Russia, born in 2005 in the ‘countries’ year, was one of the first reindeer I got to know. She was already quite an old girl, but one of the tamest reindeer in the herd and always super chilled out. She was also ‘interesting’ in appearance – therefore standing out in the herd and making it easy for a wet-behind-the-ears reindeer herder to put a name to a face. There was something odd about her face, about her eyes… Now I don’t claim to be any sort of oil painting myself, but at least my eyes are in the right position on my face.
Russia’s… weren’t. They were a good bit further up her skull than normal, giving her an odd appearance of peering down her nose at you the whole time. Don’t believe me? Here you go:
I’m not saying this was a bad look in any way, just… odd. Her usual style of rather simple, straight swept-back antlers exacerbated the look too.
Russia with probably the nicest set of antlers she grew – still very simple, especially in comparison to Sequin and her fancy set in the background! Ibex, on the right, has a more average female set.
Russia had 6 calves in her lifetime who survived long enough to be named, including Pavlova, Spider and Brie who are still with us today. Normally I would say family resemblance is strongest between mother and daughter, but in Russia’s case it is her son Spider who inherited her looks, including the eyes. Oh, the eyes…
Russia with Spider at a couple of weeks oldFive months later – Spider has grown somewhat! Russia has cast and regrown her antlers too in the meantime.Adult Spider and his eyes – way too far up his face!
Russia was a lovely friendly reindeer, seen here with Heather enjoying a mouthful of feed from her rucksack. This photo was taken around August one year, at which point Russia had been free-ranging on the hills for about three months, hardly ever seeing a herder, but here she is totally happy to walk straight up to us. Her offspring have generally been friendly too, Pavlova a little shyer and Brie very bold, but with much more ‘attitude’ than her mum. Once again it is Spider that is the most similar, in character as well as looks.
Another photo of Russia…… and Spider again. Peas in a pod!If you have a long nose, then best to make sure you look right down it…
And finally, here’s what Russia herself would have had to say about my opinion of her unusual appearance:
Hen
N.B. There are other blogs on family resemblance in the herd. Among others, you can find Ruth’s blog about Emmental and Pony and their respective offspring here, and her blog on Mini-mes in the herd here.
Each winter, when the temperature drops, and we start reaching for our big coats and gloves. It always amazes me how comfortable the reindeer are in these conditions. It’s not a surprise really, being an arctic animal, they have evolved to cope with some of the coldest temperatures on the planet. Reindeer don’t show physiological signs of being cold until -35°C and have been known to survive right down to -72°C in Siberia. So how do they do it? I thought I would write a blog describing some of their incredible adaptations that keep them snug in the winter.
Cairngorm reindeer in a blizzard.
Coats
Reindeer have an incredibly insulative coat with hairs all over their body, in their ears, up their noses, between their toes. The only part of a reindeer without hair is their eyeballs! Their winter coat is so insulative that they lie on the snow without melting it. Their winter coat is formed of two layers, long guard hairs with a fine downy layer underneath. The long guard hairs are all hollow, with a honeycomb structure inside trapping pockets of warm air – an excellent insulator. They are also triangular allowing them to fit closely together without gaps to let the cold in.
Peanut lying down in the snow. In their winter coat, reindeer are so well insulated that they lie on snow without melting it.
Clicking
A question that we are regularly asked on Hill Trips is: what noise does a reindeer make? In the spring mothers and calves call out to each other by grunting and in the rut a bull reindeer will grunt to his females. During the winter though, reindeer don’t make many vocal noises. Instead, they make a clicking noise. This comes from a tendon sliding over a bone in their back legs with every step they take. This allows the reindeer to stay together as a herd during a blizzard when they can’t see each other without having to vocally call out to each other, which would lose body heat.
Herd of reindeer keeping their eyes closed during a blizzard.
Nose
Reindeer noses are amazing, definitely one of my favourite reindeer adaptations for the cold. During the winter time, reindeer generally keep their mouths closed, keeping the heat in, and instead breath through their noses. Inside their noses are amazing scroll structures which increase the surface area between the cavities where the air they are breathing in and the air they are breathing out are stored. This means heat exchange can occur and the air they are beathing out can warm the air they are breathing in, essential when the outside air is well into the minuses. Back in 2018, Ruth wrote a fantastic blog explaining in detail how amazing the nose of a reindeer is, it is well worth a read for more information, click here to see!
Glacée showing off her gorgeous velvety nose.
Feet
Reindeer have huge feet which serves two purposes: snowshoes and snow shovels. By being so big it spreads their weight out on the snow, stopping them sinking too far into the snow. Their back feet also step into the prints of their front feet and they will move as a herd in a single file line, stepping in the prints of the first reindeer, this makes walking through snow incredibly efficient. Sometimes when it’s really snowy here, we put out skis on to go and find the reindeer, in that case they will walk in our ski tracks instead. They can also their feet as big shovels to dig through the snow. Reindeer can smell lichen through a meter of snow and will dig through the snow to get to it.
Big reindeer feet with splayed out hooves.Lotti on skis with the herd following in her ski tracks.
Antlers
Last but certainly not least…. antlers! Antlers are absolutely amazing and definitely could be an entire blog by themselves (in fact I have linked some previous blogs about antlers below). They are made of bone and grow and fall off again every year and then regrow the following year. They grow each year during the spring and summer, and whilst the bone is growing it is encased in a specialised skin called velvet. The velvet provides the blood supply that feeds the bone as the antler is growing. Once they finish growing, the velvet strips off and the antlers can then be used as weapons! The males use them to fight with each other during the rutting season over the right to breed with the females. Once the rut is over, their antlers will fall off, they are too heavy on the males to keep them all winter. Our heaviest set weighed a whopping 8.9kg. So, what do antlers have to do with the cold? Well, during the winter, once the males have lost their antlers it’s only the females and the calves who still have them. This gives the females a physical advantage whilst they are pregnant and makes sure they get plenty of food to eat during the harshest time of the year. The females loose them too, in the spring, as the new antler grows through underneath.
Beanie showing off her beautiful antlers in March last year.Sherlock, who in March had not only lost his previous antlers but had also started to grow his new antlers already!
Turns out a lot of my picture taking when it comes to the herd is usually done in the winter. But who can blame me as the environment on Cairngorm chops and changes so much, you almost receive whiplash! On the run up to Christmas, we had a herd of females out free ranging which consisted of yearlings, two year olds and a hand full of our retired girls. This meant that we would occasionally head out to feed the free rangers and here is a picture of Alba from such a trip- she’s looking rather magestic if I do say so myself.
7th of November 2024 – hand-reared Alba enjoying a winter free-ranging.
The weather takes a turn a couple of weeks later and here is a picture of Akubra ladened with snow in the morning and a picture of Borlotti on the feed line in the afternoon once the weather had settled. Any eagle-eyed readers will notice a little snow bunting in the picture which turned out to be super tame, trying to pick up the remains of the reindeer food and almost landed on my head!
21st of November – Akubra in a blizzard.21st of November – Borlotti and a snow bunting.
On the 23rd of November the weather was pretty severe. Myself, Lotti, and Sheena made and attempt to feed the herd in our hill enclosure where we couldn’t see (even with ski goggles on) and hardly could stand up. It was that wintery that snow had started to freeze onto Lotti’s hat! For anyone that knows Lotti, she has a pretty frosty exterior, which she is taking quite literally here.
23rd of November – Lotti in a blizzard!
Cheer is very aloof in character and has recently realised that the hand feed that us herders carry around on the Hill Trips is rather tasty! This has been quite the success for us herders as Cheer will often come up to us looking for food.
24th of November – Cheer licking her lips!
We’re jumping another couple of weeks here with a picture of lovely Mochi out on the free range. I am sure the girls had been sauntering over the ski road prior to this picture, so we decided to move them to higher ground so they weren’t causing chaos. You can also see Winnie and Juniper in the same trip.
19th of December – Mochi.19th of December – Winnie and Juniper.
Finally, we are finishing with pictures from a beautiful day we had during January. We had trudged through quite a depth of snow, falling into lots of drainage ditches on the way out to feed the free ranging reindeer, for them not to come over to meet us. It had been two days since they had last been fed by us herders, so we were expecting a little more enthusiasm from them. But just before we were going to turn back for our lunch, the reindeer started making their way down to us which meant we could kick back, enjoy the sunshine and views and wait for the herd to make their way over.
10th of January 2025 – The herd coming to our call!10th of January – Morven yawning.10th of January – Vanilla on feed line, highly camouflaged!
February has been a great month as we moved into our NEW Reindeer Centre. We opened the doors to the public on the 8th of February for the very first time – hoorah!
The Hill Trips have been running as normal every day (apart from one where we had to cancel due to wild weather!) and we’ve been taking visitors to the free ranging herd here on Cairngorm. We’ve also had reindeer on display in the Paddocks for the February half-term holidays. The entire herd is now back out free ranging in the hills, split between two locations. I love this time of year – getting out to see the reindeer in their mountain home every day is an absolute privilege.
Here’s a selection of photos just taken on my phone over the last month.
7th of February: Feeding the herd with Sheena and Hen, look at that lovely blue sky. We took four reindeer down off the hill and into our Paddocks where they stayed for a few days for the start of the February half-term.8th of February: A big occasion – Tilly cutting the red ribbon opening our brand-new Reindeer Centre. 8th of February: Helsinki and her son Irish relaxing.11th of February: Gorgeous Fern! The oldest reindeer in the entire herd. She’ll turn 18 in the spring and definitely deserves spoiling. You can see the evidence on her nose!11th of February: A lovely pic of Fern and Andi. 12th of February: Moving the herd in to position ready for a Hill Trip. Emmental and Borlotti at the front. 13th of February: Trilby looking beautiful on a sunny day!14th of February: Holy Moley posing for a photo whilst the others eat on the line. On Hill Trips, she often justs waits for the handfeed and doesn’t bother with the food on the ground!14th of February: Vanilla coming in to see if there’s any more food on offer.17th of February: Helsinki and her son Irish… again. They’re a very sweet pair!18th of February: Emmental leading the herd to the Hill Trip location.19th of February: Macchiato and a beautiful sky behind!20th of February: Alba, one of our hand-reared calves from 2023, out free ranging and doing incredibly well! We’re very proud of her!20th of February: Moving ther herd on a very windy and wild day!23rd of February: The Hill trip was cancelleld as the weather was WILD! So here’s a pic from the Paddocks. Dr Seuss looking very relaxed.25th of February: The lovely Winnie, like Alba, she was hand-reared in 2023. 26th of February: Lolly.26th of February: These two are aleays stuck together like glue, Florence and her wee boy Cuppa.27th of February: Latte and her mum Brie.28th of February: Emm at the back of the herd doing a super job getting them moving.
A lot of our work focuses on our herd here on Cairngorm, but a lot of you will know that we have a secondary site, and it is always lovely to get out that way to help Tilly! Recently Sheena and I went on a free-range mission to move a group of reindeer that were just out of our boundary line. The group of reindeer we were moving included some older girls and three young bulls, I have compiled some pictures of the outing for the reindeer’s wonderful adopters. The group were initially grazing in two separate groups but once we had called them, the reindeer joined up and made their way up hill towards us.
Distant girls coming to our call.The young bulls – Nile, Amur, and Choc-ice.Jenga with two of our more cautious girls behind, Ladybird and Silk.
Once the group of reindeer were level with us, we had time for a little catch up and some close-up pics…
Jenga and Lace looking good and enjoying a peaceful winter.The lovely Diamond, one of the sweetest reindeer in the herd.Gazelle will be 17 in the spring – she’s looking good for an old girl!14-year-old Caterpillar and 2-year-old Amur.Choc-ice will be three in the spring so as a maturing bull has already cast his antlers.
We soon moved the small herd to where they were meant to be – time definitely got away from us!
Amy hard at work with 16-year-old Ibex on a halter and 14-year-old Lace in the background. Look at all that yummy lichen to keep them happy!
We are opening to the public once again on Saturday the 8th February 2025! With some BIG changes though for the 2025 season as we’ve now moved into our brand new Reindeer Centre building, having operated out of the neighbouring Reindeer House since it was built in 1960.
The brand new Centre, with Reindeer House just beyond it.
However, we think it’s really important that people understand that everything is still a work in progress and changes will continue to happen for the foreseeable future as we continue landscaping and developing, so 2025 will be a year of us working around what we currently have in place, whilst it changes constantly. But at the moment, what’s the deal?! Let me try and explain what we will have on offer at first, and how this might change throughout the coming months:
To start with, let me make it clear that – like over the last 12 months – Hill Trips to visit the reindeer up in their mountain home aren’t affected in any way and will run completely normally up on the mountains. The differences are all down in Glenmore at the Centre – thankfully the hills and the reindeer don’t change!
Over the February half-term, we will have 4 reindeer on display in our Paddock area. From the end of the half-term the Paddocks will be closed once again, opening again at the start of the Easter holidays and remaining open for the rest of the year. Just now much of the groundworks there are still to be done – we managed to get enough boardwalk completed in time to have reindeer on display at Christmas time, but there is still much to do over the course of the coming months. This includes a new Elf House (of course!), more viewing areas, another ‘bothy’ building, and a covered area for the reindeer. We will also landscape the ground within the Paddock itself to improve the aesthetics and make it more reindeer-friendly! As you can see in the photo below, there’s a lot to do from the stage we’re at just now…
The current Paddock area, with viewing platform at the right. Much more to come in the future!
As such, tickets will be initially be available on the day rather than for pre-purchase online. At times we will aim to have herders out in the Paddocks giving talks but much of the time the Paddock will be self guided, meaning our prices may vary accordingly at times.
At the moment, some of our previous display boards are up temporarily in the Paddocks for visitors to peruse.
On arrival to the Centre, visitors will now come directly into the new Centre to check in/purchase tickets, rather than Reindeer House. Our entrance ‘atrium’ is very much a work in progress still, with old signage temporarily still in use whilst new signage and displays are developed – this will all be updated gradually over the time as work is completed.
Emily has been working tirelessly on the design of the new shop, and ex-herder Olly has been spending his weekends building beautiful wooden stuff to make it look pretty! Andi and Cameron have added the finishing touches too. It’s a little smaller than our old shop so we’ll have to work out the best use of the space as we go, but right now it’s looking lovely.
Beautiful wooden shelves!Antlers have many uses!
The Exhibition is still being designed and we don’t have an opening date for this yet, so for the time being visitors for the Paddocks will be bypassing that area and going back out the building the way they came in. It also means we have space to work on displays behind the scenes for the time being.
Exhibition room, which in the future visitors will pass through on their way out to the Paddocks.
One thing we do have up on display already is our ‘Thank You board’ for the people who pledged for our Crowdfunder appeal last year for their name to be displayed on the wall in the new Centre…
… and the plaques are up for those who pledged for one too!
And here’s our new office! It’s been a bit of a juggling mission to get everything to fit in, but we’re just about there…
And of course, how about the car park? Last year the builders used it for their portacabin and machinery, and over Christmas we used it ourselves for staff. Just now we’re finishing off signage to get it ready to open to the public, and it will include a designated disabled space and (hopefully) EV chargers. Please note that it will be for customer use ONLY (you can’t park there just to walk to the beach!) during our opening hours.
Car park – signage and parking bays still to be added, along with barrier between it and the road.
In no way will the car park be big enough at busy times of year for all our visitors, but there is still parking elsewhere in Glenmore, and in a very tight space it is as big as the surroundings allow. How we wish that the Reindeer Centre and it’s associated groundworks didn’t need to be shoe-horned into such a steeply sloping area – it’s made everything so much more difficult, but we can only do our best with what we have!!!
So here’s to the year ahead. Although we were working hard behind the scenes, at times last year we felt rather like we were twiddling our thumbs waiting for the building to be signed over to us – but now it is onwards and upwards from here on!
In January the entire herd is out free roaming and they don’t need us. They can find all their own food and they generally don’t have any health issues in the winter – they’re in their element! However, we do of course like to keep an eye on them, plus us herders would go a bit stir-crazy if we were completley office-bound for the whole of January so we tend to go up to see the herd every 2 or 3 days and give them some extra food.
On the days we don’t see the reindeer, photos of us working in the office would be very dull, so instead you’re getting photos of the dogs! Reindeer and dogs – what’s not to love?!
I was also away for the first half of the month, so the photos begin on the 15th. To see the snowy start to the month check out Lotti’s photo blog here. Sadly I missed all that lovely snow!
15th of January: Florence and her calf Cuppa are always side by side.16th of January: Dante looking awesome! She will be 8 years old in the spring and looks fantastic – in excellent condition and with a cracking set of antlers.17th of January: No reindeer to see today so the lovely Elsie is the chosen dog! Although she was promptly banished from the office for too much of a distraction. 19th of January: Tiree keeping us company in the office.20th of January: Winnie and Alba were hand-reared in 2023 so will be two years old in the spring. We’re incredibly proud of them as they’re spending the winter out free roaming in the hills with the herd.20th of January: What a beautiful office!! Chickpea and Morven looking at the camera.20th of January: Zambezi is the biggest female yearling. She’ll be two in the spring and is in fantastic condition.21st of January: Dug and his famously long tongue.24th of January: Confined to the office thanks to the storm outside, thank goodness for the dogs to get our animal fix! Fraoch doesn’t sit still for long, hench the blurry pic!25th of January: Amy, Hen, and Andi calling the herd.25th of January: Oatcake, Suebi, and Brie were some of the first reindeer to us.25th of January: Suebi fighting her way through a snow storm.29th of January: A trip to see the boys at our second site. Here’s Jester looking epic – although you can cast those heavy antlers now Jester, Christmas is over!30th of January: Look at the hills!! Feeding the herd in the late afternoon.
At this time of year the entire herd is free ranging over two sites. Here on Cairngorm we have most of our adult females and calves and we keep an eye on them usually every second day. In the winter we also lease more winter grazing at our second site where all the adult males are, plus a few cows and some of our bigger male calves with their mums. Tilly monitors the goings on there every couple of days, but we go and give her a helping hand whenever she needs. It’s always a joy to catch up with the reindeer there, especially when the weather is this good! Andi went over to help check all the temperatures last weekend and she took some photos which I thought I’d stick in a blog! Otherwise our social media is mostly made up of the cows at this time of year… so here’s a good mix of the reindeer Tilly has this winter!
Jelly looking great and enjoying a peacful winter!Frost will be 7 years old in the spring! He’s a very reliable ‘Christmas reindeer’ and was out and about at events on weekends throughout November and December. He’s now having a well-earned rest and enjoying free roaming in the hills.Kernel was a breeding bull during last year’s rut where we would certainly not want to be this close to him! But now his testosterone levels have dropped he’s back to his usual freindly self. Phew!Magnum with the white patchy face had his first Christmas season as an adult last year – he’s also now enoying a well-deserved break. Limpopo next to him is one of the darkest reindeer in the herd and is a yearling bull.Mr Whippy standing out like a sore thumb when there’s no snow!Adzuki with his head down grazing and Christie looking into the camera, beautiful as ever. Turtle and her nephew Elbe enjoying the easy grazing.The size of Sherlock’s new antlers are ridiculous already! Usually the males don’t grow antlers until closer to the spring but Sherlock is in such good condition he started growing them in December!What a beautiful day to be out in the hills! Haricot closest to the camera!2 year old Iskrem having recently cast is antlers. Closest to the camera is Earl Grey. He’s one of three male calves at our second site along with their mums. They’re the 3 biggest calves of the year and are already starting to think they’re big bulls!
For all of the UK, 2025 started with a cold snap and in many places lots of subsequent snow. In the Cairngorms we were treated to about 10 days of beautiful snowy weather and temperatures down to about -17. Luckily reindeer are so well adapted to the cold, that they don’t even feel the cold at -17, instead they actively enjoy cold weather in the winter. Here is a photo blog showing some of the beautiful snow days that we have had recently.
Peanut lying down in the snow. In their winter coat, reindeer are so well insulated that they lie on snow without melting it.Nuii, Peanut’s daughter, a firm favourite amongst the herders.The last Hill Trip of the year walking down to the reindeer.Glacée and the rest of the herd walking out to the free-range.Maisie, Andi and Lotti after letting the reindeer out to free-range for the rest of the winter.Glenmore looking like Narnia.Lisette and Cameron leading Frost and Mr Whippy off the hill to go and free-range at our second base.Reindeer calves running through the snow for their food!!!Sheena stuck in a snowdrift.Gorgeous Chai.The herd waiting for their food!Sheena, Cameron and Amy on the way back home from a snowy reindeer feed!And finally, here is a photo from the next day! With the snow almost entirely gone, what a difference in 24 hours.
So the newbies to Christmas this year are: Morse, Jelly, Ärta, Akubra, Jester, Busby, Cowboy, Mr Whippy, Gelato, Magnum and Mivvi. They were all trained in Oct/Nov this year to wear harness and pull the sleigh. This is always done alongside a reindeer who is already trained to show them the ropes. Most of them went out on Christmas events as a 5-6 month old calf but these boys have now all been trained to harness and to pull the sleigh so lets hear how they have all got on this season.
One of our Christmas Day parades at the Macdonald Resort in Aviemore! Ärta on the right looking very comfortable being led by an elf! Cuppa, Fika are the calves and the old pro (and Ärta’s big bro) Dr Seuss at the back.
Morse’s antlers are so big we had to train him alongside another Christmas reindeer who either had one antler or no antlers so he could fit. As a result we decided that once he was trained here in Glenmore that on actual Christmas events he wouldn’t pull the sleigh as we didn’t want him to have a bad experience so he just had to follow behind with the others. The last time he did Christmas event was back in 2018 when he was a calf so 6 year ago now, but, he hadn’t forgotten and has been great and looks so, so impressive. We did alter his team to only have 1 calf (usually there are 2) because we didn’t think there would be enough room at the back of the sleigh for two adults and two calves with the sheer size of his antlers.
Morse and Frost during a training session in snowy Glenmore.
Jelly and Ärta are Covid calves. This means they didn’t actually go out on Christmas tour in 2020 so it was a slightly steeper learning curve for them. The training the calves get at 5-6 months old is so valuable come adult hood when they have already seen what it’s all about. But, it’s not to say they can’t, it just takes special handling and picking the correct events for these reindeer to take part in. Both were harness and sleigh trained in Oct/Nov and I’d say Ärta was better than Jelly so we may need extra time for Jelly to get there. Jelly lost his antlers fairly early on in the season so he was just a ‘back reindeer’ behind the sleigh this year. Ärta has pulled the sleigh on a couple of straight-forward parades which weren’t very busy and he’s seems like he’ll be grand in the future. Like I said we just take things a bit slower with reindeer who need that extra training but in a few years time I suspect they will be the ones training the newbies so watch this space!
Ärtaon Christmas Day!Poirot and Busby at the front of the sleigh whilst Ärta learns how to walk nicely at the back of the sleigh – taking it all in his stride.
The 3 year old boys have been absolute superstars this Christmas. Akubra from the day he joined the herd has always proved to be Mr Chill and the others – Cowboy, Busby and Jester aren’t far behind. They have all been out and about pulling the sleigh or walking at the back and it’s looking like we have some cracking ‘Christmas reindeer’ up and coming in these guys. They make us so proud!
Cowboy at the front of the sleigh in Dunkeld (next to old boy Druid). Cowboy was amazing and didn’t put a hoof wrong!Another training session with Ben at the front of the sleigh with Dr Seuss and newbie Akubra, plus Busby at the back.Jester at an event at Landmark, Carrbridge. He did a super job walking at the back of the sleigh.The lovely Busby, also at Landmark. He pulled the sleigh during the parade and was fantastic.Akubra and Busby pulling the sleigh on Christmas Day with Lotti leading. Ärta can be seen in the background.Busby and Akubra pulling the sleigh whilst getting filmed!
Then we have four 2 year olds – Magnum, Mr Whippy, Gelato and Mivvi. We don’t usually geld our reindeer until they are 3 years old (unless we use them as a breeding bull), however, these four were particularly big for their age so we decided gelding them a year early wouldn’t impact their growth. We did train them here in Glenmore to pull the sleigh, which they were great at, we decided that on events if it was a long parade then they would walk at the back rather than put that pressure on a younger body. If it was a short parade with a light Santa then we might give them a go. All four have been so good and taking everything in their stride. Like the boys who are 1 year older they have the making of being a fantastic Christmas reindeer.
Gelato, Irish, Mivvi and Jester on display at Gleneagles Hotel. Magnum pulling the sleigh for the very first time next to Clouseau. Adzuki at the back.Mr Whippy pulling the sleigh for the first time next to Anster. Mivvi on an event at Gleneagles. This was a ‘reindeer only’ event with no sleigh, but great exposure all the same and a lovely place to work!
So there you have it, class of 2024. A real mixed bag but all characters in their own way. When working with them at Christmas time we really get to know them as individuals which only makes that bond and knowledge all the better.
