Tag: Diamond

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Reindeer personalities

The longer we work with the reindeer the more we see their individual personalities, this is one reason I love working with these incredible animals! They are all so unique, and learning all their quirks and characters means we can work with and handle the reindeer better. This wee blog shows a few of their character traits…

The one with the puppy dog eyes…

Bordeaux has a sweet-natured soul with big, beautiful eyes which she likes to use on weak-willed reindeer herders. At the end of each Hill Trip she likes to wander up to the herders and batter her eyelashes at them in the hope she gets to put her head in the white bag containing tasty treats! To be fair to Bordeaux this is most likely a learnt behaviour. A couple of years ago she had a bad summer and came in off the free range in poor condition. We spent a couple of months carrying a special bag of food on to the hill for her containing an extra extra-calorific food mix in order for her gained weight before the harsh winter months. She clearly got used to this special treatment and now can’t understand why she’s not allowed any extra!

Bordeaux licking the evidence of her nose.

The labrador…

Busby is a very lovely and very friendly lad! When he was a calf he was actually rather shy and took a little while for his cheeky nature and fairly outrageous levels of greediness to really shine! The photo below sums his character up well: Isla trying to get past him and Busby making sure that he’s 100% been seen so surely there’s some food in that white bag for him. Reindeer don’t like to be stroked and patted but if there’s a bag of food around, Busby will tolerate most things! He’s also a great poser so often appears on social media especially over the summer months when he’s often in our hill enclosure here on Cairngorm.

Busby doing his absolute best to make sure Isla notices him!

The ‘Danger Reindeer’…

Pumpkin is a feisty girl with bags of attitude! She’s dark in colour and very beautiful so people often want to take photos of her or with her. She’s not shy around people and loves hand feeding from our visitors. BUT if you catch her in a bad mood then you may know about it, she’s well known for waving her antlers at people and even snorting! This means herders on Hill Trips are constantly keeping a wee eye on her and often have to apologise for her bad behaviour – “please don’t take it personally, that’s just Pumpkin!”

Beautiful Pumpkin – who wouldn’t want to get a photo of this beautiful lass! Photo from September 2024.
Even without antlers Pumpkin can be a bit scary! This was me trying to take a lovely photo of Pumpkin next to her daughter Lapsang, and I get the ears back look and snorted at!

The greediest of all…

Aztec! Arguable, but surely most herders would agree?! In 2022 he was officially crowned the title after herders voted on it – read that blog here. He is very friendly, the class clown, and even though Aztec will be 9 years old in the spring he shows no sign of slowing down. Multiple times, I’ve witnessed him jumping over fences from a standstill at the merest rustle of a bag on the other side – he’s very athletic! Aztec during hand-feeding sessions on Hill Trips adds a bit of drama to the day. He has no patience and inhales the food from one pair of hands in milliseconds before heading to the next pair of out-stretched hands, and then the next… Thankfully he grows relatively small antlers so he’s not wheeling around huge headgear. If you foolishly allow him to get into a white bag, then good luck to you! He ploughs his nose to the ground making it almost impossible for you to remove his head and can be rather embarrassing in front of 50 people on a Hill Trip. What a boy!!

Trying to take Aztec for some exercise whilst on Christmas tour is hard-going when the trees are covered in this much lichen!
Here he is free ranging in March 2024 looking all innocent!

Sweet as pie…

Diamond – she’s so lovely! She’s an old girl now at 13. She’s had a permanent limp since spring 2019 and since then she’s been retired from breeding as we don’t want her putting additional strain on her body. As she now doesn’t breed, she gets to spend most of her life out free ranging in the mountains. I’ve had several lovely encounters with Diamond on the free range where she always seems genuinely pleased to see you, and very gently and politely takes some food! The photo below is of Cameron and Diamond casually walking across the Cairngorm plateau. We bumped into her by herself, and she decided to follow us all the way to a lovely safe spot, closer to home. We got some funny looks as we strolled past hill walkers who were doing double takes at our four-legged friend! Hard to believe, but she is the granny of the ‘Danger Reindeer’ above – how is that possible when Diamond is this sweet?!

Cameron casually scrolling across the hill with the lovely Diamond.

The snorer…

Perhaps snoring isn’t a personality trait, but in the warmer summer months Clouseau loves to lie in the exact same spot, snoring away. It’s just off the boardwalk, right by the gate so all our visitors get to experience the sweet snores as he dozes off and waits for the next meal to arrive! He’s actually a rather cheeky chap but boy does he know how to relax!

Turn up the volume! The gentle sounds of Clouseau snoring away in his favourite summer spot!

The last one…

Vienna is a really sweet lass. She’s friendly, greedy, sweet-natured, and a beautiful, unusual colour. However, annoyingly she is most often at the back of the herd trailing along with no haste whatsoever! For other reindeer if they’re being sluggish at the back it’s a sign we may need to check their temperature as they could be feeling a bit under the weather. But we have learnt that for Vienna, that’s just her!

Surprise, surprise! Vienna is the last reindeer through the gate for her breakfast! December 2024.
Can you see the herd stretching out right into the middle of the photo? Yep, that’s Vienna’s bottom closest to the camera right at the very back as always.

I could go on and on but I think I’ll stop there… maybe I could write a second instalment in the future!

Ruth

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A free range mission…

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!

Amy

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Isla’s favourite pics!

Since working here, my camera roll has slowly become about 90% reindeer! So here are a few of my fav of our reindeer, getting up close and personal with them to get those super cute nose shots!

Here is the handsome Druid! This was taken last June 2024, after a Hill Trip. When we had beautiful sunny weather for the whole month. Sadly this June has not been the case 🙁
The lovely Lupin here, charging forward for some more hand feed, as you can tell by his crumby nose his head was not long out of the feed bag. This was taken last December 2023, as you can see Lupin has his beautiful fully grown bony antlers.
Elbe here, patiently waiting for some more hand feed… which is very out of character for him, usually he can be very pushy and demanding! But with a few bats of those big eyes he usually finds his way into the bag.
Baby colorado looking very cute! This was taken last autumn when he was still a calf, not long after his summer of free ranging, giving my camera a curious sniff.
Busby looking lovely as ever, taken this June, if you look closely you can see that Busby is looking a little scruffy, this is because he is moulting his thick winter coat into his much shorter darker summer coat which you can see on his legs and nose.
Busby again creeping closer to the camera!
Pretty Winnie here, posing for me up on the ridge of our hill enclosure. Taken in June this summer 2024, Winnie is doing amazing! She’s a little ray of sunshine always putting a smile on our faces!
Hemp trying to figure out if my phone is edible or not! Hemp is a very friendly boy, one of our star hand feeders on our Hill Trips! definitely one of the greediest reindeer in our herd always on the lookout for a white bag!
Cowboy posing after a sunny Hill Trip. One of the few sunny days we had this June.
Little Elbe! This was taken this summer – his antlers are looking AMAZING! They almost look too big for his small body.
Handsome Kernel going in for a camera sniff, this was last summer 2023, he’s looking very smart in his summer coat and velvet antlers!
Diamond looking very pretty! What a poser. Diamond had just recently cast her antlers in this picture. This was just before Christmas last year 2023 when we had some of our girls in the enclosure. She is having a lovely time free ranging at the moment!
Beanie here with her cute speckledy nose. This was last Autumn time 2023.
Little Sorbet posing beautifly for the camera. taken the same time as Beanie’s photo above, there had just taken themselves in from the free range asking for some extra feed.
Oatcake was also part of our lovely free ranging group last autumn.
Adzuki is in our woods here, this was last autumn 2023. The woods are just behind the Paddocks which are currently undergoing a huge refurbishment.

Isla

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Photo Blog: September 2023

I love September! The reindeer look super, we’re busy with free ranging reindeer, we name the calves and we start learning their individual personalities, plus the rut kicks off. Having said that, I planned a two week holiday in one of my favourite months – must remember not to do that again! So there is a big gap in the photos for this month’s blog, but I’ve made up for it by just sharing more from the same day.

Just a reminder – we don’t reveal the names of the calves online until our adopters receive their newsletter next month.

2nd of September- Sambar (in the background) and Okapi. Both now 15 years old and looking great for their age. This was taken on one of my reindeer retrieval missions.
3rd of September – Brie and her wee daughter. Back in the enclosure and both looking good after a summer free ranging.
4th of September -Mangetout looking beautiful on a lovely autumnal afternoon. Her daughter and her new sister (belonging to mum Dante) are the calves behind her.
19th of September (a) – After a TWO week holiday, I’m back to work and the first job is to split the reindeer for the rut. Exciting times! Here is Fiona putting some cows out on Silver Mount, an area within the hill enclosure.
19th of September (b) – Step two is to add the bull! Fiona and I took Sherlock for a walk to the enclosure. Here he is off to find his girls – a man on a mission!
19th of September (c) – Our other breeding bull is three year old Jelly. He looks a bit less sure about the situation compared to Sherlock but he quickly got the idea.
20th of September – Holy Moley and her calf behind. Holy Moley is delighted to be back in the enclosure after the summer in the hills. Here she is on the hunt for more hand feed.
21st of September – Sherlock with some of his girls – Bordeaux, Pip and Jenga.
22nd of September – Trying to get a nice pic of Mushy and Jenga but Bordeaux wants in on the action. Or maybe it’s the white bag under my arm.
22nd of September – Christmas Reindeer, Frost and Adzuki, looking handsome in the late afternoon sunshine.
26th of September – Emmental is the first to the feed bag on today’s Hill Trip.
26th of September – Girls out free ranging! These are some of our single ladies, either too young to breed or retired from breeding. From L to R: Vanilla, Sorbet, Diamond, Sambar, Lolly, Solero and Suidhe (sticking her tongue out!)
26th of September – Catching up with this old lady on the free range! Diamond is now 11 years old and looking super. She is stripping the velvet off her antlers.

Ruth

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Memorable reindeer of the past: Chelsea

It’s been a long time since I found time to write about a reindeer who’s no longer with us, but I’m acutely aware that it is high time for me to take my turn to write a blog, so here we are.

This time I thought I’d pick Chelsea, who only died last year but she’d lived a good long life and been around for the vast majority of my time here, so she seems like a good choice. Born in 2009, she was Glacier’s second to last calf, and Glacier was a very productive female so Chelsea was from a large family line! Like Glacier, Chelsea was a light coloured reindeer, but one without face markings, which is actually a rarity in our herd nowadays – most light coloured reindeer also have distinctive face markings. But Chelsea came from a line of light reindeer – mum Glacier, granny Ferrari and great-granny Vivi were all the same colouration, and doubtless ancestors before were too (but I don’t have that info to hand just now).

Chelsea with mum Glacier, back in 2009

Despite Glacier being a lovely, tame reindeer, Chelsea was always much more ‘independent’ – the word we use to describe a reindeer who is on the ‘wilder’ side! I remember her well as a calf – mainly from battling with her trying to get her used to wearing a halter. All our calves are trained to halter at around 5 months old, and Chelsea certainly had a lot of attitude and strong opinions about the whole affair.

At 5 months old, Chelsea’s baby coat had been replaced by her adult, lighter coat

Possibly the headstrong attitude came with the name. She was born the year we named the calves after ‘cakes, biscuits and puddings’, and during our naming evening we had a conversation about the name ‘Chelsea’ being too associated with the football team rather than the bun. And it sounded like a name for a footballer’s wife… Having just vetoed it, we offered our volunteer Paul – a retired joiner who has come to work with us multiple times over many, many years – the chance to pick a name for a calf. Having apparently not paid the slightest attention to the entire conversation, he peered at the list of possibilities and promptly picked ‘Chelsea’. We rolled our eyes and gritted our teeth… and named her Chelsea.

Chelsea and another calf in the back of one of our vehicles at a Christmas event, waiting to be unloaded.

Sally and I had Chelsea on our Christmas team that winter, and were rather embarrassed by her name so we called her Tiffin for a few days. But names just become names, and Chelsea became Chelsea whilst Tiffin disappeared into the ether.

So much attitude! Picking a fight with bull Pera

Chelsea had her first calf at 3 years old, in our diamond anniversary year of the herd. So we named her Diamond, and she has proved to be a lovely reindeer over the years, mellow where Chelsea is feisty, but she looks very, very similar.

Diamond at about a month old – calves born with white foreheads like this invariably turn into white adults

In 2015 Diamond reached maturity and in 2016 she had her first – and only – calf, Pagan. 2016 was also the year when Chelsea and Diamond both grew such similar antlers that year that we continuously got them muddled up. The photo below seems to be the only one I have of the two of them together that year – but look how similar!

Chelsea and Diamond. Or is it Diamond and Chelsea?

Chelsea did mellow a bit with age, but remained a reindeer that never willingly allowed herself to be caught. In a moment of necessity I did once make a bid to catch her by her antlers out on the mountains – once the velvet has stripped away from the antlers no feeling remains, so antlers can occasionally be useful emergency handles – but regretted it immediately, and had bruises to show for my bad decision afterwards.

Such a beautiful girl!

Dying in early 2022 at nearly 13 years old, Chelsea lived a full and rewarding life, most of her time spent roaming freely out on the mountains. Whilst she had a few calves, most were males who we didn’t breed from, so only Diamond continued her line. Grand-daughter Pagan has sadly gone now too, but she has left daughters Pumpkin and Winnie behind – Chelsea’s great-granddaughters – so Chelsea’s legacy continues. The light colour has gone though – both of this most recent generation are the ‘normal’ brown colour.

Hen

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Photo Blog: May 2023

May! What a month! Calving began on Sunday the 29th of April and was done by Sunday the 14th of May. A two week, action-packed blur. After the first few calves were born we were expecting a bit of a lull, but nope, they just kept on coming. As well as many experienced cows we’ve had eight first-time-mums and all are doing a super job and have taken to motherhood very well. On the whole everything went well, however, calving season sadly does tend to bring some sad moments as well as lots of highs. In addition to looking after the new-borns, we’ve also been running two Hill Trips a day and the Paddocks and Exhibition have been popular with holiday-makers so looking back this month has been a bit of a whirlwind!

This month’s photo selection is biased towards the cute calves but I’m sure that’s what we all want to see anyway. Just a reminder – we won’t reveal the names of the new mothers until after we’ve let our adopters know in the June newsletter so I’ve tried to be deliberately vague. Enjoy… !

1st of May – Ben walking some lovely females in from Silver Mount in the cloud, Black Loch behind.
3rd of May – The oldest calf of 2023, already very bold at 4 days old (born on the 29th April).
4th of May – Druid waiting for hand feed, please!
7th of May – Another gorgeous new addition to the herd!
8th of May – Choosing which picture to select has never been so hard! But this is today’s cutie which won!
9th of May – On searching for a cow and calf in the enclosure I found these lazy boys, late in for their breakfast! Dr Seuss was clearly having a lie-in on his 6th birthday!! Happy birthday Dr Seuss.
9th of May – Trilby, Fab, Borlotti and Viennetta. Now Viennetta and Fab are not the youngest cohort in the herd we have to get used to calling them ‘yearlings’…. no longer the calves!
11th of May – The first pale calf of the season! Hiding behind mum’s legs!
12th of May – I was lucky to find this new mother and calf. It’s always a total privilege to be the first person to see a new addition to the herd!
15th of May – Motherhood is clearly very tiring for this mum. But she’s doing a super job!
17th of May – Some of the oldest and boldest calves are now mingling with our visitors on Hill Trips. Meanwhile, Aztec in the background is enjoying his absolute favourite time of the day – hand feeding!!
18th of May – It was great to catch up with this old girl whilst out on a free range mission with Sally! This is Diamond who is 11-years-old and very sweet-natured.
19th of May – We did routine temperature checks on all the cows and calves. We have only two black calves but they still managed to get us completely confused at one point. Who do you belong to?!
22nd of May – Druid again! He’s been busy growing his antlers since the previous pic of him (4th of May).
23rd of May – Turtle on “World Turtle Day”. She’s actually named after the variety of bean, rather than the sea creature, but it’s a good opportunity to put her in the limelight.
24th of May – Beanie trying to break in to a food bag. What do you mean this isn’t stashed here for me?!

Ruth

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All the single ladies

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.

Fiona

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Photo blog: Winter free-rangers

In the winter months, all of our adult male reindeer plus some of our cows roam free on the mountains over near Glenlivet. Tilly and the farm crew take care of their day-to-day feeding but occasionally one of us herders from the Glenmore base will pop over to help. Here is a random selection of photos from one of my recent visits:

Cicero and Slioch
Butter, Cicero and Slioch
Legume
Anster, Emmental, Hemp, Dr Seuss and Boris
Lupin
Old lad Strudel
Jonne, Mangetout, Bourbon and Fava
Spy, Morse, and his granny Pavlova
Rubiks, Addax, Boris, Arta, Aztec, Cheer, Diamond (and Tilly in the background!)
Druid the poser!
Jelly, Kiruna and Stenoa
Spy and Diamond
Bingo and wee Cannellini, with Lulu to the right
LX

Andi

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My first winter as a reindeer herder

This past year has been my first full year as a reindeer herder. Despite becoming a reindeer herder seven years ago in 2014 (remember then? simpler times!), I was very much a seasonal herder. I would arrive for a few months in the summer whilst either my university course was having a break, or in-between travels abroad.

Therefore, last winter was my first winter as a reindeer herder. And what a memorable winter it was! Firstly, it was lockdown, so it was very different to how things usually operate which was new and exciting whilst also being unpredictable and slightly chaotic. But also, there was the snow. So. Much. Snow. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to share a couple of videos and photos from the crazy weather, including this short clip of Joe and I leading the herd downstream in blizzard-like conditions at the start of February.

Pony and I trying not to sink!

Leading Feta and Diamond along the path on a snowy day

And it’s not just reindeer that we fed throughout the winter! Opportunistic snow buntings joined in most days too:

I am writing this at the start of May where we have had quite a bit of fresh snowfall over the past couple of weeks, so maybe we are not through all the snowy weather just yet. But I am sure it won’t be anywhere near as much as the volume of snow that fell this winter. Overall, it was a lovely first year as a reindeer herder, albeit very unusual as the whole country adapted to changing circumstances. Now I look forward to my next year and hopefully getting to see all the ‘normal’ activities such as Christmas events and parades.

Snowstorm armour!

Ben

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Then and now…

With all these photos of calves over the last few weeks on our social media pages, I thought I’d dig out some photos of adult reindeer in our herd when they were just a week or two old, as a way of demonstrating their colouration and it’s changes with time. Reindeer are born in an extremely warm winter coat to protect them from the elements, but this calf coat isn’t necessarily the same colour as they will end up.

There’s a very short window from when they are born in May, to when they first moult in July, when they have this lovely calf coat. By July they have a short, darker summer coat, although their legs often retain their calf coat for a few extra weeks, and then their adult winter coat grows in for the first time in early September. At this point onwards they look like mini adults, and have lost the ‘cute’ factor.

We’ll start with Aztec. He was the most common colour for a calf, a gingery brown that we just call ‘normal coloured’. As an adult he’s still ‘normal’ – as common as muck! (But only in colour, not character!).

Roman was also a ‘normal coloured’ calf, although a much richer red colour (NB. it’s not so noticeable in this photo as it was taken on a different camera to the other pics) than the gingery colour of many calves. The rich red look is one of my favourites amongst the calf coats!

Still ticking the ‘normal coloured’ box is Hamish, although you’ll notice the blacker back he had. This photo popped up on my Facebook ‘memories’ for 10 years ago recently – where has the time gone?! Hamish had to be pulled out by Fiona after getting stuck being born – hence the rather weak looking little calf knuckled over and two herders in attendance (trying to assess whether there’s any milk in that udder…).

‘Chocolate brown’ is the next category, darker all over than the others so far. Olympic has grown in to a dark coloured adult, but by no means as dark as they get….

….unlike Lace! Jet black as a calf, she’s always been one of the very darkest reindeer in the herd. Note how dark her bum is compared to Olympic above!

And at the other end of the scale is Mozzarella. If a calf is pure white, whether they are actually leucistic or literally just very white, they will stay that way their whole lives, regardless of the changing of the seasons. Their summer and winter coats are both pretty much the same. Mozzarella has a couple of dark markings on her, and these will change in darkness depending on the season, but not her white hairs.

Olmec and his mum Emmental are both ‘white’ reindeer too, or at least what we would refer to as a white or light coloured reindeer. In August, on the right, (and 3 years later!) they are much greyer, about halfway from summer to winter coats, but reindeer’s coats bleach in the light throughout the winter months, turning them much whiter by spring.

Many light coloured reindeer also have white face markings, as Svalbard demonstrates here. The darker markings on calf coats tend to be much less obvious as adults though – you have to peer closely to see Svalbard’s dark leg nowadays! While he’s not a light coloured reindeer as such now, he’s still on the pale side.

Not all light coloured adults start out light though, as LX and Diamond demonstrate here. White foreheads on a brown calf generally signify a calf will turn white in adulthood though! It’s not a particularly common colouration though – I think these are the only two I remember in my time here (or at least the only two who survived to adulthood – there may have been others).

Finally, there’s always one or two odd ones each year. Above is Brie, a sort of slate-grey colour as a calf with a little white nose, but generally she’s pretty much normal coloured now as an adult, albeit still rather greyish. She was a very pretty calf!

And finally Spartan, again slate grey as a calf but on the darker side as an adult. His pale eyes are a giveaway for his slightly odd colouration though, and as a breeding bull he’s thrown some equally unusual looking calves this spring!

There’s nothing more exciting than walking towards a cow who just calved, having eventually tracked them down – knowing you’re the very first human to lay eyes on that calf. At 8am when reporting from the hill down to Reindeer House, having been on the early shift and out for two or three hours already, I’ve squeaked “You’ll never guess what colour so-and-so’s calf is!” down a phone excitedly many times in the past. Freezing toes, soaked clothes and rumbling belly temporarily forgotten.

Hen

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