Having worked as a seasonal herder for many years working January is a real novelty for me. Usually on the 24th of December I hop on a train home to Bristol to spend Christmas with my family and then return to uni in the new year. But having graduated last year, and with a gentle bit of persuasion and the promise of reindeer, I convinced my family to spend Christmas up in the Cairngorms. It is now January and I am delighted to still be here. So on Monday the 6th, with no more hill visits for over a month we merrily waved the reindeer off onto the free-range for the winter.
Letting the reindeer out at the end of the Christmas holidays
The first full day ended up being incredibly wild and windy (gusting at 100mph) and the reindeer were very far away so we left them to find their own food for the day, something that they are absolutely fine doing as they live in their natural habitat. We spent the days slowly working through the seemingly endless list of ‘January Jobs’ some of which I think were on the list last year and still haven’t been done. On day two however, the sun was shining and then reindeer were slightly closer to home. So me, Sheena and Chris headed up to the Cairngorm ski carpark with rucksacks full of food. Upon arriving we saw lots of cars pulled over with people taking photos, a clear sign of reindeer. About a third 30 of the reindeer were waiting for us, just by the road. We walked these reindeer away from the road, a task easier said than done. Whilst the reindeer were good as gold, walking across incredibly uneven ground in the snow with 20kg of food on your back is quite difficult . Throughout the walk, Sheena lost a wellie in a patch of bog, Chris didn’t fall over once(!), and I fell over completely and couldn’t get back up because of the rucksack full of food. I can’t certainly say that I now know exactly how a woodlouse feels.
Lotti stuck in a hole
As we were leading the group of reindeer away from the road about half a mile away we could see another group of mostly male reindeer coming over from the top of the reindeer enclosure. Eventually we also saw another group of cows and calves coming from the other direction. As the reindeer were getting closer and closer the race was underway, who would come first, the boys or the girls. The boys certainly are greedier but the girls are fitter. Both groups went out of site as they ducked onto a lower area and then eventually the boys showed up, just ahead of the girls. Turns out that the motivation of an easy meal was enough to overcome their lack of distance training. Once the entire group of reindeer currently free-roaming in this area had arrived we fed them all, took plenty of photos of the beautiful reindeer in the snow and then walked back to the van.
First day on the free-range in January
Whilst for most people January seems like a bit of a dreary month, I can certainly now see why reindeer herders love January so much. Having all the reindeer free-ranging the hills and going up to feed them with not a soul in sight really is a fantastic experience.
…our reindeer turn into cows… Not quite, but it is the time of the year when they are casting their antlers, and beginning to look perhaps a little like people imagine a reindeer to.
Oh dear Spider! Spider always casts his antlers early – usually by the end of November.Jonas cast his upright parts of the antlers about six weeks ago but is holding on to his blade and front points.
Casting antlers is a completely natural process, and is one of the huge differences between antlers and horns (no deer in the world have horns!). Reindeer grow their antlers from scratch every year, from an area on the top of their skull called the pedicle. The growth period is from about March to the end of Summer, at which point it calcifies into solid bone, with no feeling remaining. After use in the autumn rut, the males cast their antlers, meaning they don’t have to carry a heavy weight through the winter snows, and leaving the coast clear to start their new set in Spring.
Jonne is one of the few castrated reindeer still with a full set of antlers on his head in late December.
This means that from November antlers drop off on a regular basis, sometimes at the most inopportune moments (in the middle of a Hill Trip for example, causing panic among visitors and frantic reassurances of “It’s normal, it’s ok!” from the herder!). As we get nearer to Christmas, our choice of which reindeer join a Christmas event team becomes more and more influenced by who still has antlers on their head – event organisers can be a little grumpy if a team turns up with just one antler between six reindeer!
LX has been lopsided for about a fortnight now, whereas Scolty cast the upright of his left antler just a few days ago.Bingo cast his whole right antler a few days ago.
Most of our males are castrated at 3 years old, helping to prevent inbreeding and giving them a much calmer life in general. A side effect of castration is that the antlers are not as dense as the bulls’, and tend to be cast in sections rather than in one piece. Hence we end up with reindeer with “One and a half” antlers, or often just the front points remaining after the more top-heavy upright points are cast. It’s interesting that members of the public often don’t realise that a reindeer with their front points has actually got any antler missing, whereas a reindeer who has cast all of one antler but none of the other looks more lopsided and draws many more questions of “Did they lose it fighting?”
With his front point remaining, Duke gets less concerned comments than reindeer who still have one entire antler on their head. In the background, Stuc still has his full (small) antlers.
Sometimes antlers are lost in squabbles, but only when they’re ready to fall off anyway, and I think as many go from being bumped against a tree (or a herder’s backside!). And whilst there is sometimes a little residual blood on the pedicle when the antler is cast, it isn’t a painful process, the only insult being to their pride, as they often drop down the pecking order. But this is often when a bully gets their comeuppance, as the other reindeer they’ve pushed around see the tables turned and get their own back. So don’t feel too sorry for them!
A frequent questions from visitors is whether reindeer retain a bond with their mother. Whilst we often see female calves stay strongly bonded with their mum throughout their life, we see it less often with the males. Male calves tend to be seeking their independence from about 8 months old, and we start seeing them grazing away from their mother more and more. We tend to split them at a year old, and it’s rare that either cow or male calf seem to notice the absence of the other. When they come back into contact with each other at a later date, there rarely seems to be any recognition of their relationship.
EmmentalOlmec
When we recently brought Emmental and her new calf into the hill enclosure from the summer free-range however, she met up with her three-year-old son Olmec. He clearly recognised her as his mum, going over to her, having a sniff and grunting, like he would have back when he was a calf. I’m not sure that Emmental really returned the affection – once a cow has a new calf, they become the centre of their world and their main priority.
Olmec and Emmental
A few days later, Olmec was in the same part of the enclosure as Emmental and her calf Oslo, and he was definitely fascinated by this new addition to the family – following him around and having a good sniff! Perhaps he realised how similar they all looked!
Brothers
Olmec and Oslo
Little Oslo is one of the most confident calves this year, and was the first calf to be brave enough to come and eat out of the feed bag.
Oslo feeding
Hopefully he will follow in the hooves of big brother Olmec and grow into a confident friendly and handsome lad. He’s already learned to walk on a headcollar and is very sweet.
As part of the only UK herd of reindeer that live in their natural habitat, our herd are lucky enough to spend a good portion of each year roaming completely free on the mountains. We have an area of leased land which we have grazing permission for, but the boundary of this land isn’t fenced, so occasionally a few of our females do wander a little further than they’re allowed to. We then have to make a plan to bring them back – usually this entails walking out, finding the group (no easy task at times!), catching what we can and leading them back on headcollars. Missions like this are why we feel we can call ourselves “Reindeer herders”.
This autumn, we received reports of a small group of females who were enjoying the perfect grazing and peaceful setting in a glen several miles east of our normal grazing land. After a few recces to see who was there, myself and Dave headed out on a breezy Saturday morning, equipped with binoculars, reindeer feed, human food and plenty of headcollars. Lotti was able to give us a ride part way in the landrover, shaving about 3 miles off our walk, which was much appreciated! From there, it was a case of hiking, uphill, for an hour or so before we caught sight of the reindeer, having a lovely time grazing with a beautiful view. They were nearly at the top of one of the local munros (not many jobs where you do tick off a few munros from time to time!).
Dixie and Camembert
We had a quick scan of the group to see who was there and if we’d be able to catch them. Dixie and Camembert: great, both easy to catch and lead. Malawi and Joni: hmm, catchable if we’re lucky. Puzzle: will hopefully follow mum Dixie. Rain and her calf: one of the wilder, more independent reindeer in the herd, not a chance, let’s hope she follows us! We offered out the food and good ol’ Dixie and Camembert cheerfully let us put headcollars on.
Camembert on halter
Dave set off in the lead, and I started out as “herding dog” – walking quietly at the back providing gentle pressure to encourage the rest of the group to follow. This is how we usually move the herd, but there is a bit of a knack to knowing how far ahead to walk with the lead reindeer, and how much pressure to put on if you’re at the back – push too hard and wilder reindeer will try to double back, and they’re faster than us!
Plateau
For the first 10 minutes all was well, Dave leading the way with the small group following happily enough. But as soon as Dave started heading downhill, Malawi and Joni decided that they weren’t so keen to leave their quiet idyll. They started breaking away, dodging among the peat hags, and as older, dominant reindeer, the rest of the herd were keener to follow their lead than Dave’s. And my fielding skills were not quite going to cut it, they could outrun me, however much I waved my arms! So we needed a different plan. The ringleaders were definitely the old lasses Joni and Malawi, both of which were also old enough to be suspicious about whether they wanted to be captured or not! But without them on head collars, we weren’t going to manage our mission.
Malawi doing her best to lead the group astray amongst the peat hags
Malawi was first up – I held out our wee bag of bribery, and thankfully all of the preferential feeding of the older reindeer we did last winter helped as Malawi’s greed overcame her suspicion, and she started guzzling. The tricky thing with her is that she’s one of the few reindeer in the herd who doesn’t grow antlers, so she has no ‘handles’ to aid with catching her, so I slipped my arm round her neck hoping she wouldn’t try to break away. Greed won out and she agreed to stand whilst I popped a headcollar on.
Leaving me holding three reindeer, Dave then managed to entice Joni into the feed bag, and we had our ringleaders on head collars! Knowing Dixie would follow along, we then let her off again, and poor Dave set off downhill leading three reindeer, of which Joni was definitely the most stubborn! I had to do about five minutes of epic fielding to convince the rest of the reindeer to follow Dave, then they gave in and settled in to pottering along in single file.
Over the mountain, the enclosure in sight in the far distance.Flats
Down we went, to the valley floor, crossed the river, and up the other side. The hours passed as we meandered our way along (nothing happens quickly with reindeer). We both regretted not taking more snacks, and I hugely regretted not taking a bottle of water… the reindeer had no such problems as they were snacking on blaeberry, lichen and heather as we walked along, and drinking at pools.
Plodding across the Ciste, heading for the ridge above the road.
As we approached the Ciste car park, after about 4 miles of walking with our wee herd of miscreants, Dave was seriously flagging. Joni was not the best behaved on a head collar and would much rather have stayed trespassing on our neighbour’s land, so was putting the brakes on most of the way. She may be 13 but is still plenty strong enough! It was also 2pm and way past our lunchtime, so I called for reinforcements and Tilly and Lotti came up to meet us and take over from Dave. Relieved of responsibility, Dave lay down on the car park for a few minutes of recovery before heading down for some food!
Relief team
I carried on following at the back of the group on the last leg home, and our now-well-behaved reindeer followed obediently over one more hill, down and across the ski road, over Utsi Bridge and into the enclosure. They got a well-earned feed before joining our group in the enclosure – for Camembert and Puzzle they went to join handsome breeding bulls Kota and Houdini respectively, in the hope that they’ll have a calf next year. The others joined our non-breeding group, where they’re enjoying plenty of hand feed from our visitors, and Rain’s wee calf Vienna is getting used to be around people. All will head back out to free-range soon, hopefully with fewer thoughts of wandering on land where they’re not meant to be!
This week I’d like to talk about Tambourine and her extensive family. Tambourine was born in 2000, in our musical instruments theme. She was a distinctive looking reindeer, slightly on the petite side, with particularly pointy ears. I didn’t know her in her youth, but my memory of her in her latter years was as a rather suspicious lass with plenty of wiles and a furious expression! As a bit of a shier reindeer, she was perhaps not very well known amongst visitors, though she did have an adopter who branded their car with reindeer logos!
Look at those pointy ears!Tambourine with Hobnob as a calf
Tambourine was a prolific breeder, producing 12 calves over the course of her life, many of which have gone on to be good breeding reindeer themselves. Her wild streak has been passed on to her offspring, and we’ve always known that reindeer from her family will need lots of extra bribery and calm gentle handling to win their trust as calves. That said, her sons Allt, Gnu and Ost all went on to be solid, steady Christmas reindeer, not batting an eyelid at crowds and bright lights. Though they never wanted to be stroked!
Handsome Gnu as a two-year-old with his trademark wide simple antlersSweet natured Ost as a three-year-old bull, also sporting a similar style of antlers
Tambourine’s daughters Hobnob, Spy, Rain and Tap have all gone on to become mothers themselves. Hobnob has had three daughters (Swiss, Ocean, and this year’s as-yet-unnamed calf) and a son (Carnethy); and Spy has the same count of three daughters (Morven, Dante, and this year’s calf) and a son (Nok). Rain has reared a son (Koro) and is rearing a daughter this year. And Tap did a great job with her first calf last year, daughter Angua.
Spy with this year’s as-yet-unnamed calfDaughter Rain as a very pretty yearling – a chip off the old block in appearance and characterTambourine’s grandson KoroTambourine’s granddaughter Morven – what a pretty lass!Hobnob and her latest calf
Whilst we ran both Gnu and Ost for one season as breeding bulls, we can’t say for definite that either fathered a calf. They then joined our Christmas team instead – a much more peaceful way of life!
Tambourine’s sisters Lorn and Tuppence were also successful mothers, with many descendants between them, and sister Flake attempted motherhood rather less prolifically, but I think I’ll talk about them another time – otherwise I should have titled this blog ‘Dynasties: Talisker’ and focused on their mum!
Tambourine at nearly 14 years of age, and still in good shape
Tambourine lived to a ripe old age, finally passing away out on the mountains at 17 years old. She surpassed the average lifespan of a reindeer by several years, and leaves behind a strong family line which will hopefully continue for many years to come.
Following from a previous blog about Haze’s dynasty, I thought Fly was another good candidate to look at. Like Haze, she is also a big, striking reindeer, not necessarily the friendliest – she likes her own space – but a dependable leader of the herd and a fantastic mother.
Fly in her prime
Fly was born in our “green theme” year in 2007, and is probably the largest female in the herd today – she’s a clear inch taller than any of the others. She also grows beautiful large antlers, whilst rearing a calf most years – a sign of a strong healthy reindeer as it takes a huge amount of energy for both of these activities and most reindeer will focus on one or the other rather than both.
Fly with son Anster, at just a few weeks old
Fly reared her first calf, Custard, when she was two – whilst reindeer are perfectly capable of rearing calves at this age, we try to make them wait until they’re a bit more mature at three years old. Fly evidently thought differently, and reliably reared a big strong calf in 2009 (Custard), 2010 (Dragonfly), 2011 (Domino), 2012 (Balmoral), 2013 (Anster), 2014 (Hudson) and 2015 (Aonach). At that point we decided she should definitely have a bit of time off!
Fly with four month old Hudson
In 2015 and 2016, we decided to run Balmoral, Fly’s son, as one of our breeding bulls, and he fathered a lovely selection of youngsters, including Inca, Christie, Burns, Shakespeare and Dante. We are hoping that Inca may have a calf of her own this May.
Balmoral as a breeding bull in 2016Balmoral’s daughter Inca, who may have a calf this May
Fly’s only daughter, Custard, reared several calves of her own – Coe, Cream, Ceram and Tang – and Cream has also been a mum, though unfortunately her calf didn’t survive. Hopefully she may have better luck this year.
Custard with her daughter Cream
Fly has, so far, been a mother seven times, a grandmother eighteen times, and a great-grandmother once, and she’s still in full fitness and looking like she’s got many years ahead of her!
When I think back over the reindeer that have been part of the herd over the years, one which sticks in my mind is Scout. This is probably in part because he was on my “team” the first time I went off on Christmas tour. It was back in 2010, and as I headed off for my first two-week festive reindeer experience with Fiona, those six reindeer made a bit of an impact: experienced old boys Shekel and Shock (or Shockel and Sheck as we sometimes called them if we hadn’t had enough coffee!); Scout and Hughie, our younger Christmas reindeer; and calves Lace and Gnat. When you’re working, living and travelling with the same team for a fortnight you get to know their quirks rather well!
Scout as a six month old calf
Born in our “Green theme” year, Scout was a big reindeer (so big in fact that we castrated him at 2 years old instead of at 3), one of the tallest in the herd, and a fine looking fellow. He grew some beautiful sets of antlers, with lots of “fingers” coming off them. He was generally also holding almost too much condition, with a generous sized belly, and with this excess of energy he often had bobbles of extra velvet on his antlers, something we only tend to see in our larger (wider!) males.
Scout as I first knew him, with fingery points going everywhere
My main memory of Scout from that Christmas tour is when we arrived at an event in London, set out the feed bowls ready for their breakfast, and Fiona hopped in to the truck through the (human-sized) side door, assuming I would latch it behind her. I meanwhile assumed she was going to latch it herself from the inside (the hazards of having been on tour long enough to stop communicating about everything and make presumptions). Alas, the door didn’t get secured at all and the next thing we knew Scout had squeezed his antlers and ample belly through, bounded down and of course made a beeline for his breakfast! At least he was easy to catch!
I also have a vivid memory from a more recent Christmas of taking part in an incredibly busy parade in England, and looking back from where I was leading the front two reindeer – Scout was one of the reindeer following on at the back and he was utterly at ease, chewing the cud as we pottered along, not batting an eyelid at the noise, lights, marching band, fake snow and bubble machines that we were passing. Reindeer really are incredible animals.
He had beautiful big antlers even as a two year old
Scout was a dependable fellow out on tour, whether at the back or front of the sleigh, and was a friendly face at home on the hill, though he did have a grumpy streak at times, doubtless inherited from his father Sirkas, who certainly could have an attitude problem! Most of the time though he was lovely to be around, a bit cheeky and playful, and steady as a rock. His brothers included dark coloured Rummy, squinty-nosed Boris and the infamous Fergus. Scout’s grandmother, Fionn, lived to the ripe old age of 16, and her sister was Lilac, the reindeer who holds our record for longevity at 19. Unfortunately Scout didn’t live to quite such an age, but there are still many of his family alive, including two of our other biggest reindeer, Fly and Paintpot, who share the same father.
We started blogging in April 2015 – we’d taken part in a Digital Marketing course for local businesses and one of the pieces of advice is that doing a regular blog can help build a connection with people who are interested in what you do. We thought we’d better give it a go, and somehow (sometimes by the skin of our teeth) we have managed to post a blog every Friday without fail since – the “schedule” function means that we’ve even covered Christmas Day and New Year’s day.
Santa and a variety of reindeer – looking back at Christmas in our New Year’s Day blog
Whilst everyone one here is asked to contribute blogs, we have one herder in charge of making sure one is posted at the correct time, complete with pretty pictures and hopefully with spelling mistakes removed! As it was my “idea” (as I’m reminded bitterly at times…) I took this role for the first year or so, before passing on to Imogen. Imogen certainly had the most luck getting blogs written – we’re all a bit scared of her and when she cornered you and said it was overdue, you’d drop whatever you were doing to get typing! When Imogen moved on, she passed over to Morna, who has now relinquished the title to Chris. Chris goes for public shaming in his efforts to get blogs produced – a list materializes on the office door with everyone’s name and promises of rewards for the first person to get their name crossed off, and punishment for the last one…
Morna preparing Chris to take over the job of Blog Monitor
We try to cover lots of aspects of reindeer, seasonal life here with the herd, funny stories, and general nice photos that give you a taste of what’s going on. Our first blog featured Esme’s impromptu journey in the back of the van, later that year we looked at the traumatic calving bet, and volunteer Emm wrote about her experiences with the herd and how they’ve helped her. We’ve covered some educational topics, looking at how reindeer change in appearance throughout the year, reindeer of the Southern Hemisphere, and antler stripping (steady!). We’ve focused on the local wildlife, our dogs, and the geology of the Cairngorms. We admit that sometimes when we run out of time, we plump for photo blogs: in the wild winter, free-ranging or the new calves.
Comet featured as one of our “Memorable reindeer” series, also looking at others such as Flake, Amber and Eco
So we hope this may inspire you to have a look through our “back catalogue” of blogs. We do have to apologise that some are missing their photos after we migrated our website to a new server last year, but hopefully it gives you some reading material. If there is just one blog you look back at, we can recommend this one for a laugh…
The weather here has been chilly but there really hasn’t been more than a sprinkling of the white stuff – maybe it’s all being saved up for February but it has to be the most snow-free January I’ve had up here. We had a few days with a dusting of snow on the ground on the hill, but with a mild day today much of it has melted. The reindeer don’t mind, and are enjoying the cool temperatures whilst having easy access to the grazing still.
There’s a forecast for more snow in the next week though, so we’ll wait and see!
Ochil posing!FlyPonyWapiti has the largest antlers out of all of our females
Today the snow has pretty much gone. Here’s Camembert, Fly and Cheer.MorvenDixieHen checking everyone is present and correct
With Christmas over and the Centre closed to the public for a month, we have put all of our reindeer out to free-range – the males are on the Cromdale mountains and the females are split between there and the Cairngorm mountains. We don’t necessarily see them every day, but where possible we like to catch up with them, feed them and check everyone’s ok. Here’s some photos from feeding the herd the other day:
The herd approaching – they had come to call from the summit of the mountain just to the left of centre.Sika leading the herd in.We sometimes feed the herd within the top part of our hill enclosure, out of the way of dogs, and leave the gate open for them to leave when they want to.
We always let the calves get “first dibs” and a crowd of impatient mini-reindeer gather round the bags.We also use a small bag of feed to go round any of the older or skinnier adults to give them a “top up”. Here is Suidhe, a 3-year-old female, having an extra snack.6-year-old female Torch.One of the calves born last May, Nancy.Ryvita, a 9-year-old female.At nearly 16 years old, Fonn is one of the oldest reindeer in the herd. She still looks great!11-year-old Meadow is missing the tips of her ears, and looks even stranger now she’s cast her antlers.Blondie is one of the most recognizable reindeer in the herd.Little Galilee is very sweet natured. She’s nearly 5 years old but quite small for her age.Parmesan (with the white nose) and daughter Blyton are still close, even now Blyton is nearly 2 years old.
Not bad for a place to live, but where is the snow?!?
