In the year 2015, we decided upon a naming theme of hill running races located in Scotland. Therefore, all the calves that were born in 2015 were subsequently given a name from this theme. Some of which I’d have had no idea how to pronounce had I not been told. These reindeer – who are now 8 years old – wear a white ear tag with a number between 900 and 950. Hill running appears to be a common activity amongst reindeer herders. Perhaps it’s an occupational hobby. A way to keep fit for the physical nature of reindeer herding, or indeed capitalise on the miles that are done on the job by trying to win a few competitions. In this blog I will explain a bit about the races that are responsible for five reindeer names.
Scolty is a tall and handsome chap. He’s a fantastic “Christmas Reindeer”, a highly experienced and reliable sleigh-puller. He’s named after a race in Deeside, located just south of the town of Banchory. At the top of Scolty Hill there is a tower – measuring 20 metres high – that was built in 1840. The race has a distance of 7.2km with an ascent of 396 metres.
Scolty looking a bit scruffy in July 2022, coming to the end of the moult. Scolty looking looking more himself in October 2022, with a fresh winter coat growing though.
Morven is a beautiful breeding female who grows a unique set of antlers year after year. The Morven hill race occurs on Morven hill and is 8km long with an ascent of 640 metres. It is one of the favourite races of Alan Smith. It is located near to the village of Dinnet in the Aboyne area (Aberdeenshire). Dinnet is the first village along the River Dee to be located in the Cairngorms National Park.
Morven in autumn 2021.Morven and her calf Mochi in the snow – March 2023.
Tap is a dark-coloured breeding female, she’s one of the shyer reindeer in the herd but very beautiful. She gets her name from the hill race Tap O’Noth which is a 7.9km race starting out from Rhynie, a village in Aberdeenshire. There is approximately 390 metres of ascent. With Tap’s athleticism, I’d fancy her chances if she was to compete in the race. What’s the prize? 7.9 kilograms of lichen?
Tap looking beautiful in August 2021.Tap looking a bit of the scruffier side as she begins to moult her old winter coat – May 2023.
Ochil is a distinctive lass with a white patchy face and a big personality. She’s a good mum and is also a granny. Ochil is named after a long-distance hill race starting out from Stirling University. Its route travels through the Ochil Hills, hills formed from a thick wedge of Devonian age volcanic and volcano-sedimentary rocks. Reindeer herder Joe is planning to compete in this year’s race as it is one of the races selected for the 2023 Scottish hill running championships. He’ll have to navigate through 1200 metres of ascent over the distance of 31.2km. The etymology of the name Ochil – recorded as Okhel – is thought to be Pictish in origin and may derive from the old word ‘ogel’ meaning ‘ridge’.
Ochil free ranging in summer 2021.Ochil in her thick winter coat next to her calf Vanilla – December 2022.
Suidhe (pronounced Sue-e) is a good mother but a rather shy lass, and can be fairly suspicious of what our intentions are but she can usually be won over by her greed! Suidhe is one of our local hill races. It starts from the Kincraig village green and has an approximate distance of 5km, with roughly 250 metres in ascent. The hill must be an important part of the local community because Kincraig’s pub takes its name from it.
Suide (closest to the camera) with her sister Feta, and her calf Solero in Feb 2023.Suidhe in March 2023 after casting an antler.
In this week’s blog I will write about Texel, one of my favourite reindeer. Texel (pronounced Tessel) will turn 4 years old on the 17th of May. She is the daughter of Addax and Houdini, and in May 2022 had her first ever calf, a young male called 99.
Excuse me, Sir. My pile of food seems to have spontaneously disappeared!
Texel is easily recognisable with a face that is mostly white. She likely inherited this from her mother, Addax, who has a speckled face pattern. Texel’s son, 99, is also pretty unique as he is one of our three leucistic calves that were born last May, meaning that he has a white coat all over his body.
Texel’s mum Addax, with her distinctive speckled nose.99 (middle) flanked by Suidhe (left) and Solero (right).Texel and 99.99, more camouflaged in the snow!
Texel was named in the 2019, in keeping with the naming theme of ‘European Place Names’. Following on from Brexit we decided to name the reindeer after beautiful places in beautiful Europe. We have names such as Vienna, Helsinki, and Athens who were named after the well-known European cities. So where did the name Texel come from?
Texel, eating her lunch in our hill enclosure located above Glenmore Forest.
Texel is the largest North Sea Island in the Netherlands, famous for its long sandy beaches and unique nature reserves. In fact, one third of the island is a protected nature reserve. It is a municipality located in the Northern Netherlands, with a population of 13,656 (as of January 2021). The name Texel is Frisian and because of historical sound-changes in Dutch the ‘x’ is replaced with a ‘s’ sound. You can read more about the island of Texel here: Texel – Wikipedia.
Sand dunes on the Island of Texel.
The name Texel was chosen in tribute to Jan Knippenberg, a former reindeer herder who first introduced Alan to hill running. Jan was an ultrarunner who – after reindeer herding – returned to the Netherlands and became a history teacher on the island of Texel, where he later, very sadly, died in 1995. More information on Jan can be read here: Jan Knippenberg – Wikipedia.
Jan Knippenberg.Jan Knippenberg herding reindeer, back in the 80sTexel and 99 in March 2023 enjoying the snow.
A few years back I replied to an email from a lady who had visited Glenmore from the USA back in 1969, and had been put up for the night in Reindeer House by Mikel Utsi. She remembered meeting a pure white reindeer in the pen behind the house (what is now the Paddocks), and from our herd records I could tell this must have been Snowflake, one of the first ‘leucistic’ reindeer in the Cairngorm herd.
Snowflake outside Reindeer House in 1970.
We corresponded a bit and Sharon, who is an author and public speaker, then came back to visit Scotland again that summer, returning to the Reindeer Centre once more, and has stayed in touch since through becoming an adopter (picking a descendant of Snowflake as her adoptee!). Her unexpected encounter with a reindeer back in the 60s sparked a life-long interest , and she has gone on to write a book about her early travels and her time since spent amongst reindeer herders all over the world. She wrote a wee blog for us too a couple of years back too.
In 2019 Sharon gave lectures on reindeer on Viking ocean cruises, using a mixture of photos she has taken and ones we have provided, and in 2022 the lecture was recorded for Viking TV. And here it is!
A while back I interviewed a few of my colleagues with some questions relating to the Christmas season. The first half of this blog can be read here. But onward…
THE SMELL YOU MOST ASSOCIATE WITH CHRISTMAS? With this question, I just wanted to check that everyone else had the same – as far as I’m concerned – very obvious answer. Turns out they do. Every. Single. One. ‘I think we all know the smell associated with Christmas…’. ‘Reindeer pee, obviously!’
Maybe I should elaborate though, for the uninitiated. Whilst we do our best to keep our leadropes clean, they invariably end up on the ground at times. Whilst the reindeer don’t actually actively pee on them (unless you’re really unlucky), they tend to stand on the ends regularly (lay a rope over a reindeer’s back, whilst catching another, and they often shake it off). We keep the straw beds in our sheds, at our temporary bases we stay at, and in our lorries as clean as possible at all times, but it is as certain as death and taxes that the ropes always end up smelling of pee from the reindeer’s feet and the straw. Lotti: ‘Reindeer pee on the leadropes. Particularly when drying out in the caravan…’
Ferreting out all the ‘smart’ red leadropes and halters from storage at the start of November, ready for distribution between the team kits. Mostly smelling of washing powder at this stage, but probably best not to sniff them too closely.
Tilly adds ‘Once Christmas is over I wash all the halters and ropes and even if everyone has been really careful not to let the ropes fall on the ground, they still have a very distinct smell of urea’. There were some additional contributions too – both Andi and I cite Tilly’s washing powder as the second smell that instantly brings Christmas to mind, from our red jumpers that we wear at events. Fiona added damp lorry cabs and Joe included mince pies. Along with ropes smelling of reindeer pee. None of this ‘winter spices’ Christmas nonsense.
FAVOURITE FOOD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: I was just being nosy, to be honest. Fiona: ‘The soup and sandwiches from Nethy Hotel – we feel like we’ve earned them [Nethy Hotel provide lunch for us during our last events of the year on Christmas Day]! Who doesn’t like free food! Plus a variety of meat from our farm.’ Generally somewhat carnivorous, Tilly surprised me with ‘sprouts’ (but roasted in the oven). For Lotti and Ruth it was the roast tatties, and the same for me too (as long as gravy and redcurrant jelly are liberally applied). For Andi it was pigs in blankets, and Joe, anything involving smoked salmon.
This was our Christmas party last year, rather than Christmas Day itself, but look at all that yummy food! On the left are Joe, Lotti, myself and Andi, and on the right are Fiona and Tilly. Ruth is in the stripey t-shirt 5th from the right. The only photo I could find with all my interviewees in it!
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF CHRISTMAS (PAST OR PRESENT): This was a bit of an unfair question really, but I couldn’t think of a different way to phrase it. Most memorable moments of our Christmas seasons tend to be those when everything goes tits-up, most of which aren’t necessarily things we’re going to brag about! So this is the slightly sanitized version of ‘most memorable – and publishable – moment of Christmas’ Fiona: ‘Oh god. There’s so many – probably, to go back a few years, the Harrods event in London. All the other attractions would disappear at the end and we were always left to make our own way back to the lorry with 6 reindeer, past all the people going about their day to day business. Waiting for the green man at zebra crossing s!’
One of the Harrods parades, a good few years ago now. Photo by Kim Alston
For Andi the memory wasn’t necessarily a specific one, rather one that happens from time to time at events: ‘The best experience from parades is walking with the reindeer following a pipe band, with them all walking in time. It gives me chills every time.’ I know this feeling well too.
Pen escapes featured highly for Ruth and Joe… ‘Aztec effortlessly leaping the pen fence at Gleneagles in pursuit of food…’.‘All the reindeer jumping out the pen once! They were very easy to catch and return though – with a big bag of lichen!’. And continuing with the theme of errant reindeer, Lotti came up with a classic from a few years back: ‘Probably when me and Mel tried to let four calves follow the adults up the hill to the enclosure in the dark to re-join the herd, and promptly lost them into the darkness…’.
Memory I wish I’d seen the most belonged to Tilly: ‘When we didn’t have a Santa for the parade on Christmas Eve at Newtonmore and I was the substitute…’. For myself, I have so many, many memories. Some good, some bad. But an affecting one which will stay with me forever is one I’ve written about in the past in a previous blog, so won’t repeat again here.
And finally, REINDEER YOU’D CHOOSE IF SANTA NEEDED A RUDOLPH REPLACEMENT?I guess this could be rather similar to favourite reindeer to work with at Christmas, but not necessarily. Sometimes favourites are those with naughty streaks, and presumably Santa would need a pretty reliable reindeer on loan if Rudolph is side-lined? Lotti agreed: ‘I would say that Frost would be a good Rudolph replacement, as he’s an excellent sleigh-puller, and in summer he does sometimes get a slightly sunburnt nose, giving it a red tinge!’. I agree with the reliability being very important – Origami would be my choice. He is pretty professional for Christmas events – he knows his job and gets on with it.
Likewise Tilly: ‘Well it would need to be a reindeer who is confident and happy to be at the front leading the way, so I think Aztec, with a ‘carrot’/lichen dangling in front of his nose!’. Another vote for Aztec came from Ruth: ‘I would send Aztec as he’s the most nimble – see my answer for the previous question! Or maybe Dr Seuss? Although I wouldn’t want Santa to steal Dr Seuss, so maybe not…’. Segueing neatly on to Andi: ‘Dr Seuss – he’s distinctive, charismatic, can hold his own in a new group of reindeer, and has a pink nose – perhaps it would glow with a little help from Santa…’.
Aztec might be nimble at times, but a lot of the time he’s rather lazy! Seen here busy cleaning his hoof in a care home garden on a visit in November.
Fiona reckoned Santa might prefer a certain type of reindeer, like a ‘hand-reared one, like Grunter or Sunny. They are happy with human company and happier being by themselves if need be.’. Joe hummed and harred a bit. ‘…umm. Kind of before my time, but Topi was amazing. Olympic is far too lazy… Scolty! He’d do a solid job.’
So there we go. My overall impression from writing these two blogs is that it’s impossible to give straightforward answers to any questions involving Christmas, even though everyone valiantly tried. I still only wrote down a very small section of what was said though, as many answers were nonpunishable!
Whilst we’re all still recovering from another busy Christmas season, I took it upon myself to accost some of my colleagues with some Christmas themed questions: There’s a limit to how fast I can type, so I didn’t manage to get down everything – some of the answers were very long, with lots of umming and ahhing! But you’ll get the gist. My chosen interviewees were Tilly (herd owner), her daughter Fiona (manager), and long-term employees Andi, Lotti, Ruth and Joe.
First up – FAVOURITE REINDEER TO WORK WITH AT CHRISTMAS(PAST OR PRESENT): I thought I was starting with an easy question, but apparently not, as lots of people had to come back to it later on once they’d had a think.
Andi’s response came after a short pause ‘At Christmas?… Nutkins. He wasn’t easy and you had to think carefully about which reindeer you paired him with, and which events would suit him, but he was such a fun reindeer.’ I’d like to add in here that Nutkins was, a lot of the time, a nutcase. A lovely reindeer, but undeniably a nutcase. He was one of those unpredictable characters – you never knew whether he was going to behave like a kid on a sugar high, or be utterly chilled. He played Russian roulette with us at every event.
Nutkins (left) contemplating whether to behave or not. Laptev looking resigned to be harnessed up next to one of life’s plonkers. Andi has a noticeably tighter grip on Nutkins’ rope. Just in case…
No pause for thought for Tilly though, her answer was quick! ‘Mystery, who was so loyal that he didn’t even need to be led, he just wandered along at the back at his own pace’.
Mystery, back in 2001
Scolty’s, somewhat surprisingly (to me, anyway), name came up several times, amongst other deliberations. Lotti: ‘Scolty. He’s very good at both the back and the front of the sleigh, and is an excellent role model for the calves’. Fiona: Scolty. Because he’s not too tame and he’s not too wild! He’s a thinker… like Dragonfly. Or maybe Dragonfly?’. Joe: ‘Probably Olympic. Or Baffin was good. Or Scolty. Well technically Kipling would be in there too, even though she’s a female. She has done some events as an adult though!’
Scolty. The ultimate ‘Christmas reindeer’?
Ruth’s answer, when caught off guard, appeared to not be what she thought she would say… ‘The first reindeer to pop into my head, which was a surprise to me, was Poirot! He was just phenomenal this Christmas, and didn’t put a hoof wrong.’ And for myself, the answer would be Topi I think. He was a total professional at events and parades, bombproof, and would always fall asleep on our shoulders when waiting for the off at the start of a parade. I’m sad he’s no longer with us, he was one of the special ones.
Lots of us have photos of Topi like this, but this one of him asleep on Fiona’s shoulder at an event is ultimately the best I think!
FAVOURITE EVENT? For those of us that have been around for years, this is a hard question as we’ve literally been to hundreds. Tilly has over 30 years of events under her belt! Some stand out whilst others – it must be said – all merge into one another after a while. On that note… Lotti: ‘I can’t remember which I’ve done! It’s all a blur!’
Andi: ‘Cowbridge in Wales [Editor’s note: we only go as far south as Manchester area these days, but Cowbridge (in South Wales) was a long-running event before that change]. An enormous but brilliantly organised event with all the police dressed as elves really took the biscuit!’ I also liked some of the biggest events like Cowbridge the best, where we were just a small cog in a large wheel. One of my other favourites was Wells [again, not one we do these days], where we followed a choir singing carols, which is far more festive than loud Christmas music blaring out. I also like Banff, as we usually got a full Christmas dinner at the end before leaving.
Cowbridge parade, complete with 6′ elves.
For Joe, it’s the smaller events nearer the day itself: ‘I really like the Christmas Eve events [Aviemore, Kingussie and Newtonmore]. Everyone is festive and happy, in good spirits!’.
Fiona and Tilly had – completely independently – identical answers. ‘The Duke of Gordon Hotel – it’s the last one.’ Predictable – by the end of the season they are knackered and ready to put away the harness till the following year! Tilly did add ‘Yee haa, back home for yummy dinner and lots of alcohol afterwards’ too! And as for Ruth’s favourite event? Got a least favourite one… that count?’. I’ll not elaborate.
Fiona and Tilly on Christmas Day, a good few years back. The end of tour for the season firmly in sight! The reindeer are Veikka, Kermit, Bee, Eco and Go.
FAVOURITE CALF BORN IN 2022? This was met with squeals of horror at the prospect of having to choose! I refused to let anyone cop out with ‘all of them’ though. Nuii was a front-runner, ‘The cutest, pint-sized perfection of a calf!’ (Andi) and Lotti had a particular reason for choosing her: ‘Since I thought she was still-born at first, but then she was fine. But oh goodness! SO difficult! They are all very lovely!’
Lovely Nuii!
Ruth was horrified at such a question. ‘Oh Hen, this is mean! [loooong silence] I’ll go with Lolly, since Lotti and I were the ones to bring her in from the free-range… although… Zoom’. Another vote for Zoom came from Tilly ‘A great wee success story and the best friend of Sunny’. Sunny is the calf we hand-reared in 2022, and living at Reindeer House, Fiona was responsible for him a fair bit of the time. I had no need to ask her who her favourite calf was (but I did anyway). ‘Ummm… Wafer. Only joking!’. Another predictable answer came from Joe: ‘Tub. Did you guess that?!’ (Tub’s mum is Joe’s favourite reindeer, Kipling).
This proved a hard question for myself though. As I’ve managed to effectively retire from attending Christmas events these days, instead remaining at Reindeer House, it means I didn’t work quite as closely with some of the calves as others did. It was Choc-ice to start with, as I was so delighted that Cheer had actually had a calf and that he was tame in comparison to her (Cheer is a very shy reindeer) – but he’s turned into a real brute and his little pointy antlers have been responsible for bruises on my backside over the last few months, so I’ve gone off him…
Like any new reindeer herder, when I first started in May 2017 I quickly had to learn lots of reindeer names. A daunting task when we have around 150 in the herd! But it is very important as knowing their names means we can look after their welfare better by spotting when somebody is acting unusually and learning how best to handle each and every reindeer. Each reindeer is an individual with their own personality quirks, just like us humans!
Learning all their names can be very daunting to begin with!
I would frequently ask for help from Fiona, Hen and Andi in particular. “Who’s this one again?!”… most of the time they would give me very helpful clues and tips, so I slowly began to learn subtle markings or personality traits. For example, Oatcake has a white ‘O’ above her right eye, Feta has a short face, Wapiti is missing the very tops of her ears, and if you just see a reindeer bottom walking away from you it could well be Enya!
But sometimes they would say “oh they just look so like their mother/father/granny/sibling”. I used to find this very unhelpful! I don’t know their mum!! But, a few years down the line, I am finding I’m doing this myself. So, here’s a blog with a very small selection of some of our lovely reindeer who I think look very similar to a relative.
Beret and her mum Brie – both have white noses, similar antler shape and are both small in stature! August 2021.Beret and Brie again in their winter coats – still confusing me in January 2023!Soon to be 15 year old Sika on the left and her almost 4 year old daughter Bordeaux on the right in January 2023. Both have exactly the same facial expression when stood near a herder with a white bag.I think mum Hobnob and daughter Mushy have very similar head shapes – December 2021.Hobnob and Mushy also cast their right antler in sync – January 2022.It’s something about their eyes and head shape but Peanut and mum Roule look very similar to me. February 2022.Roule on the right, and her daughter Peanut on the left. It’s not just the girls! Poirot and his son Sunny have very similar facial expressions and I can’t help but seeing Poirot in young Sunny sometimes! October 2022.
There’s plenty more but perhaps I’ll save that for another blog in the future.
It’s the post-Christmas crash. The time of year where most people have completely de-railed from their usual eating habits and are feeling overwhelmed by how much food has been consumed in such a short space of time. Bodies are working at their very best to digest food as quickly as it has been eaten and to be honest with ourselves, not too much will change before the New Year. For some of our reindeer in the herd this food coma state happens all too often and not just around the festive season. We as herders have come together to create an official Top 5 list announcing the greediest reindeer in our herd for 2022. For those of you who know our reindeer well this may not come as a surprise. We created a short list of 10 reindeer before putting it to a vote to get our finalists. Without further ado starting from 5th place, we have…
Joint 5th – Pagan
Just squeezing her way into the top 5, Pagan isn’t a reindeer who is particularly pushy when it comes to food, but she will seize any opportunity that comes her way and is usually always the first reindeer to come down the hill and meet us in the morning. This year we decided to cut off Pagan’s antlers because she is very good at using them on visitors, herders, and other reindeer. With no antlers on her head, she is the master of stealthily getting into the food bags, blending in when we allow the younger calves to eat first. On Hill Trips Pagan loves handfeeding from visitors inhaling the food as quickly as possible. This has been passed on to her 2-year-old daughter Pumpkin who is also very greedy when it comes handfeeding and certainly deserves a mention.
Pagan in October 2022. The stare all herders are familiar with (and slightly scared off)! Pagan’s bulging eyes whenever food is nearby!Pumpkin, Pagan’s daughter, has definitely inherited her mum’s greedy streak and loves her handfeed. October 2022.
Joint 5th – Magnum
Magnum is probably our largest calf this year and already has a ferocious appetite. He spent the first 3-4 months of his life free ranging before coming into out hill enclosure for the rest of the year and instantly became obsessed with food. When we feed the calves, he will bully his way into a bag and keep his head in there for as long as possible. He’s also devised a way of making holes in the bags so he can steal food when they are closed. We do like him as herders, but he is a real handful and a pest when we are trying to feed the reindeer. At only 7 months old, I worry just how greedy this cheeky chappy will become!
Butter wouldn’t melt in this cute pic of Magnum with his mum Torch in September 2022. It’s a different story a few months later…Magnum the food monster and destroyer of feed bags! November 2022.
4th – Scully
The apple didn’t fall far when it comes to Scully. Taking after her mother Screel, she has a real appetite for food and has spent almost the whole year free ranging. It’s testament to how good the grazing is for our reindeer on the open hillside as Scully is now officially the fattest reindeer in our herd after a recent condition score on all the reindeer. Even at 4 years old Scully still feels she has the right to put her head into a bag of feed like our calves and I don’t see that habit changing anytime soon. She’s a nice reindeer with the body of a sumo wrestler!
Scully, looking round and moody, as she attempts to stare us down for more food! April 2022.
3rd – Kipling
Kipling is a one in a million, this is very biased because she is my favourite reindeer. For the last 3 – 4 years she has been exceptionally greedy and will always be the first reindeer waiting to handfeed from visitors, where she will try her very best to feed from every single person. When Kipling had her first calf Pip, Kipling would happily leave her for the chance of a quick feed even if her calf got lost in the process, we would constantly have to remind her that she was a mother a food wasn’t everything in the world. I’ve seen her so full of food in recent months that she acts and looks ill. Unfortunately, some other herders have become a little less patient with her is recent times, trying to get the attention of other reindeer is now an almost impossible job when Kipling is around as she won’t leave you alone if there is a bag of food in your hand.
Kipling on the hunt for a feed bag!Kipling coming up for air very briefly as she inhales her food! Next to her is Kipling’s younger sister Juniper.
2nd – Dr Seuss
Anyone who knows the reindeer herd particularly well might be surprised that Dr Seuss is not first in our 2022 list of greed. If he was a human you would probably class him as morbidly obese however fat reserves are very important for a reindeer to see them through the harsh winter months, even if he does have some to spare. Dr Seuss has been a greedy lad from birth and absolutely loves his food. He can be a bit of a bully when it comes to food sometimes, but he never tends to be that bad. Like Kipling, he tries his very best to consume as much hand feed as physically possible when meeting visitors and will happily plough his way through a group of people when he see’s food from a far. The problem is that because he is so big and determined, if he ever manages to get his head in a bag of feed it extremely difficult to get him out again. With Dr Seuss in second place its time to announce the winner….
Dr Seuss in a food coma after a Hill Trip,A slightly unflattering angle of Dr Seuss’ rotund belly.
1st – Aztec
Coming in first place for nearly every reindeer herder, Aztec is officially the greediest reindeer of 2022. He’s a fun and energetic reindeer who acts like food is the only thing on his mind. You may not see him on Hill Trips very much because he is sometimes banned for his bad behaviour and greed when it comes to handfeeding, he’s exceptionally pushy and forceful you could be lead in to thinking that he never gets enough food. Aztec is also very athletic and uses this to his advantage when it come to greed, he will happily jump over a fence or display pen if he sees a bag of lichen and at the front of sleigh once dragged all remaining reindeer and herders into a pen when he saw the food bowls. I suspect Aztec’s greed comes from his mother Gazelle who is also known to be very vigorous at times when it comes to food. For this year he is the winner, but I can’t decide what to give him a prize, surely not more food?
Aztec looking all cute and innocent – May 2022.Aztec on a Christmas event in Gleneagles (and the fence he effortlessly popped over in pursuit of more food!) – December 2022.
Having been here for a long time, the logistics of sending out the bi-annual newsletter that is posted to all our reindeer adopters has, almost by default, become Andi and I’s domain. The two newsletters are sent out in June and October, so for the 6 weeks or so beforehand I spend my time in a bit of a flap, trying to coordinate everything at the same time as doing all the other, day-to-day work (I would say ‘we’ spend our time in a flap, but realistically, it’s probably just me. I’m not known for calmness under pressure. Andi is much more unflappable than I am).
Work on the June newsletter is very much intermittent in May, as May is the calving season for the reindeer and we are usually rushed off our feet, so by the first half of June I am tearing my hair out over it. It needs to be out in the post to all 1800(ish) adopters by around the 20th June, so I am liable to getting a little bit frantic at times! Once upon a time we used to handwrite some additional information about each person’s adopted reindeer that was sent out with the newsletter, but those days are long since passed as our number of adopters has grown significantly over the last 15 years or so. Nowadays, for the June edition, we type a section of bumff about each reindeer, count how many need printed for each individual, and print them on 1/3 A4 sized slips. Much easier. Except that actually it takes ages to write them in the first place as almost every single one of the ~150 reindeer in the herd have adopters – years ago I wrote the entire lot myself, ran a word count and the overall total was longer than my university thesis had been! (I’m confident I know more about reindeer than limpets these days though…) In recent years I’ve managed to palm this job off on Andi, who does the bulk, with myself, Lotti and Ruth taking occasional turns.
The October 2022 newsletter photo, of Morse and his girls earlier in the month (though I did miscalculate and we ran out of these photos towards the end so a few of you will have received a different picture…)
The October newsletter goes out with a photo of the herd instead of individual info about each reindeer, with some more general info about how the year is going printed on the reverse. September is a hugely busy month for us too, with the start of the rut, vaccinations and free-ranging reindeer all over the place generally getting in the way, along with calves to halter train and handle for the first time. We just don’t have time to write 150 blurbs anymore, so a photo of the herd is the next best thing. God knows how we ever hand-wrote anything for the newsletter in the past – madness!
Many, many adoption forms to work through… The 18th Year + folder now goes up to 32nd year!
One day I guess we may get to the point of sending out newsletters digitally, but I, for one, hope those days are far in the future. Everyone prefers getting actual physical post, don’t they? I certainly do. It also means we don’t discriminate between folks who do/don’t use the internet. Our rather idiosyncratic system of working our way through the folders of adoption forms one by one, and cross-referencing the details on the form with the address label that has been printed is time consuming, but does pick up any mistakes that we have made when entering details on to the database. Labels print alphabetically by surname, within each adoption year, and one person’s job is to find the relevant label whilst the other reads out the details on the form. No problem for the long-standing adopters, where there are only a few in each year, but by the time we get down to the folks in their 1st year of adoption that person is on their feet the whole time, dancing back and forth up and down around 900 names. It’s quite a tiring job, mentally in particular!
After actually packing up the newsletters comes the job of franking all the envelopes!
Nothing pleases me quite as much as carting all our boxes of completed newsletters off for the postie to collect – job done for another few months. It’s a good feeling! I can go back to my normal level of flustered confusion finally rather the super-charged fluster I exist in during May and September of each year.
Many years ago, a reindeer herder made a Badge. This Badge was pink, and he wore it with pride. In time he decided to pass it on to another herder, who had done a Worthy Thing that day (what the Worthy Thing actually was has since been lost in the mists of time). However, that herder then took it upon themselves to pass it on once again, to another Worthy Person, and so it is that the Pink Badge of Worthiness came into being.
Or something along those lines anyway. The badge maker at Reindeer House was a very good investment of ours, many years back, and has churned out thousands of the things over the years for kids visiting the Paddocks and having a go at a quiz (we use different quizzes through the year and not all have a badge to make on them, before you get your knickers in a knot about why your family didn’t get the option of badges on a visit…). We have, of course, made plenty of badges for ourselves too, and this is how the pink badge started off – it was made from a bright pink post-it note upon which one of us had drawn a smiley face.
Managing to identify every single one of a big group of free-ranging female reindeer can be a badge-worthy affair – when they have all changed hugely in appearance since last seen, are moving at a constant jog to avoid the flies, and some won’t come near you at all!
I can’t quite remember the full details of exactly how the tradition of passing on the badge came about, but the essence of it is exactly as I’ve written at the start of this blog. The owner of the badge can hold on to it (usually pinning it on their t-shirt/jumper) for as long as they want, and when they feel someone else has gone above and beyond the call of duty, they award them the badge. And then the next person continues, and so on. There are no real rules, no limit on how long you can have it, or how many times; the badge is an item of supreme simplicity.
The Pink Badge on my t-shirt 😀
As I write this the current holder is Ruth, awarded it for managing to get our ancient and decrepit Landrover into 4WD mode on a early morning reindeer retrieval mission! The badge itself is currently in it’s second incarnation, after one too many accidental trips through the washing machine; but I’m not even too sure where Pink Badge 2 came from, as it’s not the size our own badge-maker produces. We’re also not colour blind – we’re well aware that this model is not pink! But in the best tradition the name endures regardless.
Morse and Jimmy admiring the badge pinned proudly on Ruth’s t-shirt!
At times the badge has been lost, or forgotten about, or unearthed months later on an old jumper in the back of a cupboard. Sometimes it’s just been found on the office pinboard, and no-one has appeared to know how it got there, or who was responsible. Our boss Tilly got it once, but was banned from taking it home with her as we were worried that once it disappeared into the depths of her farmhouse it would never, ever be seen again!
Very few photos of the original pink badge actually exist – this is the only one we could find (thanks Manouk!). It looks like it may have been through the washing machine a few times already by this point…
Fiona wishes me to point out that for the first five years she was only ever awarded it once a year, at the end of December, after organising (and surviving) the Christmas tour season, traditionally the busiest time of the year. I myself have been given it for a range of activities, most of which I can’t remember now, but the most memorable was the time I was given it for managing to not throw a printer through the office window. You may laugh, but deep down everyone reading this knows the deep-rooted and boiling fury a malfunctioning printer can incite – what does ‘general error’ even mean?! – so really I feel it was justified. I have had a hate-hate relationship with every single printer that has ever lived in the Reindeer House office.
Later that same day, however, Andi managed to extract a section of old fencing wire that had somehow become entangled around the antlers of one of our biggest breeding bulls, Kota, and this was right in the middle of the rutting season when he had morphed from a gentle giant to a raging testosterone-fueled beast. To this day I am therefore still the record-holder for the shortest ownership of the badge.
Kota – not an inviting prospect to have to get close to with a pair of wire cutters…
A lot of the other reasons for receival have been forgotten over the years, but have often included epic catches of ‘wilder’ reindeer, or memorable displays of herding. Olly received it last year for a stupendous and skillful effort of getting Rain and her newborn calf Jimmy into the right area of the hill enclosure after she had led Nell and myself on a merry (and ultimately unsuccessful) dance the previous day until a good two hours after we should have finished work. Then there was an interesting episode last Christmas when Sherlock got his antlers caught in the fairy lights of our Paddock shelter, and Joe spent about 45 minutes de-tangling him – again no mean feat with an enormous bull. One antler had come off already, but much to Joe’s annoyance when finally freed, Sherlock wandered out the shed, shook his head and the other promptly fell off! It’s completely normal for a bull to cast his antlers at this time of year, but 45 minutes earlier would have saved everyone a lot of hassle.
What a tangle! Eventually Sherlock, antlers and cable were all separated!
So if you visit us and notice a herder with the Pink Badge pinned to their shirt, then note that this is a Worthy Person, and should therefore be due the utmost respect. Or maybe it’s just me, and I’ve refrained from throwing another misbehaving electronic item through a window.
Back at the end of April when we brought our pregnant reindeer into our mountain enclosure for calving there was a herd of around 30 reindeer who either were very old, weren’t in calf or too young to calve so there was no need to keep them in so back out onto the free range they went.
Malawi and Addax on the 26th of April. Both cows are now retired from breeding at the ages of 17 and 14 years old respectively and so will now free-range for the vast majority of their retirement.
Over the past few months we have caught up with them on a number of occasions to check on them. Their antler growth is way ahead of the cows who came in for calving as they didn’t have the same demand on their bodies to look after a youngster so they were looking fantastic. Also as they weren’t pregnant and no calf to look after when we did see them from a distance all we’d have to do is call into the distance our special and unique reindeer call and they would come running! There is plenty of grazing out there but they acted like they were starving.
Ryvita on the 18th of May growing wonderful antlers, now 14 years old and retired from breeding.Fly on the 18th of May. Now 15 Fly is also in her retirement and is growing beautiful big antlers.
In this group are old girls Malawi (17 years old), Dixie, Lulu and Enya (16 years old) and Fly and Fern (15 years old). But, you’d never know they were as old as the hills because they are looking fantastic. Some of the youngsters in this group are Fez and Trilby (1 year old) and the ever famous Holy Moley as well as others her age Flax, Borlotti, Mangetout, Lima, Turtle, Sunflower, Mushy and Pumpkin (all 2 years old). Some days we’d go out to give them a feed and they’d be hanging out around the building works going on up at the Cairngorm funicular. But with a bit of careful herding around tracks and roads they weaved their way through the building site.
Amy checking in with the “single ladies” on the 8th of May.All the “single ladies” on Cairngorm Mountain at the end of May. Very keen for a free meal!Pumpkin on the 26th April . Pumpkin is only 2 years old and not one of our breeding girls just yet so she remained free-ranging all Spring.Holy Moley on the 18th of May. The TV star is also now 2 years old and her one antler is growing well. It’s hard to believe but next year she could become a mother, but she’s got one more year of freedom ahead of her to enjoy first!
One of the days we went out to feed them we had some ex-herders from over ten years ago visiting. We headed out into the northern corries, gave them a call and the herd came running. It was lovely to see the ex-herders interact with the reindeer they knew so well once upon a time. And even where they didn’t necessarily recognise most of them because they were too young one ex-herder turned to me and asked if Diamond (10 year old female) was related to Lilibet who she knew well in the time she worked here. And the answer was yes, she was related. So it just shows that there is a strong family resemblance even a few generations in.
Diamond, a non-breeding 10 year old cow, on the free range on the 18th May – a relative of Lilibet.Our herd of non-breeding cows on the 27th of June. Fly closest to the camera.
We’re looking forward to catching up with them again soon. Seeing these old reindeer doing so well in the Cairngorms just really shows how this mountain environment really is home to them.
