April has been a glorious month! The first half of it was wall-to-wall sunshine for what felt like weeks on end. The reindeer were on the move quite a lot so it meant some big walks getting them each morning keeping us all fit. By the middle of the month we brought some of our (hopefully) pregnant reindeer into the enclosure so it’s been a busy time with reindeer everywhere: on the free range, in the enclosure, in the Paddocks, and of course over with Tilly at the farm. The Paddocks was very busy during the holidays with visitors and even though the Exhibition isn’t ready yet we’ve got a wee quiz for kids, lots of information boards to read, and of course four beautiful reindeer on display! Hopefully everybody who visited had an enjoyable time.
Very excitedly we’ve also had our first calf of the season!! A lovely wee boy who is doing incredibly well. Hopefully the May photo blog will be packed full of calves!
5th of April: Solero is looking fantastic at the moment. She’s in excellent condition and is just beginning to grow her antlers.5th of April: Whilst customers are allowed to bring dogs into the shop in the new Centre, staff have to keep dogs next door at Reindeer House. This is Elsie and Ginger waiting patiently for us at 5pm telling us it’s time to go home!6th of April: Winnie leading the free ranging herd. 7th of April: Feta and her son Earl Grey looking great on a beautiful spring day. 9th of April: Lotti and I had a wonderful morning retrieving the free roaming herd. They were quite high up, above the cloud.9th of April: Almost three-year-old Lolly and her mum Oatcake hanging out together. 9th of April: Moving the herd down to the Hill Trip location. This photo makes me laugh! Unfortunately I didn’t notice the photo-bomber until afterwards and my ID isn’t good enough to work out who it is.9th of April: Sherlock and his ridiculous antlers! He looks like he should be in June, not April, with the size of those antlers!10th of April: Lapsang relaxing after a Hill Trip. 10th of April: Shannon cooling her feet down in a bog.12th of April: Scully has spent the winter free ranging at our second site. She’s now back in the enclosure and is in excellent condition. 14th of April: Colorado is a going to be two on the 1st of May. He’s a very handsome boy!15th of April: Amazon is such a beauty! She will turn two on the 3rd of May.16th of April: Turtle coming in to say hello and see what’s in my white bag! She can be a little fiesty so I wasn’t entirely sure whether she was about to tell me off or not – on this occasion she didn’t thankfully! 18th of April: Hopscotch and Juniper eating from the same pile of food – mother and her almost 5 year old daughter!23rd of April: Dante looking beautiful and just beginning to grow his antlers.24th of April: Sheena and I caught up with some of the free rangers. This is Nuii leading the way.24th of April: Sika looking great for almost 17, and Hobnob behind will be 16.25th of April: Fab being inquisitive.25th of April: Two brothers, Espresso and Colorado, hanging out together. 28th of April: The first calf of the year!! Already very bold and coming over to say hello to Lotti!29th of April: Mississippi and her mum Holy Moley came into the enclosure by themselves to check in, after being out free ranging in the hills. Always a joy to see the free rangers wander in!30th of April: Sorbet, Vanilla, and Hopscotch on another beautiful day!
Yesterday was one of the best sorts of reindeer herding days, almost entirely spent on the hill. Me and Fiona were due to help Tilly in the middle of the day, so we set off early to find the reindeer here on Cairngorm in the morning. The reindeer certainly made us work hard that morning as they were very high on the hill at roughly 950metres elevation, meaning we set straight off into a 400m climb! It was a windy day, and we had to pause a few times on route to brace ourselves as the gusts buffeted us. We could see the reindeer for much of the walk, and once we reached the same height as them, they were just the other side of a snow-covered burn. To save having to find a human suitable crossing, we called the reindeer to us, and they expertly navigated crossing the snow.
Lapsang and Latte digging the front of their hooves into the snow.Video of reindeer crossing the snow.Morven and Borlotti looking majestic.
The final section of snow that they had to cross was quite steep and it was amazing to see them jab the front points of their hooves, very purposefully into the snow. They looked like four legged mountaineers and used their front points much in the same way humans use crampons. It always amazes me to see how comfortable the reindeer are in difficult conditions that require us humans to have huge amounts of equipment and training to cope with. Fiona led the reindeer down to our chosen visit spot for the day and I had the lovely job of walking behind the reindeer. This can sometimes be a challenging job requiring lots of encouragement to keep the dawdlers at the back of the group moving. Yesterday though, the reindeer were moving well so I simply had the pleasure of moving with the herd.
Walking behind the herd.Holy Moley keeping an eye on me.Chai keeping me company at the back of the group.
Once we had fed the herd, we headed down the hill and drove over to help Tilly. At the moment half of our herd are free ranging on the hills in the Glenlivet estate, above our second base. Tilly had already got a big group of the reindeer into the coral, and we had the task of checking their temperatures and sorting some of the reindeer into different groups. We like to do regular temperature checks as it can give us an indication that a reindeer is unwell, before they are showing any other symptoms. By doing regular temperature checks it also means they are very used to the process, don’t find it in anyway stressful. In fact, yesterday many of the reindeer stood for us to take their temperatures without anyone even holding them.
Tilly and Fiona with a group of reindeer in the corral.A non-reindeer photo but I thought this display of lichen on one of the farm vehicles was particularly beautiful.
Once we came off the hill, we drove back to Reindeer House for our last reindeer related job of the day. Three of our cows and calves had been free-ranging in Tilly’s group for the first part of the winter, we had then brought them back to join the herd on Cairngorm and Fiona, Ruth and I walked them back to meet the herd. Thankfully the herd hadn’t moved too far, we led the girls and let their calves follow them. As we were leaving the carpark we met a group who had spent the day learning winter skills, they professed that seeing the reindeer was the highlight of their day! Well done girls!! We then walked off the hill for the final important task of the day, a cuppa tea!
Fiona and Ruth leading Feta and Christie back to the herd, I was leading Beanie, and you can see her calf, Coffee in the right of the photo.
