What do reindeer herders do when they meet reindeer when they are travelling abroad? Right, try to get some interaction! After having volunteered with the herd for a couple of weeks at different times last year, I had to finish my studies and for that I needed to do an internship in Norway (I know, poor me ;D). The lovely Trondheim, the town I lived in for 4 months, is surrounded by distant reindeer areas North, East and South of the city. I was really looking forward to meeting some Norwegian reindeer, and since I hadn’t seen them during the first week I was there (I mean, come on, it’s reindeer country!) I decided to just go to the nearest herd with a visitors centre, which was at a 2/3 hour drive away from home (practically nothing in Norwegian standards).
Interacting with reindeer in Røros
I met some beautiful reindeer behind a fence, but they were a bit far away… Then I got the slightly mad idea of trying to call them over the way we do in Scotland. I started at a very low volume but once I got their attention I decided to go for it, and they all came and meet me at the fence. It was really funny to see that these reindeer, so far from our herd in Scotland, actually seemed to react to the call we use there.
A reindeer sniffing for food in Røros
Later on I bumped into a herd that was free-ranging, tried the same thing, and had success again. The reindeer had been lying down, probably regurgitating some food they ate before, and they got up and came running towards me as soon as they heard the call.
I wonder if the reindeer I encountered reacted because our call is the same call used by Mikel Utsi, the Swedish Sami herder who was the founder of our herd in Scotland, or if reindeer are just greedy and associate human beings that show interest with the prospect of a nice meal! Reindeer sure are keen on their food, and if they can find any way to preserve energy by having it brought to them they are not likely to skip that opportunity.
Later on at the Centre I told the story to many a colleague and found out that they had tried similar things in other countries. Guess the quirkiness of reindeer herders is just as prominently present as the love for food in reindeer!
Another summer has come to an end and we have had to say goodbye to Julia once again. Her parting gift to me after her fourth summer working at the Reindeer Centre was lots of lovely photos to make up a couple of blogs out of. Julia is a talented photographer so I hope you enjoy her photos from this summer. See you soon Julia, we miss you already!
04/07 (1) Starsky at nearly two months old. He still had has winter coat at this point and was not growning any antlers.
04/07 (2) The reindeer gang with Pict leading. They were all on their way to the shed but were a bit wary of me, stopping just for a second before heading into the shade to escape the hot sun. At this point in the summer we had the most amazing hot, sunny weather which was sometimes a bit too hot for the reindeer!
04/07 (3) Here, the light is shining down on the back of our hill enclosure.
23/07 (1) The herd running for their breakfast. (left: Mo, centre: Atlantic, right: Baffin).
23/07 (2) Atlantic was looking gorgeous on this particular morning and was patiently waiting at the back of the group for the line of food to go out.23/07 (3) Another photo of Atlantic. His antlers are enormous this year and he is now one of our main breeding bulls.23/07 (4) Ben putting the line of feed out for the herd, they were all delighted!23/07 (5) One of my favourite reindeer, Nutkins, was just in the right place for this photo. The day was pretty drizzly with some sunny spells which made for excellent conditions for rainbows.23/07 (6) Starsky’s antlers starting to grow.24/07 A big yawn from Spider!25/07 (1) We were offering Starsky and Hutch supplementary milk two times a day just incase his mother, Lulu, was not producing enough milk for two calves. Hutch always turned his nose up to the milk but Starsky was too greedy to say no!25/07 (3) Starsky and Hutch making their way up the hill25/07 (2) For most of the summer we would take Starsky and Hutch out of the enclosure to find good grazing of heathers, blaeberry shrubs, birch leaves and lichen. The pair absolutely loved their daily trips outside!
Since it was quite the internet sensation, we’re assuming most of you may have heard about the disappearance and relieving retrieving of Sookie, our in-house dog at the Reindeer Centre. Many people helped in the search by sharing our story, looking out for her, sending us tips and reports, and by offering us help in all kinds of other ways. With this blog we’ll give an overview of the timeline of Sookie’s wee adventure, and take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in the search!
Sookie on Sgor Gaoith, January 2018
It was a nice Monday morning when one of Sookie’s favourite hill walk partners Mike pulled up in the driveway next to Reindeer House to collect her for a good day in the hills. He had planned to take Sookie up the munro Ben Lawers that day, which is a munro he’d walked before in his challenge to climb all of the munros. Once there they set off, near the summit of Beinn Ghlas, Sookie got a whiff of a smell of some kind of wildlife and took off. Mike, having walked Sookie many a day in the past, was not worried in any way, as she does so quite often but always returns shortly. This time however, it took a wee bit longer than usual for her to return..
After eating his lunch, waiting for her and calling for her for some time, Sookie still hadn’t returned. Mike decided to walk back to the carpark, hoping she’d be there, but unfortunately this was not the case. Mike climbed up the hill again, but still no Sookie. After it got too late to look for her, he stayed in his car overnight at the carpark, and we hoped she’d turn up the next day.
Tuesday morning there was still no sign of Sookie, either at the carpark and or on the mountain itself. The next few days, different search parties consisting of herders, friends, and volunteers, went to the area and came back with no luck. On Wednesday, Robert McComb, an incredibly nice man who had contacted us via Facebook, made his way up from as far as Glasgow to help us out with a drone! Unfortunately it was too cloudy to be able to see a lot of the area with it. Then throughout Thursday, the Reindeer Centre got 4 calls from people who’d heard barks in the same area near Loch Tay. The people at the Centre marked off an area on the map according to these people’s reports and the search continued, along with other herding dog Tiree who might be able to lure Sookie out with her barks or find her by smelling her. While the barks were heard again, it was too dark and too far away to find her. The next morning, Friday, which was already 4 days after she’d been last seen, the barking was heard again for some time, and eventually the Centre received a phone call from local ranger Andy. Sookie had turned herself in! Full of ticks, slightly underweight rather than covered in her usual bit of bodily winter reserves, and completely and utterly exhausted, was she returned to us. I was the lucky one to be in the area around that time, and had the delightful experience of driving her back to the Centre, where all the herders got quite emotional reuniting with her. Sookie’s doing well in her recovery. She’s slowly gaining weight and liveliness, and is certainly very happy to be back.
Sookie very snugly in the passenger seat after being recollected
We would like to thank everyone who has shared our Facebook posts, everyone who has offered to help us search for her, everyone who has wished us well, and everyone who has shown support in any other way. We were overwhelmed by all of your kindness. We would like to express special thanks to Andy, the ranger who contacted us and reunited us with Sookie, and to Dicky and Raina, the people who managed to hold on to Sookie after she’d shown up on their land, and who then contacted Andy. We’d also like to express thanks to Christine Parkinson, who offered me a place to stay on Thursday night to make the search easier, to Graham Jones who was out searching with his dog Mack and of course to Robert McComb, who helped out with the drone.
Manouk
The reuniting with relieved and happy herdersHappy selfie of Sookie and Jack, one of the ex-herders who made his way up to the Centre as soon as he could to cuddle Sookie till she couldn’t be cuddled anymore.
At the start of August, Lotti and myself were sent out into the mountains to see if we could find the free-ranging females and their calves. Fiona had spied a big herd from the road and thought it would be a good idea to get them to follow us for as long as possible with a bag of food, in preparation for the rutting season where the females will need to be led back into the enclosure. With our lunches packed and a bag of feed each in our rucksacks, Lottie and myself set off for a day searching for reindeer.
Lotti leading Hopscotch and her daughter Kipling, probably the greediest pair of females ever in the herd! The herd is following behind.
At the Ptarmigan restaurant, at the top of the funicular train line, we were rewarded with the sight of a large group of 20 females and two calves. Three females immediately ran over as soon as they caught sight of us removing a feed bag from Lottie’s rucksack. These turned out to be Hopscotch and her yearling Kipling. Hopscotch’s three-year-old son, Kips, is a regular on the handfeed line on hill trips and it was easy to see where he had inherited his greediness from! The third was a little reindeer called Pagan who proceed to half-heartedly shake her antlers on our legs in an effort to receive some food.
After spending lots of time with the twins, I was surprised to see how big the calves were on the free-range. Look at the size of the antlers on this calf!
With Lotti leading and myself following at the back, we managed keep the females as a group and walking for a good half hour around the plateau. We gave up when the herd started to trot off in all directions and no amount of running behind in zigzags would keep them together. We had just made the decision to put the feed out, when Lotti looked behind and discovered another large group of twentyish females had joined us! After putting a long line of food, we counted 43 reindeer in total.
Morven looking beautiful against an amazing view over the Cairngorms.
Once everyone was fed (including ourselves), the reindeer trotted off as one big herd, moving quickly across the mountain which was amazing to watch. Lottie and myself then headed to the summit of Cairn Gorm and around the Northern Corries in the hope of finding another group. Unfortunately, we spent the rest of the day searching for reindeer to no avail. We did however, have the most amazing day walking around the mountains, in shock the whole way that we were getting paid for this! I often have people telling me on hill trips that I have the best job in the world, and after this day out in the mountains, I would find it hard to disagree with them.
Julia
Three became separated from the herd but after a few minutes of calling them, they ran straight back over, not wanting to miss out on their lunch. There is still a bit of snow left over in the Cairngorms, even after the summer heat-wave, which we can see in the middle of this photo.All of the herd following Lotti and her white feedbag. I was walking behind making sure they kept moving forwards.Hopper has amazing antlers this year!
My first time meeting Fly. Her antlers were incredible with one side towering over the other. Apparently she lost one of her antlers a lot later than the other, causing the mismatching in their size.
Look at the size of Fly’s antlers in comparison to Okapi (who has fairly large antlers for a female)!Kipling running over to see if I have any food!Gloriana hasn’t yet moulted her winter coat on her ears so they are still really fluffy!Running for the feed line.Brie curious about my camera and Cheer behind looking beautiful.Lotti and myself couldn’t believe how cute this calf, Frost, was with his winter coat still on his neck in little clumps.Suspicious SantanaIt’s a tiring life for these two calves…Lunching with the reindeer.Lotti looking down towards Loch Avon from the side of Cairn Gorm.Lotti and the Northern Corries. We didn’t find any reindeer from this point but had the most amazing walk along the ridge of the Corries and back down to the car park.
Four years. That’s how long it’s been since I had my first stint as a ‘Reindeer Herder’. It is a job title that has raised many curious eyebrows in subsequent job interviews. “No it’s not a typo, it really did happen” is a sentence I have found myself saying all too often.
Those four years have been spent living in big cities, first Sydney and now North London, where in September I will resume my final year of study as a Physiotherapist. Hen pointed out that I only seem to come up to work at the Reindeer Centre when there is a football World Cup taking place. And amongst the changes here since 2014, is the amount of herders who would watch the matches with me (and not all of them would be supporting “the team playing against England”). The majestic and dramatic mountain range appears to have remained the same, as has the gentle and charming nature of the Reindeer. ‘Strange’ is the word I would use to describe seeing the yellow tags (cheeses) as grown-ups, having known them only as calves in 2014. But no words can describe the depth of positive feelings which I get from being up in this part of the world, surrounded by friendly and fun human-beings, as well as the delightfully mischievous Reindeer. Even when I can’t scrub the smell of Reindeer food off of my hands, or I am bitten by my hundredth midgie of the day, I have a lot of gratitude to be up in such a beautiful part of the world.
One feeling that I had forgotten is the feeling of blissful exhaustion. After a day of herding, there are so many fun things to do in the evening such as sport, wild swimming and fell-running that it’s hard for the body to keep up. But with FOMO (fear of missing out) imbedded into my brain, the body is finding a way to adapt from sedentary study days to keeping up with shenanigans and I recently attended my first ever Ceilidh (a night of traditional Scottish dancing) where I had a whale of a time.
Ben’s back!
I hope to see you on a tour sometime and share the pleasure that one gets from being around these delightfully mischievous Reindeer. My tours can hopefully only get better nowadays, after a small incident last week, whereby on my first hill trip in four years I thought I’d try out my basic level French on a young boy. What transpired really shook my confidence in the French language; I asked the young boy a question and to my shock he swiftly sprinted over to his mum and grabbed her leg with both hands. What I had meant to ask “do you like feeding the Reindeer?” actually came out as “do you like eating the Reindeer?”. And fair play to the young lad, he wasn’t interested in eating any Reindeer. I might stick to English in the future.
Since I have not come across many Reindeer Physiotherapists, I may be set for a career with humans. But, as they say…”once a Reindeer herder, always a Reindeer herder”. And I am thankful to all of you lads and lassies reading this for your dedicated support which allows such a wonderfully run business to thrive.
A scenario similar to this one has occurred many times since I came back to work at the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd this summer. In the past blogs have been written about how herders learn the reindeer names, and I desperately read a couple of those in the hopes of finding ways of dealing with all of the reindeer names. People who have worked here for some time seem to be able to recognise a particular reindeer from a fairly long distance or a photograph, whereas I’ve been stuck in the phase of trying to sneak up on a reindeer to be able to read his ear tag number, after which I can use my cheat sheet to check his name.
To change this the other way around I decided to have a little ID’ing session. Like usual, I sneaked up on a couple of regurgitating reindeer to have a quick look at their ear tag number. I always try to look at the reindeer’s distinct features first, but, to be fair, many look quite similar in the beginning and except from a few very distinct ones it can be really hard to spot something outstanding which tells the reindeer apart from the others. I think I followed reindeer Lomond all the way across the enclosure, trying to read his bloody ear tag number. It’s easier to read when they are eating their food, so while my colleague Hen distributed the food in nice small piles I started to ID them along the line. But, reindeer being animals, they moved about a lot. So it happened a couple of times that I was staring hard at a certain reindeer, hoping for an “aha” moment, not getting one, sneaking around him to check the ear tag number, only to find out I’ve just had him 3 spots back in the line! After going up and down the line a couple of times, with some reindeer encountered at least 10 times and others not once, I decided it was time to call it a day in terms of ID’ing. Unfortunately, as soon as I got back to the centre and looked at a photo I’d made that morning, I realised I couldn’t even identify the reindeer in the photo!! This meant it was time for drastic measures.
ID’ing reindeer is quite important as the first way we know something could be wrong with a reindeer is when he doesn’t show up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Reindeer like their food and just like you and me, if they’re not enthusiastic about eating, something’s the matter. It is then the herder’s duty to quickly go over all the reindeer present to check who’s missing. And since reindeer are not like school children in that they won’t dutifully participate in a role call, the best way to quickly do this is to identify each and every one of them by sight as soon as possible. So there you go, the quicker you learn the names, the better.
As a last resort I decided to consult my own knowledge about learning in general. I’ve just finished my English teacher education at uni, so I’ve learned a lot about how people learn and memorise things. One of the ways people memorise vocabulary best is by creating mnemonic devices. One way to do so is to link the word you’re learning (so what it is) to something that sounds very similar to the word. For example, the French word for to eat is manger (pronounced mahn-zhay). A manger in English is a bowl or trough to put animal food in, link this word to the French word (same in spelling, different pronunciation) and you have your mnemonic device. Here are a few of the things I came up with, some of them made my colleagues chuckle..
Lomond (901) – Loch Lomond is the 1st landmark you come across when you walk the West Highland Way.
Fyrish (903) – The (F)Irish flag has 3 colours.
Spartan (004) – Spartans were born for (4) fighting.
Olmec (008) – Olmec ate (=8) chocolate (The Olmecs were a Latin American tribe that were the first to consume chocolate!).
Jute (013) – the Jutes brought bad luck (13 = unlucky) to England (the Jutes were a Germanic tribe that invaded England).
Roman (018) – For a lot of Roman stories you have to be 18 or older to be allowed to read them … (The Latin stories about old Rome contain a lot of sexual harassment…).
Burns (103) – When you have a 3rd degree burn wound you have to go to the hospital.
Now I know most of the reindeer in the hill enclosure!
Hi my name is Alison (Ali) and I’ve been asked to write a blog. To be honest I’m not really sure what a blog even is so I’ll do my best (or worst) first blog. So I might as well start from the very beginning.
I am a new reindeer herder at the Centre and I have never worked with animals before in my life. I gained my job apparently as I was good with people (the hard bit) and the reindeer bit I can easily learn. Reindeer are fascinating animals and I have certainly learnt a lot about them since my first close up encounter with them.
Ali and the twins
My interview involved trudging up a snowy mountain, thigh deep snow in places, looking for a herd of reindeer in the mist. What a magical moment finding the herd at the top of that hill.
Not a bad sight for your first reindeer encounter!
While herding them down we reached a large patch of snow, I was amazed to have 45+ reindeer charging past either side of me, it was as if it they were dancing in delight with legs moving in crazy directions. This happened each time we reached a large patch of snow. On one occasion one of the yearlings was so excited he started running in circles as the rest of the herd had confused expressions trying to decide if they should follow him or not. I remember thinking even if I don’t get the job this experience alone will be a fantastic memory that will stick with me forever. Luckily I got the job and have had many more tales to tell.
For the previous few months we have been joined by a new reindeer herder called Kate who helped us out over the busy calving period. Kate was so brilliant to have around we asked her to stay a little longer until some of our regular summer staff returned through June and July. We expect to have her back at some point in the near future, but for now she has headed off to enjoy some summer wanderings. Before she left Kate wrote some lovely short stories about her time herewith some excellent drawings. Keep an eye out over summer for the next installments of her stories. Hopefully we can have Kate back here at Reindeer House in the autumn!
Kate taking Lulu and the twins out for some grazing accompanied by Glenshee
First day on the job – Lost in the fog
During the first hour as a reindeer herder I had managed to become a very soggy, panting mess who was lost in the fog somewhere on windy ridge with not the foggiest where the herd had gone. I remembered thinking to myself; this has gone terribly wrong- I’m not even going to make it through the first day!
It was mid-April and there were still patches of snow on the hills. My first sighting of the reindeer was brilliant, the whole free range of females were running towards us as we walked over a brow of a hill. It was an amazing sight, and one I won’t forget in a hurry, the reindeer looked beautiful and majestic in full winter white coats and impressive antlers. I was marvelling at what a lovely greeting we got, but Mel pointed out they probably came our way being spooked by something from the opposite direction. Then off we went, it was Mel leading the herd to the lower levels and me bringing u the rear, but unlike the agile reindeer that excitedly skip, gliding over the snow patches I ran behind panting and sank straight into a snow hole (Vicar of Dibley style). Up on my feet again I was wondering how on earth I was to keep up with these four legged creatures when 5 of them decided to go in the opposite direction. Standing in the middle of the groups, I thought I can’t lose reindeer on my first mission and went gallivanting after the strays. Of course being a herd animal , it really says it all , and the wanderers then did a full circle galloping off to join the rest, leaving myself lost in the fog. Luckily it wasn’t long until I found the herd again and the rest of the first day went more smoothly.
An incredibly important part of the life of a Cairngorm reindeer is its time free-ranging. For the male reindeer their time to free-range is the cold winter months, where they happily roam the Cromdale hills keeping out of mischief. The life of a female Cairngorm reindeer is even wilder, with almost the entire year spent free-ranging the mountains apart from time in the enclosure during calving and rutting.
Who can spot Dixie? (Clue: she only ever grows one antler)
When the reindeer are free-ranging there are no fences holding them in, and they are able to walk anywhere they chose however they are only meant to be on some of the land. If they venture off our land in search of a tasty bit of lichen we move them back to where they are meant to be. This often involves a day walking in the mountains looking for reindeer and sometimes moving them to a better location. There are a number of ways to move a herd of reindeer. For those of you who have been on our hill trips you will know how keenly they follow a bag of food; however they will only follow food so far. Another good technique is to lead a few of the reindeer on halters and hope that the rest of the herd follow. A week or so ago Fiona came across a group of naughty females reindeer just off our land, she was unable to move the group on her own so we waited for a day clear enough to move them.
Free-rangers found by Fiona the previous week
On a clear day last week sometime (well mostly clear above the mountains at least) Fi, Tilly, Chris and I headed up to move a group of the free-ranging females from the tops of the northern corries further down the mountains. We headed up in pairs up two separate ridges to maximise ground coverage with the plan to join together when we found reindeer.
Chris and Tilly headed up Cairn Gorm and soon spotted the group of reindeer. So Fi and I headed towards them with Chris catching us up on route. We reached the group of reindeer just in time as the clouds covered us. We decided the distance we wanted to move them was too large to persuade them with a bag of food so instead decided to halter a few of them. Having caught the ten most willing reindeer we headed down to meet Tilly who was coming up from below. We then walked with the reindeer for about an hour till we found the right spot to leave them with a bit of food each in the hope that they will now stay in that area. Tilly went out walking a few days later and didn’t see any reindeer where they weren’t meant to be so it seems our mission was a success.
Fi, Chris and I leading the reindeer down to meet Tilly
Spending a day in the hills is always one of my favourite things to do, but when it involves interacting with the reindeer in their environment it really is a pretty special experience. A day like this has got to be one of the highlights of being a reindeer herder.
Lotti
Chris looking grumpy after Gazelle and Merida were being pests on the headcollars. Also because Tilly was leading Inca, one of his favourite reindeer.How do we get across these boulders?
Since 1981, reindeer and in particular, the Cairngorm reindeer have taken up a very large portion of my daily life and I have not regretted one bit of it. Along side raising family, earning a living from our reindeer herd and in more recent years branching out into hill farming, reindeer have been for me a daily source of huge enjoyment, sometimes despair and always physical labour, a life I wouldn’t swap for anything.
The early days of rushing around ‘doing it all myself’ are luckily over and I am blessed with a band dedicated fellow reindeer herders to share the work load, caring for the reindeer, finding strays and welcoming visitors to the centre. Some people think I have ‘retired to the farm’! Well I can assure you it is a very active retirement if I have.
Hamish overseeing the feeding of the young bulls
Then last October I became a Granny, a stage in my life I always hoped would happen and luckily for me it has. Hamish, now 8 months old, is no doubt giving his parents the run around but for me he is just delightful and any interaction with the reindeer gives me even more pleasure. Just recently Emily and Hamish came to help me feed the animals on the farm. Young Hamish was the star of the show, mingling with the young bull reindeer as they got their breakfast and even got a shot of riding Boris and ‘surfing’ on Paintpot as both of them happily ate out of the feed bag. History has been repeated and no doubt there will be many more déjà vu’s for me as Hamish enjoys growing up among a herd of very special reindeer.
Tilly
Boris was more than happy to give Hamish a ride in exchange for having his head in a bag of food.Time to ride Paintpot
