Catching Coffee

All summer our cows and calves free-range in the Cairngorms. Finding all the best spots to graze and generally keeping themselves to themselves. At the end of the summer, the temperature starts to drop on the tops of the hills, this brings the reindeer lower down and coincides with us bringing the cows and calves back into the enclosure. We bring them in partly so we can train the calves, who are now 3-4 months old and so we can bring the females in for the rut, which is held in the hill enclosure.

Coffee as a newborn calf.

For many of the reindeer, bringing them in consists of spying a group of them on the lower slopes of Cairngorm. Calling them, catching a couple of the adults and walking them into the enclosure with any calves following through the gate. For a few of the reindeer things are a little trickier. Some of them walk off the hills into different glens and have to be fetched in Brenda, our livestock truck. If these groups are adults then it is easy enough to catch them and walk them into the truck to bring them home again. Sometimes though, the group includes calves, who are not yet halter trained. That’s when things get a little trickier.

In this case our group consisted of almost all adults apart from Beanie’s calf, who we have named Coffee. I had seen Beanie and Coffee earlier in the week and he had been very shy (fair enough having not seen many people all summer), he hadn’t wanted to follow Beanie and the other reindeer that I had haltered up and eventually I had let Beanie go so that she could go and find Coffee. I knew that catching him would need a bit of patience.

Beanie and Coffee with Tap and Sundae behind, on the day that Coffee did not want to follow!
Northern white-tailed bumblebee on a Devil’s Bit Scabious flower.

I headed out into the hills, up through the woodland (passing this beautiful bumble bee who I thought deserved a mention) and managed to find the group of reindeer. Ironically Gaelic name of the hill I found them on translates as the ‘hill of the gathering’. I was delighted to see that the entire group were very friendly and greedy, setting a good example to young Coffee. I knew I had a good couple of hours to win him over before Ruth and Isla could come out to meet me and help with the actual catching as they were currently taking the morning hill trip. That left me with a very wonderful job, hang out with a lovely herd of reindeer, eat my lunch and generally try to be calm and approachable.

Glacée and Dante looking majestic.
Darling feasting on lots of lovely lichen. Coffee lurking behind!
Coffee attacking Lotti’s backpack.
Lotti and Coffee who was slowly becoming braver!
Coffee getting closer.
Isla sitting patiently whilst Lotti and Ruth catch Coffee.

For the first hour or so, Beanie and the other greedy girls were at my side at all times. Coffee stayed within view but a good distance away. Over the next couple of hours he got closer and closer until he was within a couple of feet of me, he even started kicking my rucksack at one point. Rude!

Fairly soon after this a hill walker came past and chatted to me, Coffee ran off at first but then fairly quickly re-appeared clearly realising that he wasn’t a threat – all great desensitisation. Next, Ruth and Isla both arrived. Again Coffee was a little unsure at first, but very quickly came back over to investigate. Ruth managed to hide her body behind Beanie and get a hold of the Coffee’s back leg, after which I was able to put a halter on him. Inevitably, Coffee was pretty unimpressed at first and spent the first few minutes pulling on the rope. He walked him off the hill along with Beanie and 4 other young females. By the time we had reached the woodland, he was munching away on mushrooms and seemed to mostly have forgotten about the halter around his face.

Isla with two single cows and Lotti behind with Beanie and Coffee.
Coffee munching on a mushroom.

We drove the reindeer back to Glenmore and walked him up to our hill enclosure which is where he is just now still. It can be a bit of a baptism of fire catching a calf out on the hill like that but doesn’t affect their training. Coffee has spent the last couple of months in our hill enclosure getting tamer and tamer and more recently, has been halter trained properly. If you’d like to read back on how we halter train our calves, then read this blog, written way back in 2015.

Returned to the hill enclosure!

Lotti

Dynasties – Spy

A few years ago, Andi started a series of blogs titled Dynasties after watching the David Attenborough series with the same title. These highlighted matriarchs within the herd, in particular some of our most successful breeders. I thought I would continue this theme and in this blog I will write about Spy. I have only know Spy as an adult reindeer, and she has always been notorious for being a feisty girl, in fact you can read an entire blog about why we are all a little afraid of Spy, written a couple of years ago by Hen: Spy – the reindeer we’re all a bit scared of – The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd.

Spy with some of the most beautiful (and pointy) antlers in our herd.
Spy at 7 years old.

Whilst she is fairly wild most of the time, she becomes particularly terrifying when she has a newborn calf. Most of the reindeer, particularly the older mums are quite happy for us to be nearby their calves, knowing we won’t cause them any harm. Spy however will absolutely not let you anywhere near any of her calves, if you read through Hen’s blog linked above it will tell you all about the different tactics required at calving time. Whilst we curse Spy lots of the time, her fierce protection of her offspring makes her a fantastic mother and she has raised now 4 strong female calves; Morven, Dante, Florence and Sundae. In fact, all 11 of Spy’s surviving descendants are female, guaranteeing the continuation of her genetics.

Spy feeding Florence.

Morven was born in 2015 and was named in the ‘Scottish hill races’ theme. Morven has always been a fairly independent reindeer, like her mother. She’s definitely tamer but you still wouldn’t always guarantee being able to catch her out on the free-range. She’s one of the strongest and healthiest reindeer in our herd and herself has now had two daughters of her own, Pinto and Mochi.

Morven as a calf.
Morven showing off her beautiful antlers.

Pinto was born in 2020 and despite being one of our Covid calves, is tamer than her mother yet again. It seems as though with each generation, Spy is diluted a little. Pinto has now had her first calf, the incredibly sweet Orinoco who was born last year. Orinoco is very sweet and tame, but not pushy at all, making her a favourite amongst herders. Mochi is also a real sweetie, she is now almost two years old but due to being one of the smallest of her year is often mistaken for a calf, which sometimes results in her getting preferential feeding along with the calves which she’s certainly not complaining about.

Pinto free-ranging in the winter.
Orinoco on the free range aged 4 months old and clearly very relaxed in our presence already.
Mochi as a calf, who looks much like her mum at the same age.

Dante was born in 2017 and is without a doubt one of the prettiest members of our herd. She also grows an impressive set of antlers each year, even whilst rearing a calf at the same time. Dante whilst also shy in nature, through years of bribery is now reliable to catch and a lovely reindeer to work with. She herself has now had three daughters, Mangetout, Glacée and Amazon.

Dante as a 2 year old.
Dante fully grown.

Mangetout is now fully grown and mother herself, but I couldn’t resist this photo of her as a newborn calf! Mangetout is also tame enough to reliably catch, but occasionally granny Spy shines through as she shows us her beautiful (and pointy) antlers! Mangetout had her own calf this year who we have named Darling. There was some controversy over whether we would name a calf Darling, after the river in Australia. Some of the herders thinking it was a bit too ‘cute’. In the end we thought if we gave is to Mangetout’s calf (Spy’s great-granddaughter) she would almost certainly turn out to be the opposite! So far she has proved us wrong and is generally a lovely reindeer, although can be a bit of a menace if you try to stand between her and a bag of feed.

Mangetout as a new born calf in 2020.
Mangetout at 3 years old.
Darling with mum behind.

Dante’s middle daughter Glacée is now almost two and like her big sister, was also given a French name, the word for ice cream. Glacée is very recognisable as she’s got a big white tuft of hair between her antlers! Amazon, her younger sister, is without a doubt the most impressive calf born last year. Her antlers are absolutely huge, with elaborate splits in them and she’s just as tall as many of the yearlings.

Glacée
Amazon as a calf, already being mistaken for a yearling.

Florence is the next down in Spy’s daughters. She was born in 2019 as is named after the Italian city. I would say she is tamer yet again than either of her sisters, she is the spit of her mother in looks but temperament wise is much calmer. Florence has calved just once, and very sadly he didn’t survive his first summer. Florence is almost 5 so I have no doubt she will have many more breeding years in the herd and will go on to produce just as many wonderful reindeer as either of her sisters.

Spy and Florence.
Florence at almost 3 years old.

Sundae is the youngest and last of Spy’s daughters. She was born in 2022 and named after an ice cream Sundae. Sundae has got a white nose, which she gets from her dad, Spartan. The rest of her features, including the big white rings around her eyes and her large slightly floppy ears, are all Spy! Sundae is now almost two years old and has lost her antlers a bit earlier than some of the others so currently spends feeding time doing her very best calf impression to sneak into the ‘calf only’ green feed sacs. Who can blame her though!

Sundae as a calf with Spy behind.
Sundae and Spy a year later, still side by side.

Spy will be thirteen this year so whilst her breeding days are now behind her (cue huge sigh of relief from all the reindeer herders involved in calving season), her legacy will be continued by all her offspring. She currently has 4 daughters, 5 grand-daughters and 2 great-granddaughters, all of whom are either at breeding age or will be in the next couple of years. There is definitely no fear of the Spy line dying out in our herd, but diluting her ‘Spyness’ a little with each generation, is definitely no bad thing!

Spy at 12 years old, still in her prime.

Lotti

Emm’s Volunteer Blog Part 1: Christmas 2022

I was very lucky to be volunteering with the herd for 8 days in December last year over Christmas. Fiona had said I could help with the Christmas parades that they were due to do. It was my first Christmas working with the reindeer and it was really magical and special experience.

A Fantastic Surprise at the start.

Once we got to Scotland, I had a few days off before I started work with the reindeer. There was so much snow so I was very excited. One of the days we went to Landmark in Carrbridge and my Mum and Dad said it was one of my early Christmas Presents and that there was going to be a surprise.

The surprise was that the reindeer were there!! I was so excited when we found the reindeer pen with Ruth and Mel the herders and the reindeer were Druid, Olmec, Poirot, Berlin and the 2 calves were Sorbet and Lolly. I think we also surprised Ruth and Mel with us turning up. Lol. It was funny to see the pen was next to dinosaur land and there was a gigantic T-Rex looking over the top but thankfully Fiona had made sure the noises were turned off otherwise the reindeer could have been very scared. We took all six reindeer for a walk around Landmark with Santa. I was allowed to help and led Druid whilst Santa led Poirot. It was amazing to see Poirot so calm as it was the first year Poirot was one of the Christmas Reindeer having been a breeding bull in October 2021. He used to charge at the fence protecting his girls and was very aggressive then. He was castrated in August 2022 and he became much calmer and became a Christmas Reindeer. I helped load the reindeer into the back of the lorry at the end and it was such a brilliant day and a fantastic surprise.

Poirot and Santa.
Emm helping out at Landmark!
Sorbet and Lolly – the calves at Landmark, with T-rex looming in the background.

Snow, Ice and Tamer Calves

A snowy Utsi’s Bridge.

It was very snowy, cold and icy in the first few days once I started and on my first morning, we took reindeer who had come back from Christmas events up onto the hill from the paddocks. There were adult reindeer and calves. I led Poirot, my first time leading a reindeer in snowy and icy conditions.  Andi had to dig a massive snow drift away from one of the gates in the hill enclosure as we couldn’t get through. When you walked on the snow, you didn’t know how deep it was so you had to be careful that you didn’t suddenly sink in! It was so icy Andi gritted some of the path for the Hill Trip visitors then I helped Andi worm the reindeer which was giving medicine to keep them healthy and clear of worm infection. I held onto the lead rope and put a few head collars on to the calves who were much tamer than when I was up last in October. They had grown lots too. Zoom the calf (the one who had been found on it’s own on the free-range) was so tame and would follow me and Andi around with the hand feed bribery bag whilst we were trying to catch the calves and put them on head collars. Zoom is best buddies with Sunny the hand reared reindeer calf.

Walking up to the enclosure in the snow.

In the few days before the big Christmas parades I did lots of duties in the paddocks and Reindeer House, made up the first-year adoption packs, helped file adoption leaflets away and packed adoption gifts and made feed mix with Lisette. Poo picking in the ice and snow was a new experience (you had to make sure you didn’t slip over and fall in the poo!). One morning Tilly was on Zoe Ball breakfast show on Radio 2 and we all listened to it on the radio. She was talking about the reindeer and Zoe Ball was very interested. Tilly was very good giving lots of information. Another day Joe had an interview for a BBC radio show in the paddocks before we opened. It seemed everyone wanted to know about the reindeer this time of year and our Cairngorm Reindeer Herd were very famous. There were still Christmas events happening and I helped Cameron mix the food then bagged it up for one event that Ruth was doing in Gleneagles.

The BBQ hut already for Santa’s arrival.

There were also things happening at Reindeer House with Christmas fun in the paddocks. I talked to people in the paddocks telling them all about the reindeer and also did meet and greet at times explaining what was happening during the Christmas fun. There was a Christmas quiz for people to do and all the herders wore their Christmas jumpers. Santa was in the BBQ hut where he could meet and talk to the children. There were herder talks and people could see the reindeer. The paddocks were decorated for Christmas and children were able to write letters to Santa and post them. Joe was making Christmas jokes all the time and advertising the Naked Herder’s Charity Calendar as well which went on to make a lot of money for the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team. When I restocked shop there was Christmas music playing in the office.

The hill trips were also really magical. On one trip Gloriana was cleaning her calf by licking it when lying on a snow patch which was really lovely to see. I was able to do the hand feed talk on a few occasions and it was so special that the herders trusted me to tell everyone the important information. Some hill enclosure gates had massive snow drifts so we had to use other gates and walking on snow drifts was difficult as you would sink in suddenly knee deep in snow. One day the snow gates were closed on the main road but we were allowed up to the Sugarbowl car park. This was the first time I had seen them closed. The snow gates opened an hour later. When we got up to the enclosure we moved the ice and snow cleared the path of ice and snow with shovels and our feet.

Emm and Lotti!

The reindeer on the free-range could come and go as they wanted. We left the gate to the top corridor open so most of the free-rangers could come in to feed and we could count and I.D them. I did this one day with Cameron and Lisette. We wrote their ear tag numbers down and checked herd list in the shed. It was lovely to see that the mum’s and calves stay together a lot of the time eating the same pile of food and lying down together. The mothers looking after their calves like Christie licking Gelato. Another day the free-rangers had moved to the top ski car park and I went with Sheena and Cameron to find them. One day Hen and Andi had to go to the top of Silvermount to get the reindeer as they were not coming down to the usual calls.

Iskrem and Emmental in the snow.

The other thing we had to do was split off the reindeer for the paddocks and Christmas events from the herd when they were needed and move them down from the hill enclosure and then bring them back up when they had finished so we were very busy. On one of the days I took Frost, Dr Seuss and Nuii up the hill with Andi. I was leading at the front with Dr Seuss and my job was to look out for dogs as the reindeer are very scared of dogs as they think they are wolves. I had to make sure the others stayed close behind me as they like to stick together in a group. When we were at the hill enclosure we let Nuii, the calf, off the head collar first before the adults so that they didn’t panic.

Dante and Glacée.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Emm’s Christmas blog!

Emm

Photo Blog: April 2023

April has been a busy month with some glorious spring weather and some incredibly wild winter weather too. The first half of the month saw the Easter Holidays so we had lots of visitors around – some days we put on an additional Hill Trip in the afternoon when the morning visit sold out, and in the afternoons we ran “Seasonal Herder Talks” in our Paddocks. The second half of the month was busy with moving reindeer around getting them in the right places for the fast-approaching calving season… exciting! Pregnant females were brought into our hill enclosure and the “single ladies” (mostly the old girls retired from breeding or ones having a year off motherhood) were put back out to free range after a quick health check in the enclosure.

It’s been a fun month watching antlers casting and growing, and bellies widen on our pregnant females! Bring on calving season!

1st of April: We have reindeer back in our Paddocks! From left to right is Kiruna, Jelly, Sherlock and Busby, all here for the first half of the Easter holidays.
2nd of April: Fiona and I spent the day with Tilly where we brought of some male reindeer down from their winter free range. Here we have Dr Seuss, Spartan and Scolty ready to be taken down to the hill farm in Glenlivet.
5th of April: Andi and I spent the morning moving the reindeer into position for the morning Hill Trip. You can just see Andi in the distance letting the calves feed out of the bags first.
6th of April: Cousins Fab and Tub causing trouble!
7th of April: Lopsided Florence demonstrating an excellent example of antler growth and development.
8th of April: Sherlock not remotely bothered about our wobbly fence, but it’s easy to forgive him with a nose like that!
11th of April: Beautiful morning to see the free ranging herd. Here they are crossing a burn with the Northern Corries looking dramatic in the distance.
11th of April: Emm is here and grinning away as always! Emm is one of our fabulous volunteers and was up for for a couple of weeks to help us out during April, Here she is defending the bags from the older reindeer.
12th of April: The return of winter! A VERY wintery and wild day to be on the hill. Here’s Fly leading the herd, growing her lovely velvety antlers. Pumpkin and Lace not too far behind.
13th of April: Fly posing beautifully, showing off her fast-growing antlers. Cameron in the background waiting for me to stop taking photos!
16th of April: Fiona feeding the herd in the hill enclosure. Check out that wide belly nearest the camera!
17th of April: Glacée almost a year old and looking gorgeous! Her new antlers just beginning to grow.
19th of April: Marple and her calf from 2022, Viennetta, are now in the enclosure after a winter free ranging.
20th of April; All three leucistic calves together – from left to right we’ve got 99, Mr Whippy and Vanilla.
21st of April: Moving the free rangers through the ski area on a gorgeous sunny morning.
24th of April: Beret appreciating her winter coat more today after the recent sunny weather – there’s snow dusting Meall a’ Bhuachaille (the hill behind) and hail showers during the Hill Trip.
27th of April: The boys are back in town! Fiona and I spent the morning at the hill farm and brought back six lovely Christmas Reindeer to the enclosure here on Cairngorm. Super to have them here again!

Ruth

Finding Dante’s calf

Being the most recent person to start working at the Reindeer Centre I am experiencing the day-to-day workings of the Centre throughout the seasons for the first time. I thought I would write about one of my favourite “firsts” to date, which is finding the first calf to be born for the 2022 season. It was a beautiful day at the tail end of April, which happened to be my first day back at work after my usual two days off and Andi’s first day back at work after a holiday. We started our usual morning routine and set off from the house to head up to the enclosure to check on our pregnant cows and feed them, upon feeding the cows we realised that one reindeer was missing, so we grabbed our calving bag which includes: feed for the mother, spot on and antibiotic blue spray for the calf’s naval and made a start on searching the enclosure. For anyone that hasn’t been to our enclosure it is a vast amount of space to search, the perimeter line is 8km in length alone! The missing reindeer was the lovely, four year old, Dante.

We headed along the top ridge of the enclosure to check a well-known calving area up there, but the missing reindeer was nowhere to be seen so we continued climbing to the summit of Silver Mount in search of Dante. Keeping with the theme of many “first” experiences, this was also my first time being on and seeing the summit of Silver Mount, which has glorious views of the Northern Corries, Loch Morlich and down onto Glenmore. Luckily for us, Dante was also at the summit of Silver Mount.

Looking down the top ridge towards Black Loch and Coire Cas in the distance.
The view from Silver Mount looking across our enclosure towards the Pass of Ryvoan.

With the easy part over we had to try and see whether Dante had calved or not and for the untrained eye this was a lot harder than it sounds. We could see that the reindeer was focusing on a specific ginger looking spot, but was this a new-born calf or a rock? A question that all herders ask themselves on a regular basis when looking for full grown reindeer, never mind a tiny calf! We were lucky though and the ginger mound began to move which confirmed that we had officially found the first calf of the season (later named Glacée)! Andi headed over to feed the mother, treat the naval of the calf and give spot on to give it protection from those dreaded ticks. Once we had checked that all was ok we headed back down to reindeer house to share the amazing news that our calving season had begun!

Dante and calf looking epic with the snowy Northen Corries behind.
Close up of Dante’s calf – the blue colour on her navel is the antibiotic spray.

At the end of May Dante and her one month old calf headed out to the hills for the summer, along with around half of our other mums and calves. We caught up with them a few times whist they roamed freely in the hills, both mum and daughter seemed to have a great summer as they were always in excellent condition. The pair are now back in our hill enclosure for the autumn where we’ll begin to train Dante’s calf to wear a halter and get to know her personality. Hopefully she’ll grow up to be a big strong girl like her mum, and big sister Mangetout.

A big moment when the first batch of cows and calves are let out of the enclosure to free range for the summer.
Dante’s calf enjoying the tasty lichen whilst out free ranging at the end of August – 4 months old to the day!

Amy

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