Heading off for the summer

Back in late May, our thoughts start to turn to getting the cows and calves out of the hill enclosure, so they can spend the summer months free-ranging on the mountains, getting peace and quiet and the best of the grazing, and the cows can teach their calves the lie of the land too. In recent years, we tend to take them out in two batches, allowing each batch to spend a couple of weeks in the main section of the hill enclosure first. This has two-fold benefits – it helps to strengthen the calves as they move around more than they do in the smaller ‘nursery’ area, but most importantly it exposes the calves to visitors. This makes our job in the autumn easier when the female reindeer return to the hill enclosure, as the calves are much more relaxed in amongst people than they otherwise would be – even though they’ve barely laid eyes on a human in the interim.

Setting off up through the top part of the hill enclosure

Prior to leaving the enclosure, the cows and calves are all checked over, and given Spot-on to help ward off ticks. We then halter up all the adult females, as it’s a far less stressful process to just lead the reindeer out of the enclosure rather than to try and herd them. We do this in an evening rather than during the day too, as it lessens the risk of us bumping into hill-walkers, who may have dogs in tow. Any young females of a year old who are tagging along with their mums and new siblings aren’t haltered, as they will just follow anyway.

There’s a lot of grunting to start with, as everyone establishes where their calf is, and the calves wonder why there are so many human legs in their herd suddenly!
Out through the gate at the top of the enclosure
Everyone has settled down and is enjoying the evening wander!

We take the group about a mile or so from the top gate of the enclosure, although the spot we leave them in is only actually a couple of hundred metres from the fence and the far end of the enclosure.

A good year for the cotton-grass this year!
I ran ahead ahead to get some photos, meaning I could sit and relax in the sunshine once I’d got into position!
Progress isn’t particularly fast with so many reindeer on halters, so there was plenty of time to chat along the way!

Some years in the past the cows have taken off at speed into the distance as soon as they’ve got the chance, but this batch were more than happy just to graze and chill out once we’d taken halters off and released them. This little chap (above) was born a bit prematurely, so had to be bottle-fed for a while whilst mum’s milk got going, so he’s very tame!

The face of a Lotti who’s just realised that two birthday cakes and a birthday present have been carried the whole way out as a surprise!
Birthday cake all round!
And in classic unpredictable Sheena-fashion – a watermelon! ‘What is the heaviest and most unexpected snack I could possibly bring?!’
Some time to chill out for us too (although the sun had sadly disappeared behind the hill by this point).
At this time of year the reindeer have started moulting around their eyes, their darker summer coat showing through and giving them all ‘panda eyes’.
Time to go, for us and them.
Heading home! How could I not finish with this photo?

Through the summer months we see very little of the female reindeer and their calves, leaving them to graze in peace after spending around 6 weeks in the hill enclosure. We will head out to look for them occasionally though, when time and weather allow, but the next time we have proper contact with them again is from August onwards, as they start to return to the hill enclosure in dribs and drabs. It’s like catching up with old friends again!

Hen

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