Chickpea is a beautiful lass with a distinctive white nose. She was born in 2020 to mum Angua and dad Spartan. Her first couple of years were quite tough, with illness and not one but two periods of time where she went missing from the herd whilst she was out free ranging in the hills. Thankfully she has truly come into her own and is now a strong healthy lass, in excellent condition. She had her first surviving calf in 2025, a handsome male we named Jig, so a true happy ending after the rather wobbly ‘teenage’ years.
Chickpea’s full brother Zoom (who has very similar markings) also has a rather interesting tale which Andi wrote about in this blog. Well worth a read, another lovely story!
I didn’t meet Chickpea until summer 2021, when I returned to reindeer herding, so I missed the first year of her life but she certainly looked like a gorgeous calf. The first time I remember meeting Chickpea was in summer 2021 whilst I was out on a free range mission. I found a lovely group of reindeer which included Chickpea and her mum Angua, who both looked very relaxed and in good health.
At the end of the summer/early autumn we start seeing the free ranging reindeer more on lower slopes of the hills as the higher plateau gets colder, the grazing deteriorates, and the tasty mushrooms start appearing at lower altitudes. By around mid-September 2021 we’d managed to catch up with all of the free rangers, except for one, Chickpea! What had happened to her? This occasionally does happen, a reindeer goes missing and after a while we have to very sadly conclude that they must’ve died whilst out free ranging, perhaps succumbing to an illness. But we didn’t give up hope for Chickpea! On the 29th of September a hillwalker reported a small single reindeer on the mountain plateau. With all other reindeer accounted for this had to be Chickpea. The rest of the free ranging herd were in a good area not too far away from the hill enclosure, so we just had to hope Chickpea was able to navigate her way to them.
Just over a week passed and there were no more reports of her. As normal at that time of year, we drive up to Cairngorm Base Station and spy the hills to see if we can see any free ranging reindeer. On the 9th of October, Sheena and I were up on the hill early looking for reindeer and who did we bump into? Chickpea! Hooray! Along with another yearling female called Sunflower. Her new winter coat looked a bit tatty, and we think she must’ve had an illness in the late summer, but otherwise she appeared just fine.
Chickpea then spent the first part of 2022 out free ranging in the hills. As a young female, she didn’t need to come into the hill enclosure for calving, so she remained out free ranging with the rest of her cohort and all the other non-breeding females. Her mum Angua was brought in for calving and gave us a gorgeous calf, we later called Zoom!
We caught up with Chickpea as normal in the beginning of the summer and Andi found her in a nice big herd of cows and calves in mid-July 2022 looking healthy and in good condition. But as autumn rolled around and once again, we start bringing reindeer in off the free range, Chickpea, Angua and her calf Zoom were the only reindeer not to be accounted for. You’ll read the full story of Zoom’s return in Andi’s blog (link above) but once he was brought back into the enclosure the only reindeer left unaccounted for was Chickpea… again!
We got several reports from hillwalkers of a single reindeer and we even received a couple of emails with photos of her so we knew she was out there somewhere, but frustratingly we were unable to catch up with her ourselves. There are no fences on the free range so the area they can roam is vast and the sightings of her were all from the furthest part of their range.
Then on one otherwise completley normal morning on the 21st of March 2023, Hen and Lisette went out to find and move the herd in time for the Hill Trip. And who was there?! Chickpea! She looked very scruffy and was a little on the lean side but was otherwise in good spirits and keen to get into the handfeed bag!
It is normal for us to go weeks or months without seeing a particular free ranging reindeer over the summer. However, Chickpea ended up evading us for around eight months! Thankfully, this is very unusual! I certainly do not know of another reindeer who has gone AWOL for anywhere near that long whilst I’ve been working here.
Thankfully Chickpea has not made us all this anxious again! In fact, she’s absolutely thrived and you certainly couldn’t tell by looking at her she has had a couple of rather big solo ‘adventures’. She remained with the herd throughout March and April 2023 and we gave her some extra calorific food to give her a wee boost. She then continued to free range all spring and summer, but we saw her much more frequently!
In May 2025 Chickpea gave birth to a gorgeous male calf, also with a white nose. The pair went out to free range for the summer, we caught up with them several times, and they clearly had a good season as they both came back into the enclosure in the autumn in great condition. We named Chickpea’s calf Jig, and he’s one of the biggest calves of the year. Chickpea is going from strength to strength and hopefully will never make us worry so much again!
Ruth
Love reading your blogs