August has been a busy and fun month. We’ve had lots of visitors and three sold out Hill Trips almost everyday. Lots of people have also been coming into the Paddocks to see the reindeer on display there, and very excitingly the Exhibition is nearly ready. It’s looking super! You’ll definitely hear to social media and our website when we’re open.
We’ve also been having lots of free range action which every herder loves! Generally we start to see the free ranging females more as they come down in altitude as the weather gets cooler and the mushrooms appear on the side of the hills. We start bringing in the mums and their calves back into the enclosure any time in August. They spend June through to August/early September out roaming the hills learning how to be little wild reindeer and enjoying all the best grazing, but when the autumn rolls around it’s time for them to learn what a feed bag is and in time, how to walk on a halter etc. The following photos are a small snapshot of what’s been occurring this month…
1st of August: Limpopo looking super! Lovely tall antlers and in his dark summer coat.2nd of August: The morning of the storm! Sadly in the afternoon we had to cancel our Hill Trips as the wind was so strong. 3rd of August: Scoop and Elbe are full brothers. Their mum is Suebi and their dad is Morse. They’re both very handsome!5th of August: Yukon looking as cheeky as ever! He’s such a lovely lad.6th of August: Found Marple and calf on the free range. Fiona and I brought them back into the hill enclosure. The first calf born back in April and the first calf back in the enclosure after the summer out free ranging.8th of August: Kernel looking very handsome, coming in for a close up!9th of August: All of my human colleagues abandoned me in the office for an afternoon on various free range missions! Ginger snuck in to keep me company!9th of August: Marple’s calf already very comfortable in the enclosure. 12th of August: Lovely boys waiting for food! From L to R we have Kulfi, Rocket, Limpopo and Adzuki.12th of August: Cicero posing beautifully!13th of August: Bordeaux’s wee male calf hanging out with the big boys!14th of August: Choc-ice wandering down the food line looking for the best pile of food. 15th of August: Zap found the perfect tussock to rest his chin on.18th of August: Butter posing beautifully. As a 5 year old bull he’s grown nice big antlers this summer. 20th of August: Macchiato wandering over for food. He is Marple’s (see above) calf from 2024.25th of August: Turtle and calf are back in the hill enclosure after the summer out free ranging.25th of August: Three-year-olds, Zoom and Iskrem standing together. I thought this was a nice photo until I noticed Iskrem hadn’t changed his position after taking a pee!26th of August: Trilby and calf are back in the enclosure.27th of August: Merida brought herself back into the enclosure, she’s looking fantastic, especially for 13 years old. 28th of August: Sundae and calf looking great!28th of August: I wanted to try to take some photos of the gorgeous calves, but Zoom had other ideas, everywhere I turned, there he was!
I (Maisy) have been helping out with the reindeer here and there since March 2024. I am now working on weekends and during my school holidays to my delight. I have started to spend a lot more of my time up at the Centre whether it’s because of reindeer, the people and the dogs, it’s just such a welcoming place and I’m very grateful to know them.
Last Christmas I was working quite a bit while being up at Glenmore nearly every weekend in December! This is our busy season for obvious reasons, and it can get quite manic. By the end of December, I think everybody who was working on weekends were really fed up with Christmas songs from hearing the so many times… We were going up the hill in sunshine, rain or snow we just had to wrap up warm and get on with it. At one point I was wearing so many clothes I could hardly move my body it was so cold. Including the wind, it felt like roughly -19 which is pretty cold especially when you’re not moving very fast with your visitors.
My Mum and Dad are friends with Alan and Tilly so when I was younger, we went to the farm to give a hand. One of the only memories I’ve had at the farm when I was little was being in a tractor with my dad and Alan and falling out of it. I have slowly accumulated quite a lot of photos so when Ruth suggested for me to possibly write a blog I obviously said yes.
Magnum in the sun on a really hot day in mid August.Chai running for food in the enclosure on the 12th of April 2025.Lisette with Frost and Busby at a Christmas event in Fort William.Christie snoozing on a gorgeous day in December.Lolly looking surprised, overlooking Kidney Lochan while free ranging on the 2nd of March.And of course, can’t miss a dog photo can I. This is Fraoch on the summit of Meall a’ Bhuachaille and it was the best sunset I’ve ever seen! Scotland at its best.The herd following Lotti in early March heading down Plantation Hill.Wee Fika last year in the enclosure. She is currently Free ranging with her mum Sunflower.The herd crossing the Alt Ban on the 9th of March 2025.Trilby with her calf in front of Meall a’ Bhuachaille in the enclosure being just a few days old on the 11th of May.The first calf of the year building up his confidence in the enclosure. And also, being super-duper cute!Me and my dad were out on the hills in May and came across a herd free ranging. This is wonderful Mocha.This is me and Nuii on the same day who was very interested if we had some spare food going. We sadly did not!Marple and her calf with the herd after coming off free range. This was taken on the 14th of August 2025.Zap having a chill time before a busy day with visitors on the 16th of August.
Reindeer live for an average of 12-13 years, with 17 or 18 being an exceptional lifespan, and I have now worked here since November 2007 – getting on for 18 years. In 2023, it got to the point where only a small handful of old reindeer still remained in the herd who had been alive when I first arrived, with everyone else having been born in the duration of my employment.
These five, Lulu, Enya and Elvis (born in 2006) and Fern and Fly (born in 2007), became the ‘oldies’, outlasting many reindeer who were younger than them. I thought of them as my gang of old buddies, the only reindeer to have been here longer than me. Lulu in particular was a real character and a favourite of mine – you can read a previous blog of mine about her here.
Fern in 2018 in her heyday, aged 11 and with an incredible set of antlers.Handsome Elvis with his silver coat.Fly looking shocked that I wanted to take her photo!
But after a couple of years of the situation not changing, 2023 rolled around and in the second half of the year, suddenly we lost Lulu, Enya and Elvis close together. My cohort of oldies was down to two! Fly managed another few months before her time came, leaving just Fern, older by a year to any others in the herd. But Fern was in remarkably good condition for a reindeer aged nearly 17. Big antlers for an old girl and in really good condition, though by late summer 2024 she was definitely looking a bit ‘older’ in comparison.
Fern in February 2024 at nearly 17 years old – looking incredible still.
Throughout winter 2024/2025 Fern continued to soldier on, in better condition than some of her younger buddies other than a bit of arthritis that we could manage with pain relief. We saw that part of the reindeer herd at least every day or two through the winter (in summer we see the females much less) and in the latter part of the season it started to become apparent that Fern’s sight was declining.
We made the hard decision to put her down at the end of the winter, at the point when we would naturally stop seeing the females daily as they move away to their summer pastures. Whilst she may have continued on for a few more months, the potential of her injuring herself accidentally out on the mountains and suffering a slow end without us knowing about it was a risk we were not willing to take – welfare always has to be the first priority for our animals.
My last photo of Fern, taken about 5 weeks before she died. Snoozing in the sunshine!
With the passing of Fern, the whole herd has now completely changed since I started. Gazelle, Sika and Sambar are now 17 years old (Gazelle the oldest by about a fortnight), and I have known them for their entire lives, and this feels like quite a significant point in my time here. Possibly mainly because it’s making me feel even older than usual, but hey ho.
You know something has gone very right when you accidentally end up being a reindeer herder for the summer. I met herders Mel and Chris on the Isle of Rum, and about two months later I found myself moving into Reindeer House. I couldn’t have predicted becoming a herder, and it has exceeded all of my expectations!
I arrived in Glenmore at the start of May, right in the thick of calving season. The first month was an amazing blur where every day was different, calves were being born left right and centre, and the sun was shining every day. By June I felt fully settled in to my new role, the calves were now free ranging in the mountains, and I was able to work on perfecting the art of guiding Hill Trips! July brought on some very impressive sets of antlers, looking back at photos from May, I can barely recognise any of the boys! It has been a process of constantly learning and relearning who is who because the reindeer seem to shape shift on a weekly basis. Now that August is upon us, I’m starting to get sad realising my first summer here at Cairngorm is nearly over!
Here’s some photos from this summer of herding:
Giving Helsinki’s calf a lift into the nurseryJelly welcoming me to the paddocks on my first dayTexel’s calf seeing if any milk will come out of my fingerDruid working his magic…trying to persuade me to feed himDruid’s magic clearly workedA poorly Jimmy on his morning walk. Don’t worry, he recovered well!Rainbow on the free rangeSoggy but happy faces after taking the last group of cows and calves out to the free rangeSolstice camp out with TireeEmily and Alex busy behind the scenes building the new exhibitionA scruffy Yukon in the foreground looking bored while I waffle on to visitors about how cool the reindeer are.
As most readers know, we name reindeer on a theme each year. For example, in recent years we’ve had ‘Teas and Coffees’, ‘Rivers of the World’, and ‘Ice Creams and Lollies’ to name just a few. This old blog goes into the themes themselves a lot more.
The majority of the time the calves are given a name within the given theme more or less at random. There’s hundreds of examples of this but to give you one – in 2022 Caterpillar (‘Bugs and Beasties’) had a female calf that we called Popsicle (‘Ice Creams and Lollies’) for no reason other than it fitted the theme and we thought it a suitable name for a sweet female calf.
But sometimes we try to be a bit clever, linking names within the theme to their mother or other family member. This can help us remember who is related to who… or just confuse us completely!
Often, we use an alliteration, for example Brie (‘Cheeses’), had a calf who we named Beret (‘Hats’), who went on to have a calf called Brew (‘Teas and Coffees’). You’ll also notice a French link between Brie and Beret!
Beret and her mum Brie free ranging on Cairngorm. An alliteration and a French link.Beret in 2024, with her daughter who we later named Brew.
Gazelle (‘Horned and Antlered Animals’), now aged 17, is long retired from breeding. She has three surviving sons whose names all begin with an ‘A’ – Aztec (‘Ancient Civilisations’), Athens (‘European Places’), and Adzuki (‘Seeds, Peas, and Beans’).
Aztec – one of the greediest reindeer in the herd. A trait inherited from his mum Gazelle. He tends to grow quite small antlers. Athens, also very greedy, who tends to grow very wide antlers.Adzuki, perhaps the least food-obsessed of the three brothers, who tends to grow very tall antlers.
Emmental (‘Cheeses’) has been a great breeding female over the years – all her offspring have names beginning with vowels just like her – for example Olmec (‘Ancient Civilisations’), Iskrem (‘Ice Creams and Lollies’), and Ob (‘Rivers of the World’).
Emmental and her son Iskrem enjoying the free range.Ob and older brother Iskrem, both with matching white noses.
Sadly, we lost old girl Ibex (‘Horned and Antlered Animals’) in the spring at a grand old age of nearly 17. She had a female calf in 2020 who we named Flax (‘Seeds, Peas, and Beans’) as both their names ended with the letter ‘x’.
Ibex and Flax, mother and daughter, out free ranging together.
Flax has gone on to have three calves so far, her first in 2023 we named Nile (‘Rivers of the World’), the second in 2024 we named Camomile (‘Teas and Coffees’) and the third was another male born this spring. All going well, he’ll get named in early September, so we’ll see if we select a name that rhymes with his older siblings!
Flax and Camomile.Nile, big brother to Camomile.
Pagan (‘Ancient Civilisations’) was a notorious reindeer in our herd who sadly died very suddenly and unexpectedly in 2023. We were all incredibly fond of her despite her bossiness – she was a real character. We managed to name all of her offspring on a Halloween/witchy theme as best we could. Pumpkin (‘Seeds, Beans, and Peas’), Witch (‘Hats’), Zap (‘Ice Creams and Lollies’), and we named Pagan’s last calf who we hand-reared Winnie. Winnie’s name doesn’t fit the theme that year because she had to be named before the theme was even selected but we went for Winnie (or Winifred), after the witch.
Zap – Pagan’s son looking a bit scruffy during the moult. This was the most ‘witchy’ ice cream name we could come up with. We imagined a witch’s wand might make a zapping sound when used!Winnie’s gorgeous nose.
Sometimes the link can be a little more intellectual, surprising I know! Suebi (‘Ancient Civilisations’) had twins in 2023. Her female twin was hand-reared from the age of just three days old (alongside Winnie) and therefore was given the name Alba long before the theme was even chosen. However, the male twin was named in the ‘River of the Worlds’ theme. The Suebi people were a large and powerful group in the Roman era. They originated on the river Elbe, in what is now north east Germany – so this was the perfect name for Suebi’s son. We think the names Alba and Elbe also go very well together.
Suebi and her twins – May 2023.
And finally, sometimes the link is just a bit silly! Hobnob (‘Cakes, Biscuits, and Biscuits’) had a calf in 2020 when the theme was ‘Seeds, Peas, and Beans’. We named her female calf Mushy, after mushy peas. Why did we select the name Mushy for Hobnob’s calf you may ask? Simply because if you dunk a hobnob into a cup of tea, it goes mushy.
