May! What a month! Calving began on Sunday the 29th of April and was done by Sunday the 14th of May. A two week, action-packed blur. After the first few calves were born we were expecting a bit of a lull, but nope, they just kept on coming. As well as many experienced cows we’ve had eight first-time-mums and all are doing a super job and have taken to motherhood very well. On the whole everything went well, however, calving season sadly does tend to bring some sad moments as well as lots of highs. In addition to looking after the new-borns, we’ve also been running two Hill Trips a day and the Paddocks and Exhibition have been popular with holiday-makers so looking back this month has been a bit of a whirlwind!
This month’s photo selection is biased towards the cute calves but I’m sure that’s what we all want to see anyway. Just 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. Enjoy… !
1st of May – Ben walking some lovely females in from Silver Mount in the cloud, Black Loch behind.3rd of May – The oldest calf of 2023, already very bold at 4 days old (born on the 29th April). 4th of May – Druid waiting for hand feed, please!7th of May – Another gorgeous new addition to the herd!8th of May – Choosing which picture to select has never been so hard! But this is today’s cutie which won!9th of May – On searching for a cow and calf in the enclosure I found these lazy boys, late in for their breakfast! Dr Seuss was clearly having a lie-in on his 6th birthday!! Happy birthday Dr Seuss.9th of May – Trilby, Fab, Borlotti and Viennetta. Now Viennetta and Fab are not the youngest cohort in the herd we have to get used to calling them ‘yearlings’…. no longer the calves!11th of May – The first pale calf of the season! Hiding behind mum’s legs!12th of May – I was lucky to find this new mother and calf. It’s always a total privilege to be the first person to see a new addition to the herd!15th of May – Motherhood is clearly very tiring for this mum. But she’s doing a super job!17th of May – Some of the oldest and boldest calves are now mingling with our visitors on Hill Trips. Meanwhile, Aztec in the background is enjoying his absolute favourite time of the day – hand feeding!!18th of May – It was great to catch up with this old girl whilst out on a free range mission with Sally! This is Diamond who is 11-years-old and very sweet-natured. 19th of May – We did routine temperature checks on all the cows and calves. We have only two black calves but they still managed to get us completely confused at one point. Who do you belong to?! 22nd of May – Druid again! He’s been busy growing his antlers since the previous pic of him (4th of May).23rd of May – Turtle on “World Turtle Day”. She’s actually named after the variety of bean, rather than the sea creature, but it’s a good opportunity to put her in the limelight.24th of May – Beanie trying to break in to a food bag. What do you mean this isn’t stashed here for me?!
April has been a busy month with some glorious spring weather and some incredibly wild winter weather too. The first half of the month saw the Easter Holidays so we had lots of visitors around – some days we put on an additional Hill Trip in the afternoon when the morning visit sold out, and in the afternoons we ran “Seasonal Herder Talks” in our Paddocks. The second half of the month was busy with moving reindeer around getting them in the right places for the fast-approaching calving season… exciting! Pregnant females were brought into our hill enclosure and the “single ladies” (mostly the old girls retired from breeding or ones having a year off motherhood) were put back out to free range after a quick health check in the enclosure.
It’s been a fun month watching antlers casting and growing, and bellies widen on our pregnant females! Bring on calving season!
1st of April: We have reindeer back in our Paddocks! From left to right is Kiruna, Jelly, Sherlock and Busby, all here for the first half of the Easter holidays.2nd of April: Fiona and I spent the day with Tilly where we brought of some male reindeer down from their winter free range. Here we have Dr Seuss, Spartan and Scolty ready to be taken down to the hill farm in Glenlivet.5th of April: Andi and I spent the morning moving the reindeer into position for the morning Hill Trip. You can just see Andi in the distance letting the calves feed out of the bags first.6th of April: Cousins Fab and Tub causing trouble!7th of April: Lopsided Florence demonstrating an excellent example of antler growth and development. 8th of April: Sherlock not remotely bothered about our wobbly fence, but it’s easy to forgive him with a nose like that!11th of April: Beautiful morning to see the free ranging herd. Here they are crossing a burn with the Northern Corries looking dramatic in the distance.11th of April: Emm is here and grinning away as always! Emm is one of our fabulous volunteers and was up for for a couple of weeks to help us out during April, Here she is defending the bags from the older reindeer. 12th of April: The return of winter! A VERY wintery and wild day to be on the hill. Here’s Fly leading the herd, growing her lovely velvety antlers. Pumpkin and Lace not too far behind.13th of April: Fly posing beautifully, showing off her fast-growing antlers. Cameron in the background waiting for me to stop taking photos!16th of April: Fiona feeding the herd in the hill enclosure. Check out that wide belly nearest the camera!17th of April: Glacée almost a year old and looking gorgeous! Her new antlers just beginning to grow.19th of April: Marple and her calf from 2022, Viennetta, are now in the enclosure after a winter free ranging. 20th of April; All three leucistic calves together – from left to right we’ve got 99, Mr Whippy and Vanilla.21st of April: Moving the free rangers through the ski area on a gorgeous sunny morning.24th of April: Beret appreciating her winter coat more today after the recent sunny weather – there’s snow dusting Meall a’ Bhuachaille (the hill behind) and hail showers during the Hill Trip. 27th of April: The boys are back in town! Fiona and I spent the morning at the hill farm and brought back six lovely Christmas Reindeer to the enclosure here on Cairngorm. Super to have them here again!
This year I will endeavor to make the last blog of the month a photo blog with a collection of pictures taken over the month. So here’s some highlights from January! A month when the Centre shuts and we crack on with lots of office work and general maintenance tasks such as painting the Exhibition floor and oiling the Christmas harness. But inevitably, I don’t take any photos of that stuff, so instead it’s just lots of lovely pics of reindeer!
1st of January – the Centre is closed for the day but the reindeer in the enclosure still need feeding so we recruit lots of friends to help carry the load!2nd of January – Sheena and Choc-ice chilling out together after a Hill Trip.7th of January – Arta looking handsome on the winter free range. With older brother Dr Seuss and younger brother Mr Whippy, Arta sometimes gets out-shined by his charismatic siblings but here he is looking fab! 7th of January – talking of the charismatic Dr Seuss, here he is getting bored waiting for his free lunch and using the quadbike as a chin rest!12th of January – Hopscotch (closest to camera) and Pumpkin (on the left) are often the first over each time we call them for lunch.14th of January – Beanie looking gorgeous! 14th of January – Amy and Lotti defending the feed bags from the older reindeer. Only calves are invited in to the bags for a wee bit of preferential feeding!January 15th – Sheena calling the herd over in very wintery conditions. 15th of January- Morven and her calf Mochi looking beautiful in the snow.16th of January – more free range fun for Lisette and Lotti. Holy Moley making her presence known right by the feed bags! 16th of January – the four gorgeous Reindeer House dogs – Fraoch, Dug, Tiree and Sookie. They accompany us on most free-range feeding outings, and are trained to lie-down and stay far away so as the reindeer do not see them, until we return to them. 20th of January -two of my favourite things- reindeer and skiing! Fly and Lace leading the whole herd and following in our ski tracks. Nice to see some blue sky.24th of January – no skis required anymore! Mel waiting for the herd to come over – and yes, it’s Hopscotch leading the way again!24th of January- Pip and Turtle – two of our ‘lockdown calves’ from 2020. Hard to believe they’ll be turning three in the spring! 24th of January – Marple teaching her daughter Viennetta the art of cheekiness.27th of January -and finally, to prove we actually do some “proper” work in January here’s Hen cleaning the shop walls ready for a lick of paint!
