Educational - The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd

10th April 20267th April 2026

Reindeer Around the World: The Svalbard Reindeer

Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus

A wonderful past blog written by herder Hen detailing how the species Rangifer tarandus (more commonly known as reindeer) is broken down into seven different subspecies, got me thinking that I didn’t know too much about these differences. What adaptations did each subspecies have to equip them for their differing environments? I decided to start my research with the Svalbard reindeer – the smallest of all the reindeer and only found within the islands of Svalbard.

It is estimated that Svalbard reindeer became isolated from other populations of reindeer around 10,000 years ago when the vast ice sheet covering the Barents Sea melted as the earth warmed after the last ice age. Svalbard then became cut off from mainland Europe, effectively trapping any land mammals.

So, what happened to them 10,000 years ago to equip them with living on an open, isolated, arctic tundra landscape? Unlike other subspecies of reindeer, the Svalbard population dropped its need to migrate, only needing to cover short distances on a regular basis, remaining on mountain ridges and plateaus – continuously exposed to the elements. They also lacked forests for cover and fed primarily on short-growing lichens and vegetation.

The home of the Svalbard reindeer – open plains and Arctic mountains.

Apart from the occasional polar bear… the Svalbard reindeer also doesn’t have the worries that other subspecies have regarding predators. Due to these changes in their food chain and environment, the Svalbard reindeer evolved to have far shorter legs than the other subspecies. They could still reach a maximum speed of 60 to 80km/h but didn’t require the longer legs of other reindeer – so to conserve body heat, their legs became shorter.

*Body heat is lost through a reindeer’s legs due to less fat and blood vessels near to the surface of the skin, so if you don’t need to migrate – grow shorter legs and stay warm!*

Svalbard reindeer running, perfectly displaying how disproportionate their bodies are to their small heads and legs. Perfectly adapted to an environment that doesn’t require movement, but encourages good fat reserves. (Photo credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)

Another unique adaptation to the Svalbard reindeer is their difference in circadian rhythm to other subspecies of reindeer. Svalbard has an extremely reduced day length in winter months. There are between 100 to 150 days per year during which there is no light and the sun does not rise above the horizon. Research has concluded that the Svalbard reindeer has a mutation in a gene associated with maintaining circadian rhythm, allowing their bodies to cope with lack of sunlight (vitamin D etc.). Another change in the genetic make up of this subspecies in comparison to the others, is a change in the genes associated with eye/ optic nerve development – allowing their eyes to adapt to winter conditions.

Svalbard reindeer have dark eyes, that like other subspecies are able to see into the shorter end of the light spectrum. This allows them to use UV light during twilight periods of the year to see their general surroundings – identifying food sources, other forms of life, etc.

Their diet is very similar to other subspecies of reindeer, feeding on low growing vegetation found along ridges, plateaus and mountain slopes. Feeding to excess on healthy vegetation during summer and then relying on fat reserves and limited grazing during winter when vegetation is limited, but lichen can be found in abundance. The Svalbard population is more of a solitary subspecies than the typical social herd structure of other populations of reindeer. They are often only found in groups of three to five and so over grazing is not as much of a concern in a smaller region, such as Svalbard. However, despite this, starvation is the most common cause of death due to worn teeth grazing on sparse vegetation growing amongst rocky landscapes, or from food frozen into ice pastures.

*Svalbard reindeer grazing on vegetation with areas of ice pasture seen behind them.*

Pick out the areas of low quality grazing amongst the rocks.

Despite their challenges and differences, one thing is for sure… the Svalbard reindeer are one darn cute animal!

*Trying to think of something professional to say here, but all I can think is… STOP IT!*

Okay, no more cute photos! I’ll leave it there until next time when we look at the cool adaptions of another subspecies of the Rangifer tarandus.

Daisy

More reading:
https://polar-latitudes.com/discover/wildlife/svalbard-reindeer/
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-eurasian-arctic-during-the-last-ice-age
https://www.aurora-expeditions.com/eu/wildlife/arctic/mammals/svalbard-reindeer
https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/17/9/evaf160/8233719
https://npolar.no/en/species/svalbard-reindeer/#3

13th March 20268th March 2026

Lichen – what is it and why does it taste good? If you’re a reindeer anyway…

“Lichen, any of about 15,000 species of plant-like organisms that consist of a symbiotic association of algae (usually green) or cyanobacteria and fungi (mostly ascomycetes and basidiomycetes)” (Britannica, 2025). Now that’s a lot of big words and what do they actually mean? What really is a ‘symbiotic association of algae’? And why is lichen so important for reindeer?

Lichen (AKA reindeer moss). Photo by Evelyn Simak

Let’s look at the bigger picture to start. Cast your minds to the vast open landscape that makes up a subarctic tundra ecosystem. Excitingly enough, we can talk about our very own Cairngorm mountains for this, as our reindeer live in the only ecosystem of its kind in the UK.

*The Cairngorm reindeer free roaming in the mountains.*

A subarctic tundra ecosystem falls south of the Arctic Circle line and includes treeless habitats of permafrost and generally short flora growing seasons due to harsh weather and low temperatures. It can include fragmented plant growth, like rocky mountainous peaks with scatterings of low growing vegetation including mosses, grasses, dwarfed shrubs, and lichens.

These harsh conditions mean that lichen do not have to compete for space or light with other forms of vegetation, enabling the lichen to grow in blankets across mountain plateaus. Due to their unique differences to other plant life, they are also able to grow on exposed rocks and as part of biological soil crusts. These soil crusts are found in cold and dry areas and make up the majority of all living ground cover in these almost uninhabitable places. The crusts are made of living material that sit on the top few millimetres of ground, meaning larger plants are unable to root and grow due to the ground conditions.

So that brings us back to our opening question, what is a symbiotic association of algae? What is lichen? From what we understand of lichen, it is a community of living organisms from both the fungi and the algae family. The fungi provide the water and minerals, as well as giving the lichen its structure, and the algae provides the food in the relationship, through photosynthesis. This happy partnership allows the lichen to grow and cope with harsh conditions that a normal single organism may not be able to thrive in.

Now let’s add the reindeer into the mix! Reindeer rely heavily on lichen, consuming so much that it can make up to 70% of their annual food intake. This is because those harsh landscapes we spoke about earlier have very little choice available for the reindeer, but they can always rely on the lichen to grow all year round. Reindeer even have specialised gut floras to be able to properly digest the carbohydrates lichen contains.

*Winter lichen for our free ranging reindeer.*

Maybe it’s not that it tastes good then, maybe it’s because they have little other choice?…

But if you asked our reindeer, they would tell you it’s the best thing on the menu!

Mocha with a bit of lichen hanging from her bottom lip!

Daisy

Resources to learn more:

https://www.britannica.com/science/reindeer-lichen https://www.britannica.com/science/biological-soil-crust https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/learning/what-is-a-lichen

19th December 202516th December 2025

Wee calfie antlers!

With autumn being the season that the calves return to the hill enclosure, along with their mums, it’s always exciting to see them and to start to get to know them as characters. Having spent all summer with males only in the enclosure, it’s suddenly a bit overwhelming to have a sea of ‘new’ reindeer to get to know once again! The calves are the hardest to learn who is who.

Last time we saw them properly, in late spring, they were tiny and heading out to free-range in their calf coats, which are quite different in colouration to an adult reindeer’s coat. By autumn they’ve moulted, grown their new winter coat, and are many times bigger – i.e. they look COMPLETELY different! Other than very obvious colour variation and face markings, their wee antlers are the easiest way to tell them apart. The photo below shows Macchiato at 4 months old, looking about as generic as is possible for a reindeer calf – very average size and shape antlers, along with being very much the ‘normal’ body colour. Difficult to tell one from t’other, looking like this!

So I thought I’d show some of the antler shapes of calves over the years in this blog. The memorable ones tend to be the biggest ones, of which the outright winner – by a country mile – is Gandalf. However, he was born in Sweden, and many of the Swedish calves we’ve imported over the years (to increase our genetic diversity within the herd) have had very big antlers so maybe he should be disqualified my list…

But here’s a photo of Gandalf anyway. Compare those antlers to Macchiato’s in the photo above!

So… my winner for sheer height of antler is Jester, who definitely looked a bit out of proportion as a calf. He’s gone on to grow enormous adult antlers too, though tending towards wider rather than tall.

Some calves have really complex antlers – not quite as tall as Jester’s but more elaborate with several points on each. Examples include:

Murray, born in 2012. Look at that headgear!

Christie (antlers still in velvet here) – exceptional as she is female. As an adult she’s gone on to have very big antlers each year, a family trait inherited from mum Caddis and granny Haze.

Cream – these calf antlers always reminded me of water divining rods!

Duke gets a bonus point for having a forward-pointing tine at the base of one of his calf antlers – perfectly normal in an adult reindeer, but rare in a calf.

Whilst not the biggest calf antlers ever, Fez wins my ‘prettiest’ antlers award. Small and perfectly formed, with several points top and bottom. Beautiful!

But sometimes, it all goes wrong. Calf antlers, being thinner than adult antlers, are easily broken, especially as adult reindeer show no love whatsoever for anyone else’s offspring other than their own, and are all too willing to whack a calf on the head with a hoof should they get in their way. This results in antlers breaking, and this happens whilst the antler is still growing, they will sometimes fuse at the break and the calf is left with a flopped-over broken point.

One of this year’s calves, Lochi, with the classic ‘been-walloped-on-the-head-by-a-hoof’ look.

If this happens early enough in the season, the antler will, once the break is fused and healed, start to grow upright once again from the break. Here’s Fava below, who had managed to break his right hand antler not once but twice, resulting in two downward pointing bits. His antler shows a centimetre of new, upward growth from the break – and then he ran out of time to grow any more!

Antlers broken right at the base can cause a problem with obscuring vision, poor Hopscotch here had to have this disaster (above) sawn off once it had lost all feeling in the autumn, so she could see where she was going!

And sometimes, it all just goes terribly, terribly wrong…

Poor Heinz! Two broken antlers, bound in place to keep them as still as possible, waiting for the vet to arrive.

Holy Moley’s broken antler resulted in a shaved head after the vet had to remove the broken bit right at the base to prevent further damage. Some of you might remember watching her story on our Channel 4 documentary in 2020!

Hen

7th November 202522nd October 2025

Reindeer Artwork on Postage Stamps.

Recently, when researching something else, I came across series of beautiful, Mongolian, postage stamps highlighting the Tsaatan people’s lifestyle throughout different seasons. After a quick Google I found loads of other beautiful stamps from many different reindeer herding nations across the world. I thought people might enjoy having a look through some of the beautiful reindeer artwork displayed on some of the stamps.

Mongolian postage stamps:

The Mongolian stamps that I found portray images of the Tsaatan people (also known as the Dhuka), a group of indigenous, nomadic reindeer herders who live in the depths of the Taiga in northern Mongolia. The Tsaatan are one of the few indigenous reindeer herders who ride their reindeer.

*Mongolian stamp showing an image of a Tsaatan camp.*

*Mongolian stamp showing an image of Tsaatan schoolchildren riding their reindeer.*

*Mongolian stamp showing an image of Tsaatan migration.*

I also found this much older Mongolian stamp from 1961. Note how it also shows reindeer being ridden.

Mongolian stamp from 1961.

Norwegian postage stamps:

I found a whole range of Norwegian postage stamps from this first one from 1914 advertising Norwegian trips (Norwegenfahrten) with a particular shipping company along with some others with beautiful illustrations.

*Norwegian stamp from 1963 showing a reindeer.*

Russian postage stamps:

Russia is home to many indigenous reindeer herders from the Sami who inhabit the Kola peninsula in the northwest of Russia, to the Chukchi who live in the northeastern part of Siberia (with many other indigenous herders living in between). I found just a few Russian stamps showing reindeer including one showing reindeer racing.

South Georgian postage stamps:

For about 100 years, reindeer resided in South Georgia and this is reflected in some of their stamps. The reindeer were introduced in the early 20^th century as a food source for whalers. After the end of whaling with the lack of humans or predators the number of reindeer increased to the point there were too many for the land, so the decision was made to eradicate the south Georgian reindeer between 2013 and 2015.

Falklands postage stamps:

In 2001 a group of roughly 50 reindeer were translocated from South Georgia to the Falkland Islands and some of their stamps in the years following celebrate the reindeer through the different seasons.

*Falkland Islands – Reindeer in Winter*.

*Falkland Islands – Reindeer feeding on tussock grass*.

USA postage stamps:

North America is home to the Caribou which is the same species as reindeer, but haven’t been domesticated. They are found in Canada and Alaska. Here they are celebrated in this beautiful stamp.

Lotti

12th September 202511th September 2025

People of the Reindeer

The people of the northern hemisphere and reindeer have a long-interconnected history. In the days of the ice ages reindeer were known as far south as Spain and as one of the larger and least scary animals roaming the land (compared to cave lions and aurochs), they made natural prey for humans of all kinds. Reindeer antlers and bones found in archaeological sites in France age the Reindeer-Homosapien relationship at least 45,000 years old – although it is argued there is some evidence of Neanderthals hunting reindeer 60,000 years ago!

‘Bone cave’ in Inchnadamph where many reindeer bones were found alongside early human remains.

In the 40ish thousand years reindeer and humans have been in contact, our relationship has evolved. From hunter-gatherers hunting reindeer with spears and bows to rifles or to our Reindeer Centre in Glenmore and our Christmas Reindeer pulling sleds. In this blog, I am going to focus on how we lived with reindeer pre-domestication.

One of the more interesting sources we have on how people of the reindeer live with undomesticated reindeer are the peoples that still live or until recently have lived with the Caribou – most notably the various groups of inland Inuit in North America. (Note: Caribou and Reindeer are the same species, but the north American caribou has never been domesticated). For these people, as many other people of the reindeer, reindeer are the lifeblood of their communities.

Reindeer tend to be migratory animals (one subspecies of reindeer in Canada makes the largest migration of any land mammal!) and the humans around them have tended to take on nomadic or semi-nomadic habits as well. In many places, they haven’t needed to be with the reindeer the whole time but moved between pinch points of the migration routes – narrow mountain passes or land bridges between great lakes that the seemingly endless rivers of reindeer would be forced to cross, into the waiting arms of the local hunters. Life like this is boom and bust. A few times a year, the community will catch the great river of deer and during these times will feast. Much of the meat will also be preserved for the many winter months when the reindeer no longer pass through (as they are less mobile during the winter and stay hidden in wintering grounds). Outside of the major floods of reindeer, the odd one is to be found wandering, and much time is spent looking for fresh meat to aid hungry bellies. During the winter, in the coldest places, people in history have been known to survive on semi-frozen dried meat.

A group of our reindeer weathering a winter blizzard. Cairngorm reindeer don’t have a huge migration, but they do come lower down the hills in winter.

Many of these people lived almost exclusively on deer produce. In a carnivore diet, fat becomes essential; it contains much of the necessary vitamins for life that aren’t contained in meat alone. Thus, much of the animals were eaten, not just the finest cuts rump. In fact, those rump stakes we prize so highly are comparatively low in nutrients and were sometimes the parts of the animals given to the dogs.

The reindeer haven’t only been used for food, in almost all cultures of people of the reindeer, every bit of the animal is used. Clothing and boots are made from their skins – often the skin from the belly of the reindeer is chosen for the soles of shoes for its toughness; the hide from the back for coats and parkas due to its thickness and warmth; hoods, mittens and boot tops are made from the hide from the brow due to its suppleness; etc… The shelter the reindeer provide also extends to summer tents, where scrapped and tanned hides are stretched around (often) birch poles to form the semi-mobile summer home. To lash the tent together, many cultures make use of the long and strong sinews from the back of the reindeer. These are also used to sew the clothing together – they have the bonus of swelling when they get wet so that most well sewn seams are fairly watertight.

The trousers and parka of an Inuit man, southern Baffin Island, Hudson Bay, 1910-1914 – Royal Ontario Museum

Reindeer antler and bone is also a useful material, antler is still commonly used for making knife handles and for fixings of all kinds. Reindeer House here in Glenmore is held together by reindeer antler (click here for proof)! The parts of the reindeer that remain can be used as ritual objects or donations back to the ecosystem. This respectful use of the whole animal is repeated through most people of the reindeer, even in people who now live with domesticated reindeer.

Beni

18th July 202512th June 2025

Family resemblance

Just like people, some reindeer have huge resemblance within their families, and some more so than others. I thought I’d write a wee blog to talk about a couple of the best examples in our herd today – and then I discovered that Ruth had beated me to it. So here’s a couple more examples of striking family resemblance, and you can read Ruth’s ‘Mini-me’ blog here.

Family ‘looks’ run especially strongly in Holy Moley’s family. She herself is the spitting image of her mum Galilee, and Holy Moley’s daughter Mississippi popped out looking like a carbon copy too. Here are Mississippi and Holy Moley in the photo above, taken in September 2024 when Mississippi was 16 months old – whilst obviously smaller still as she’s not full-grown, the resemblance is uncanny. Holy Moley only grows a single antler each year due to an injury as a calf, and it seems Mississippi even tried to emulate this look by breaking hers! I’d loved to have had the opportunity to photograph Galilee alongside the two of them, but sadly she died when Holy Moley was only 4 months old.

This is half-brothers Jelly and Cicero, who are both extremely similar. Jelly is a touch darker, but both grow matching antlers and for much of the year they can be pretty hard to tell apart, especially as they are the same age as each other. The best family resemblance of all is between their dad Houdini and Cicero (on the right in the photo), but once again I’ve never had the opportunity to get a photo of them all together, and Houdini is now very old and age has now changed his appearance somewhat. Houdini was originally born in Sweden and imported to join our herd in 2011, hence we bred from him a fair bit to use his ‘fresh’ genetics, but these two offspring are the most similar in appearance, both to him and to each other. All three grow relatively simple antlers for males, with not too much going on at the tops compared to some reindeer.

There are some other good examples in the herd, but it can be difficult to get photos of certain individuals together, so maybe I’ll add another blog further down the line when opportunity arises!

Hen

11th July 202511th July 2025

Stone Age Reindeer Art

50,000-12,000 years ago the world was in the grip of the last glacial period (the Ice Age). During this time, reindeer were abundant across Eurasia’s glaciated landscape. Huge herds of them provided a vital source of food and materials to our late Stone Age ancestors. At the same time, early human artwork was flourishing. There are several examples of ice age art from modern-day France that reveal how significant reindeer were to the people living there – not only as a resource but as a source of inspiration.

One of the oldest examples is the ‘Reindeer Panel’ in Chauvet-Pont D’Arc cave, featuring reindeer alongside other animals. These palaeolithic paintings are estimated to be up to 36,000 years old!

*‘The Reindeer Panel’ in the Chauvet-Point D’Arc Cave, discovered by Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire in 1994.*

17,000-11,000 years ago, Magdalenian culture emerged in Western Europe. Reindeer were such an important source of food and materials for these people that it’s sometimes referred to as the ‘Reindeer Era’.

The Font-de-Gaume cave in France is home to the ‘Two Reindeer’ piece. The original is very faded, but reconstructions reveal a duo of reindeer facing each other. This site is dated at about 19,000-17,000 years old.

*A reconstruction of ‘Two Reindeer’, Unknown Artist (Above). The original ‘Two Reindeer’ from the Font-de-Gaume cave*, *formally discovered in 1901 (Below).*

This engraving of a calf – and what looks like the broken remains of a larger reindeer – is carved into a reindeer metatarsal (foot bone). It’s dated to 14,000-10,000 years ago.

*Engraved bone excavated in 1863 by Henry Christy and Edouard Lartet at the La Madeleine site in Tursac, France.*

The ‘Swimming Reindeer’ piece might be the most famous example of palaeolithic reindeer art. This carving depicts two reindeer carved into a piece of mammoth tusk. It’s thought to be 13,000 years old. This was around the time that a changing climate caused reindeer populations in France to start to fragment.

*‘Swimming Reindeer’, discovered in 1866 by Peccadeau de l’Isle and pieced together from two parts in 1904.*

About 11,000 years ago, the last glacial period retreated, and with it the ice sheets and reindeer were pushed north and to higher altitudes. Our planet entered its current ‘interglacial state’ – the Holocene. As humans adjusted over the millennia to a warmer world, reindeer became a distant memory in most of western Europe. In the Arctic/Subarctic regions though, humans formed an even closer relationship with reindeer which eventually transitioned from hunting to herding.

Kate

Links/References:

Chauvet Cave:
https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/chauvet/en/reindeer-panel

Magdalenian Culture: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magdalenian-culture

Font-de-Gaume Cave: https://www.lascaux-dordogne.com/en/patrimoine-culturel/grotte-de-font-de-gaume/

Engraved Bone: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_Palart-419

Swimming Reindeer: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_Palart-550

4th July 202511th June 2025

Antler shapes

Antlers are my ‘thing’, here at the Reindeer Centre, so it’s a natural subject to turn to for a blog when Ruth is starting to look a little twitchy about needing the rest of us to crack on and provide her with some blogs to keep her going through the calving season (no chance of having enough time to write any then!).

I thought I’d write about different antler shapes amongst female reindeer in this blog, as there is so much variation. Reindeer tend to grow the shape shaped antlers from year to year, but there are factors that influence it, such as general body condition, or whether they’ve got a calf at foot to raise – so more variation tends to be seen amongst the females from year to year than the males.

I’ll start with Marple, above, who I would say grows very much the ‘average’ style of antlers. Upright shafts with multiple tines growing backwards from them; forward-pointing tines originating from the base, and a ‘blade’ – a tine from one antler growing towards the nose. I’ve written more about Marple’s antlers in the past here. However, we also see a wide range of shapes from year to year, such as:

The ‘Bonsai’: Indigo’s antlers are very convoluted and wiggly here!

The ‘Salad tongs’: Meadow grew this incredible set of antlers as a two year old – I’m not sure what happened to them but they would have made excellent salad tongs!

The ‘Ant’: Merida’s efforts in 2024 were, quite franky, ridiculous.

The ‘Unicorn’: Multiple reindeer over the years have only produced a single antler, such as Dixie here. It’s a natural occurance that just happens sometimes.

The ‘Gate hooks’: If you’re going to grow a gate hook on your head, might as well grow two! Russia looks very strange….

The ‘Lazy antlers’: Israel couldn’t be bothered to put too much effort into her antlers this year, but all the effort went into her body instead. Look at those rolls of back fat!!!

The ‘I don’t need no antlers’. Arnish was a ‘polled’ reindeer, one who never grew antlers, but she was built like a tank so no-one messed with her at all – the lack of antlers certainly didn’t hinder her in the herd!

Read more about polled reindeer in a previous blog here, and if you’re wondering whether we ever sell antlers, you can find out here. There’s more general info about antler growth here too.

Hen

20th June 202511th June 2025

Calving, cuckoos and cotton grass!

Every reindeer herder looks forward to May – it’s pretty much the best month of the year for us with calving time for the reindeer dominating it. But May is also one of my absolute favourite months for other reasons too, the trees are coming into leaf, the plants in my garden are growing like mad, the weather is generally fairly amenable, and the migrant birds are back.

May looks like THIS to reindeer herders!

Mention May to any reindeer herder and calving is – I guarantee – the first thing that pops into their head. Reindeer are very seasonal with their breeding, and whilst the occasional calf might be born in the last few days of April, the vast majority arrive in May every year. Calving is a wonderful time of year for us – who can resist the cuteness of a a newborn reindeer? – though it comes with a fair amount of stress too, as we do our best to keep everyone happy and healthy. You’ll find lots of blogs about calving if you use the search function on the blog page here (only visible on a laptop/desktop) if you’d like to know more. Plus lots of lovely photos – of course!

Calves Gelato and Zoom at couple of weeks old

But I have other connotations for the month of May. The second one are the cuckoos. We’re lucky enough to still get plenty of cuckoos in this area, although nationwide they have declined by about 65% since the early 1980s. Even the least ‘birdy’ person in the UK surely knows their iconic call, and I associate them so much with May. They call from the forest below the reindeer’s hill enclosure all through the month, and the far-carrying sound is so reminiscent of all the early mornings over the years that I have trudged about on the hill side looking for cows with their newborn calves. Cuckoos seem to stop calling earlier than some species, I’ve noticed, and already as I write (early June) I realise that I’m barely hearing them any more. Such a short season, and yet they are utterly ingrained into our conscious in spring! Read more about other migrant species who are summer visitors to us in one of my previous blogs here.

The third thing I really associate with May here in the Cairngorms is the cotton-grass (Hare’s-tail Cotton-grass, to be precise), which grows on acidic moorland and is familiar to many, with it’s bobbing cotton-wool like flower heads.

It’s not actually a grass but a sedge, and some years give particularly good displays, where it can almost look like it has snowed. It comes into flower in May, and grows particularly well in the bottom of our hill enclosure on the flatter areas there, which tends to be where the cows and their calves hang out during the month.

Calving in the cotton-grass… A very grumpy looking Brie with her grey calf Latte, and Peanut and her calf Kuksa in between.

So there we are – the three ‘c’s that are incredibly strongly associated with May to me. The fourth would be ‘chaos’, but that’s part and parcel with calving so can be combined into one!

Hen

6th June 20255th June 2025

Reindeer migration

As the seasons change and we transition from spring into summer our female reindeer will start to move from the lower grounds where they have spent most of the winter, higher onto the hills. This is partly to stay cool as the weather will warm up but also to follow the grazing. In the middle of the winter there will be more snow higher on the hills, meaning further for the reindeer to dig but in the summer the tops of the hills are where the best grazing is.

*Waving the cows and calves off to spend the summer free-ranging.*

For our reindeer this migration may be only a few miles but across the world, reindeer and caribou (which are genetically the same as reindeer but haven’t been domesticated) migrate long distances. In fact, caribou hold the record for the longest land migration of any animal, migrating a whopping 2,000 miles between their summer and winter-feeding grounds. The equivalent records are held by the humpback whale with the longest migration through water of 5,000 miles and the arctic tern with the longest migration through the air with a mind boggling 18,000 miles.

*Long Distance Migration (Varpe and Bauer).*

2,000 miles is still an incredibly long way and takes the caribou first to their spring calving grounds near the coast. The spring calving grounds are highly fertile, providing lots of food for the new mums and free of predators, which is important as the young are born. This sounds like the ideal location to spend the summer and perhaps it would be if it wasn’t for the swarms of mosquitoes that arrive at the start of the summer. These mosquitoes, as well as the warmer weather, drive the caribou to migrate higher onto the hills. They spend the summer grazing on a plethora of different plants and lichens. Summer is a time of abundance in the arctic and sub-arctic regions.

*Lace and Ryvita free ranging in the Cairngorms.*

With long hours of light, the plants grow quickly, and the reindeer will graze on over 200 different species. This allows the reindeer calves to grow quickly, before the winter. It also allows bulls, cows and calves to all grow a set of antlers. The antlers grow over roughly 5 months and can reach a massive size. The largest set we’ve had in our herd weighed 8.9kg for the pair. It is also important that reindeer gain weight in the summer in order to survive the harsh winter.

*Christie’s calf, Espresso, Christie and Borlotti enjoying the best of the summer grazing on the plateau.*

*Glacée and Dante looking fantastic at the end of a summer of free-ranging.*

As autumn approaches the reindeer will migrate yet again. As the temperature drops, there will be less to eat high on the hills so the reindeer will move to the lower hills in search of better grazing. It is also the time of year that the mushrooms emerge so many of the reindeer will come into the edge of the woodland to forage mushrooms. They eat many varieties, but the boletus family are their favourite.

In our herd the female reindeer spend the summer months free-ranging and the males spend it in our hill enclosure. This means there is another drive for the females to come to the lower slopes and into the hill enclosure, the boys! The cows know that the rut is held in our hill enclosure each year so when their hormones tell them it’s time to find a mate, they know where to come!

The migration of the Cairngorm reindeer may be much smaller than reindeer and caribou elsewhere, but it is equally important. It allows the reindeer to move to the best location for each season, following where the best food and climate is.

Lotti