve the reindeer for the daily 11am visits each morning, one by one their antlers falling off as we get later into the winter. The Red Grouse get more and more noisy in March, often erupting out of the heather calling as we walk past and startling me, although the reindeer don’t appear to even notice them. Into April and spring is definitely starting to make an appearance, the weather milder (sometimes!), the plants starting to show fresh growth, while curlews, meadow pipits, pied wagtails and black-headed gulls move back into the area from their coastal wintering areas. Meanwhile the reindeer get wider and wider…
Ring ouzel on the hill enclosure fence – taken with my compact camera so not the best photo, sorry!
Then the migrants start to return, back from Africa. I usually see my first Wheatear up at one of the ski car parks on Cairngorm, the white flash of their rump unmistakeable. Then there are the Ring Ouzels, basically looking like a blackbird with a white chest, but again they’ve come all the way from Africa. At the moment there is a pair hanging around the hill enclosure, shouting at me most days when I enter to feed the reindeer. The Swallows are back too, and as usual are in and out the reindeer shed up on the hill when they nest annually. In the summer, as we harness up reindeer in the shed to go trekking, I wonder how many visitors have noticed there is a swallow on her nest just feet from them, peering down at the daily proceedings. High up on the mountain plateau the Dotterels return in May, one of only two species in Britain where the male incubates the eggs so the female is the one with the brighter plumage.
Dotterel on the Cairngorm plateau – photo courtesy of Andi Probert
But it is the little, greenish Willow Warblers that are my absolute favourite, and I keep an ear on the grapevine in April, as news of them making their way north after their arrival at the south coast trickles in, and in mid-April they arrive on mass, the birch trees lining the Sugar Bowl path up to the enclosure suddenly dripping with them. And not long after their arrival, then the calving season kicks in and spring is well on its way, winter is behind us, and all is right with my world!
