tilly – Page 4 – The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd

8th May 202013th August 2024

Border Terriers and me!

In this week’s blog we’re taking a diversion from reindeer to dogs, to hear from herd owner Tilly:

Tilly with Moskki and Tuva. And her customary very short shorts!

Well I have to say I am one of the lucky ones. Living on our farm at Glenlivet, with the wonderful countryside around me I can safely enjoy the great outdoors without compromising the current lockdown requirements.

The Glenlivet Estate is a real gem, with a wonderful mix of open moorland, farmland and woodland and from our farmhouse I can go walking and running with my two border terriers Moskki and her daughter Tuva.

I got Moskki as a 6 week old pup in January 2014 and she has been the best wee dog I have ever had. When there is nothing to do she happily sleeps, but when its time to go out to the hills she’s the first to get ready. She has accompanied me on nearly all my Munros ( Scottish Mountains over 3,000 feet ), which I finished in November last year, so she is certainly fit!

At the end of November 2019 Moskki had a litter of pups and I decided I would keep one of the girls in the litter, hence Border terrier no.2! There were 3 female pups that were quite similar colouring to Moskki and so I decided ( after much procrastination ) on the ‘middle sized’ female of the three. I took some time to choose a name for my wee pup and finally settled on ‘Tuva’. Tuva is the name of South Siberian Reindeer Herding people and I was honoured to meet representatives of these people ( a mother and her grown up daughter ) at one of the World Reindeer Herder Association Congress meetings in Jokkmokk, North Sweden.

Moskki also has a reindeer herding association (can’t think why! ). The ‘moskki’ is ‘a small place’ in a kåta ( Sami tent – pronounced ‘kota’ ) where household items like pots and pans are stored. So my love of reindeer strangely enough strays into my two dogs. We’ve also had a Swedish born reindeer bull named Moskki in the past, and currently have a Kota too!

Tuva has grown up to be a clone of her mother. Sleeps well, enjoys getting out and devoted to me (unless she is on the scent of a rabbit!). So my two borders have given me a huge amount of joy in these difficult times and added to that we have had the warmest and driest April on record.

But I am yearning to get back to normal life, like everyone else. I can’t wait to immerse myself again fully in reindeer herding, general farm life, showing people around the farm, but most importantly seeing my grandchildren and playing with them at home and on the farm. Happy days ahead.

Tilly

27th March 202013th August 2024

Weather the Storm

As everyone knows all too well, these are worrying and testing times for all and my heart goes out to anyone reading my blog. With the latest ‘call to arms’ by the government we really must all help to slow the spread of the coronavirus that is sweeping the world.

Nobody is immune from this, young or old, but some people will sadly be more susceptible to the symptoms and it is these people that our thoughts need to be with as their lives depend on all of us acting sensibly and not selfishly.

But we must all stay positive and work our way through the crisis and although this is only a part analogy I would like to think, for myself anyway, that we will ‘weather the storm’ like a reindeer.

Reindeer wait out a blizzard, always facing into the weather.

In blizzard conditions reindeer just hunker down. Face the wind to keep their hair flat, trapping air in their coat and so helping to not lose heat. Reindeer will then lie and wait for the storm to pass. For us all these testing times will eventually pass and in the meantime we must all ‘hunker down’.

Coated in snow as they hunker down, each with their own bubble of personal space.

Interestingly although reindeer are a strongly herding animal, gregarious like people they do have a social distance that they like to maintain whether they are lying down or up grazing. They don’t ‘huddle like penguins’ but they enjoy each others company at a distance. So maybe think of the reindeer when you are out and about, keep your distance (at least 2 metres) and this too will help to slow down the transmission of the virus.

As many of you know when we name the calves born each year we choose a theme and the name of each calf (there are exceptions!) has an association with that theme. The association is sometimes quite tenuous but that makes it all the more fun and challenging to match a name to a reindeer!

2012 was an exciting year, with the Olympics in London, the Queens Silver Jubilee and indeed our own silver anniversary. May 2012 was 60 years since the reindeer were successfully brought back to Scotland, by Swedish reindeer herder, Mikel Utsi. So with that in mind we thought 2012 and 60 years would make a good theme for the calves born. Olympic, Gloriana, Duke and LX are some of our reindeer who were born that year.

One of the male calves born that year, was born with a wonky nose, which made him look slightly different from the rest. In 2012, Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and oversaw the Olympics so we called our funny looking reindeer Boris!

To this day Boris still looks different to the other ‘straight nosed’ reindeer, indeed at a Christmas event a couple of years ago in Huntly, a young lad was heard to say, “That reindeer has got a nose like a banana!” Now I’m not saying Boris Johnson has a squint nose, but he does seem to like to look ‘different’.

Our Boris just chilling on the free-range last week, a bit less on his plate than the other Boris has…

Anyway I hope my wee story about ‘Boris the wonky nosed reindeer’ has put a smile on your faces and maybe even our Prime Minister’s face during these dreadful times.

Maybe this Christmas we could be singing ‘Boris the Wonky-nosed reindeer had a very funny nose’, instead of Rudolph with his red, shiny nose!

I’m humming it already!

Tilly

2nd August 20193rd August 2024

It’s all in a name.

Some people answer to just one name, others like me have a proper name and a nickname. Although given the name Elizabeth as a baby, I was nicknamed Tiddly because I was the youngest ( and so smallest ) in our family of four children.

Tiddly got shortened to either Tids or Tilly and now many 10’s of years on from being Tiddly I am almost universally known as Tilly, although I do sometimes use my ‘real’ name Elizabeth when I want to sound ‘official’.

Having two names has worked to my advantage. Many years ago, when I was still organising all the Christmas Events with our reindeer ( thankfully our daughter Fiona does all that now ) I received a phone call from one of our clients regarding their event. After our conversation I said to the Centre Manager, ‘ I am going away for a couple of weeks and so if you have any other queries it may be best to wait till I get back’. To which the lady replied ‘ that’s no problem if you are not available, I will just ask for Tilly!’ I didn’t let on, but was amused that in this Centre Manager’s eyes there was a Tilly and an Elizabeth!

Tilly, in action. Photo credit: John Paul

Tilly was not a common name when I was a child but in recent years I have met quite a few young Tillys! I am not someone who keeps up with changing fashions, indeed my mother used to despair of me always wearing jeans and never putting on makeup! But it would seem that I was ahead of the game when it came to my nickname!

As well as other people being called Tilly I have known of various animals with my name. Years ago I was driving up the Ski road from Aviemore back to Reindeer House and there was a chap with his ‘3 legged black labrador’ trying to hitch a lift. Feeling sorry for the dog I drew up and jumped out to let the dog jump in the back. The chap said ‘ jump in Tilly ‘ which rather took me aback before I realised he was talking to his dog!

In the mid 1980’s we became acquainted with a farmer and his wife from Keilder in Northumberland who ran a small open farm. We became best friends and over the years they both looked after reindeer for us at their farm and helped out with our reindeer events at Christmas time. John was a great stockman and could turn his hand to all types of livestock. He acquired some fallow deer and when the doe had her fawn, she wouldn’t raise it and so John and Shirley hand reared the little mite. The wee fallow became incredibly tame and was a winner with all their visitors. I was well chuffed when they announced they had called her, yup you guessed ——-‘Tilly’.

Not only do we name all our reindeer, but we also name our pedigreed Belted Galloway cattle that live on our farm at Glenlivet. When we name our reindeer calves we choose a theme for that year. Last year it was TV/film detectives, before that poets and authors, ancient civilisations etc etc. But with the cattle we go through the alphabet and in 2018 the letter was T. So strangely enough one of our heifers ( young cows ) is called Balcorrach Tilly.

Some of Tilly’s Belted Galloways, but not Belted Galloway Tilly…

And then today we received an email from a lady in the USA who had recently bought a copy of my latest book Reindeer, An Arctic Life. It transpires that she has a reindeer farm and this is what she wrote in her email:

‘Your book just arrived today and I am only one chapter in, but I already know I absolutely LOVE it. We would be honored to feature this book in our gift shop at our reindeer farm———– Already planning to name our next calf Tilly.’

So there we go. I don’t think I ever imagined that I would have namesakes that were as diverse as a 3 legged dog, a fallow deer, a Belted Galloway cow and potentially a reindeer. What an honour. And to cap it all, very close friends had a little girl 2.5 years ago and not only did they ask me to be her Godmother but they also named her Tilly!

Tilly

4th January 201926th July 2024

Santa’s Choice

This Christmas the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre has been given a very fancy Christmas present. Jaguar cars have given us a 4 x 4 F Pace to drive around free of charge for the next 6 months. Adorned with Cairngorm Reindeer and Jaguar logos it has certainly turned a few heads!

So on Christmas Day when we were just about to do a local reindeer event at the Coylumbridge Hotel, Santa was in a dilemma, there were two modes of transport. A team of reindeer and sleigh, with a hard wooden seat and a team of exhausted reindeer (who had done too much flying on Christmas Eve) – or an extremely comfortable, fully automatic Jaguar F Pace 4 x 4.

He chose the Jag, but of course the children waiting at the hotel would be very disappointed if Santa rocked up in a car so he was ceremoniously booted out and plonked in the sleigh instead!

All our reindeer events have gone extremely well this year and everywhere we have gone we have put a smile on people’s faces. All those reindeer we train to harness are now back on the hills and enjoying a well-deserved rest, and it will not be until next October that we bring out the harness, dig out the sleighs and decorations and prepare for another Christmas season. For the Christmas reindeer it’s not a bad life, 10 months off and 2 months doing some work. I can think of worse jobs!

All our reindeer have now grown their lovely thick winter coats and laid down substantial fat layers to survive the winter. But where is that cold snowy weather, indeed this is one of the mildest Christmases I can remember. Maybe the New Year will bring the snow, we will just have to wait and see.

So from all of us here at The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre we hope you had a good one this Hogmanay and best wishes for 2019!

Tilly

19th October 201826th July 2024

Memorable reindeer: Sequin

Earlier this year we sadly lost Sequin, one of our most well-known females of the herd. Tilly wrote this article about Sequin back in 2015 which we thought we would share once again.

Sequin

Mother: Polo

Born 9^th May 2002

Sequin is what we would describe as a ‘normal coloured reindeer’, with a dark back and light sides. However, in contrast, her mother Polo, grandmother Ferrari, great grandmother Vivi, great great grandmother Stina, great great great grandmother Snowflake and great great great great grandmother May were all white or very light coloured reindeer, so Sequin is very much the ‘black sheep’ of her extended family.

Whiteness in reindeer is a recessive gene and it is interesting to see how that colouring has been so persistent through the generations. I think this is probably due to Snowflake, who was actually an albino reindeer and must have passed on strong white genes to her daughter Stina. Sequin may be the odd one out in this long line of direct white relatives, but she has passed on the white gene to her 2013 calf Cambozola.

Sequin’s mother, Polo, was an extremely good looking reindeer, who always grew very pretty antlers and, with her good looks, almost regarded her calves as a fashion accessory! Sequin lived up to her mother’s expectations and is definitely a pretty reindeer, although she doesn’t always measure up when it comes to antlers as they have been known to be rather ‘wiggly’ in the past. But that’s maybe due to age!

At 13 years old Sequin is now one of our older female reindeer, which just makes me feel old too because I clearly remember when she was born – 2002, the year we celebrated 50 years of reindeer in Scotland. The calves born along with Sequin followed a theme of gold and to this day we still have five other reindeer born in 2002: Haze, Foil, Ring, Lilibet and Bangle. So you may well ask how does Lilibet fit into the gold theme? Well, 2002 was the Jubilee year for the Queen as well as for us, and ‘Lilibet’ was her nickname as a child.

Sequin is a real character in the herd; not only does she have four surviving calves of her own – Fern, Stenoa, Cambozola and North – who like their mother are very tame and greedy, but she is a grandmother to Ladybird and great grandmother to Baltic. A great family of reindeer in our herd.

Tilly

5th October 201826th July 2024

The Shop!

The first association that most visitors have with the Centre is when they come into the shop. This room is at one end of Reindeer House, and is where we greet visitors, book them onto tours, and provide a selection of souvenirs.

Ingot takes a turn at serving in the shop

Back when Mr Utsi and Ethel Lindgren first built Reindeer House, this was the room where they entertained guests and had a wood fire burning to provide warmth and cheer. Sami artefacts and pictures adorned the walls.

Nowadays our exhibition has outgrown the room and has moved to the Paddocks, and somehow I’ve inherited the responsibility of stocking the shop with (hopefully) interesting things to buy. The one rule that I was told by Tilly is that everything must be reindeer-related! We’re keen to keep it a bit different and not just end up selling the same souvenirs as every other shop, so I spend lots of time trying to track down locally made, unique products. It’s lovely to be able to support other small businesses based in the area by buying their products.

Some of the products are very local indeed – herder Fiona uses reindeer antler to craft jewellery, cheese slices and knife handles, and I dabble in tying fishing flies made using shed reindeer hair. A local photographer creates brooches and pendants with photos of our herd, and green wood worker ‘Wooden Tom’ makes model reindeer out of branches, complete with removable twigs for antlers. We’ve also recently started stocking a locally made 100% natural midge repellent, helpful for actually getting out on the hill to see the reindeer (I’ll make an argument for a tenuous link to reindeer!).

Making sure young Hornet experiences a wide range of situations

Being a bit of a bookworm myself, our book selection is pretty good – including several books written about the Herd, some more general ones about reindeer and the local area, and children’s books. Talking of children, everyone needs a soft toy reindeer, so there’s a choice including some more realistic options and others which focus on being cuddly and cute. It’s certainly the area many kids make a bee-line for, though there is a slight problem that some dogs that are staying with us (especially puppies) will also decide to help themselves if we forget to shut the door!

In January we take the opportunity for a deep clean, and also use the floor space for cleaning all our harness after Christmas tour. I do love a nice ordered system and usually commandeer this job!

Reindeer House does live up to its name and many of the reindeer have popped into the shop for a few minutes over the years, mostly ones who were hand reared, but also the occasional one who is being trained – just as you expose a puppy to lots of situations to help make them confident and relaxed with whatever life throws at them, calmly introducing reindeer to unexpected scenario helps create a chilled-out individual! The only problem is that reindeer, with their amazing thick coat, often find it a little warm in there, and after a minute or two need to lose some heat, most quickly achieved by spreading their legs and having a pee!

Tilly brings Utsi in to check all is in order

Andi

6th July 201823rd July 2024

Finding the free-ranging females

An incredibly important part of the life of a Cairngorm reindeer is its time free-ranging. For the male reindeer their time to free-range is the cold winter months, where they happily roam the Cromdale hills keeping out of mischief. The life of a female Cairngorm reindeer is even wilder, with almost the entire year spent free-ranging the mountains apart from time in the enclosure during calving and rutting.

Who can spot Dixie? (Clue: she only ever grows one antler)

When the reindeer are free-ranging there are no fences holding them in, and they are able to walk anywhere they chose however they are only meant to be on some of the land. If they venture off our land in search of a tasty bit of lichen we move them back to where they are meant to be. This often involves a day walking in the mountains looking for reindeer and sometimes moving them to a better location. There are a number of ways to move a herd of reindeer. For those of you who have been on our hill trips you will know how keenly they follow a bag of food; however they will only follow food so far. Another good technique is to lead a few of the reindeer on halters and hope that the rest of the herd follow. A week or so ago Fiona came across a group of naughty females reindeer just off our land, she was unable to move the group on her own so we waited for a day clear enough to move them.

Free-rangers found by Fiona the previous week

On a clear day last week sometime (well mostly clear above the mountains at least) Fi, Tilly, Chris and I headed up to move a group of the free-ranging females from the tops of the northern corries further down the mountains. We headed up in pairs up two separate ridges to maximise ground coverage with the plan to join together when we found reindeer.

Chris and Tilly headed up Cairn Gorm and soon spotted the group of reindeer. So Fi and I headed towards them with Chris catching us up on route. We reached the group of reindeer just in time as the clouds covered us. We decided the distance we wanted to move them was too large to persuade them with a bag of food so instead decided to halter a few of them. Having caught the ten most willing reindeer we headed down to meet Tilly who was coming up from below. We then walked with the reindeer for about an hour till we found the right spot to leave them with a bit of food each in the hope that they will now stay in that area. Tilly went out walking a few days later and didn’t see any reindeer where they weren’t meant to be so it seems our mission was a success.

Fi, Chris and I leading the reindeer down to meet Tilly

Spending a day in the hills is always one of my favourite things to do, but when it involves interacting with the reindeer in their environment it really is a pretty special experience. A day like this has got to be one of the highlights of being a reindeer herder.

Lotti

Chris looking grumpy after Gazelle and Merida were being pests on the headcollars. Also because Tilly was leading Inca, one of his favourite reindeer.

15th June 201823rd July 2024

Granny Reindeer

Since 1981, reindeer and in particular, the Cairngorm reindeer have taken up a very large portion of my daily life and I have not regretted one bit of it. Along side raising family, earning a living from our reindeer herd and in more recent years branching out into hill farming, reindeer have been for me a daily source of huge enjoyment, sometimes despair and always physical labour, a life I wouldn’t swap for anything.

The early days of rushing around ‘doing it all myself’ are luckily over and I am blessed with a band dedicated fellow reindeer herders to share the work load, caring for the reindeer, finding strays and welcoming visitors to the centre. Some people think I have ‘retired to the farm’! Well I can assure you it is a very active retirement if I have.

Hamish overseeing the feeding of the young bulls

Then last October I became a Granny, a stage in my life I always hoped would happen and luckily for me it has. Hamish, now 8 months old, is no doubt giving his parents the run around but for me he is just delightful and any interaction with the reindeer gives me even more pleasure. Just recently Emily and Hamish came to help me feed the animals on the farm. Young Hamish was the star of the show, mingling with the young bull reindeer as they got their breakfast and even got a shot of riding Boris and ‘surfing’ on Paintpot as both of them happily ate out of the feed bag. History has been repeated and no doubt there will be many more déjà vu’s for me as Hamish enjoys growing up among a herd of very special reindeer.

Tilly

Boris was more than happy to give Hamish a ride in exchange for having his head in a bag of food.

30th March 201823rd July 2024

World Reindeer Herders – Council Meeting in Salekhard, Northern Russia

On Thursday 22^nd March Tilly and Fiona set off on their journey to the north of Russia where there was a World Reindeer Herders council meeting. This was to be held in Salekhard which is a town at the bottom of the Yamal Peninsula, and also where you find the Nenet reindeer herders. Here are a few photos from their weekend away, we will write a more detailed version of events in our newsletter in June.

For those of you who don’t know where Salekhard is, it’s in northern Siberia.

The view as we flew in over the Tundra and the big frozen area on the right is the River Ob

The first sighting of the Reindeer Peoples Festival – Nenet reindeer herders of the Yamal

Inside a Chum, a traditional Nenet tent. Here they gave us food and tea consisting of raw fish and reindeer as well as salted fish and a reindeer and potato stew. Opposite are other reindeer herders from other regions in Russia.

A Nenet lady in traditional reindeer skin clothing with her reindeer and sled.

Reindeer racing was one of the event the Nenets were taking part in. Four reindeer can pick up a fair speed!

Long reindeer skin boots to keep you warm in their very cold temperatures. Reindeer skin products are the only suitable material in such extreme temperatures.

They really embrace the young reindeer herders, acknowledging that they are their future so this is a photo of us all. Fiona snuck in behind of all the lovely traditional clothing!

There will be a more detailed write up in the next adopters newsletter so keep your eyes peeled!

12th January 201823rd July 2024

Calling all deer..

Deer in general are fairly quiet animals, uttering little or no noise in their daily lives. However there are two quite vocal times of year, in the spring when female deer calve and in the autumn when the males are competing for the breeding females.

In spring time whether it is a Red deer hind, a Roe doe or Reindeer cow they will call softly to their young when they are looking for them. In May time when our reindeer calves are born the mothers can get quite agitated if their young calves are not right beside them, grunting incessantly to call them back. Red deer hinds ‘mew’ to their young calves and a Roe doe gives a low whistle when calling her young.

But the call of the rutting males can be quite different and is sometimes meant to warn off competing males and signal ‘how big and tough’ they are. At this time of year in the forests and glens of Scotland the red deer are in full rut and they make a fabulous bellowing noise rather similar to the roar of a lion. There have been scientific studies on the meaning of bellowing and it has been proven that the more times a stag roars at one session the more likely he is to be a successful breeding male.

Frontal view of red deer stag (Cervus elaphus) roaring during the rut, mouth open, in England — A Red deer stag bellowing. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

However Reindeer (and Caribou) do not bellow like red deer but instead ‘grunt’ rather like a female calling to her calf, but more ‘gutteral’. And the grunting only really takes place when a bull is chasing after a cow. It is not a loud noise and certainly is not a threatening call in the same way as the red deer bellowing.

Bulls spar autumn04 — A tussel will often follow reindeer grunting, with the winner going on to breed with the females.

Roe buck, patrolling his territory will bark (like a dog) to challenge other bucks who dare to step a foot in his domain and Fallow bucks are different again, issuing a husky, rolling grunt in an attempt to attract the does and warn off other prospective males.

Persian_Fallow_Deer_1 — The grunt of a Persian Fallow deer buck, to warn off competitors. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

The non-native Sika deer, which were introduced into GB at the turn of the last century, have a characteristic kind of whistle, which turns into a high-pitched scream during the rut.

Sika Deer Roe Deer Hirsch Wild Free Deer Red Deer — The more delicate looking of deer species in rutting season, a male Fallow deer. Photo from Max Pixel.

So there is a vast variation of noises from grunts to screams, even among the deer found here in Great Britain. So if you go out in the countryside at certain times in the year and hear something unusual, don’t take flight, it will probably be a female and young calf, or else a harmless male deer in full flow because it’s the rutting season..

Tilly