Comet was already an old reindeer when I first arrived, but none the less he was still a very visible member of the herd. When our male reindeer get to about 7 or 8, there is a tendency for them to spend more and more time over at our farm where Tilly sees them daily but us lot, based here at the Centre in Glenmore, do so less often. Comet was already 12 when I first met him, but he still spent plenty of time here on a regular basis as he was such a popular character.
Comet in his heyday.
Comet was a big, white reindeer, born in 1995, the third calf from his mum Ferrari. Ferrari herself was a very memorable reindeer as she didn’t grow any antlers until she reached the age of 9, when she decided to sprout one! That was enough though, and even though she lived until just shy of 17, she never bothered to grow more than one antler a year. She was also a fabulous breeding female, producing 11 calves in her lifetime. This trait runs throughout her family lines, which form a substantial number of reindeer in our herd today.
Ferrari with her one antler. Behind her is her granddaughter Malawi who didn’t (and still doesn’t) grow any antlers at all!
But I digress. Comet was the loveliest reindeer that you can possibly imagine, tame, friendly, polite and somewhat like a teddy bear. Reindeer in general are not a cuddly animal; they happily tolerate being handled but never seek out affection in the way, for example, a dog might, despite having been domesticated for as long. It’s the reason we have a ‘hands-off’ approach with our reindeer, we handle them enough to make sure they are all happy being in such close proximity to humans, but we never put them in a position where they can be petted against their wishes. On the hill it’s the tamest that come to hand-feed while the shyer have the choice to hang back, and out on Christmas tour they are always provided with enough space to keep out of reach of the public. We’re frequently asked if we can bring a reindeer to the side of the pen to be stroked, and the answer is always ‘no’. If they choose to do so themselves that is fine, but it has to be their choice, on their terms.
With ex-herder Vicky, contemplating life together.
I digress again – keeping to the subject in hand is not always my strong point. Back to it… Comet was unusual in that he seemed to be completely happy to have a cuddle, and indeed we all took advantage of this regularly – there’s nothing quite like putting your arms around the neck of a reindeer and burying your nose in their hair. Most reindeer would respond with a huff and pull away, but not Comet. He is also responsible for bringing us Paul, our twice yearly volunteer who has been coming for a fortnight at a time for years now (and fixing everything we break) – as he put his nose on Paul’s shoulder (Paul was sitting down, I hasten to add, Comet wasn’t that big…) and leant there for the entirety of a Hill Trip, back in 1998! Paul was hooked on reindeer from then on and 19 years later is still coming to help us out, and thank god, as he is a master joiner… I can hear the power drill whining away as I type – Paul is in residence and mending something.
In his old age.
One of my best memories of Comet is from the first week that I started here, when Tilly and I took two adult reindeer (one being Comet) and two 6 month old calves out for a walk in Glenmore in order to get the previously unhandled calves used to walking on a halter. On this occasion I can remember squeaking frantically to Tilly as we jogged along towards the Forestry Centre next door as Comet danced, spinning around and bouncing; letting off steam. I was hanging on for dear life but not doing a very good job, until Tilly prudently took Comet off me and gave me her (less excited) reindeer instead. Now I can easily handle such a full-of-beans reindeer, but as a wet-behind-the-ears herder, I was utterly out of my depth. It was a very steep learning curve!
Mel leading Comet out calf-training, on a day when he was a little less excited!
Within a couple of years after that occasion Comet was well into his old age, and such behaviour was behind him. He lived to the grand old age of nearly 17, and although I saw him less regularly in his doddery old man phase, I still had a ‘Comet Cuddle’ each time I met him again.
Recently a Norwegian man got in touch with us while writing a book about the reindeer populations in an area of southern Norway called Setesdal, so I dug out the old records to see what info I could help him with. While most of our herd originated from Sweden (see Looking Back: Part 1), in 1961 the 5th consignment of reindeer joined the Cairngorm herd, arriving from the Setesdal area on the MS Blenheim in the middle of September.
The group consisted of seven cows and one bull, ranging in age from yearlings to three year olds. The still relatively newly established Cairngorm herd was struggling a bit as many had died over the past 9 years, finding it difficult to thrive down in the forest as they were more suited to the mountain habitat above. In the mid-50s Mr Utsi had gained permission to move the reindeer higher up the hills where they managed much better, but new blood was also needed to prevent inbreeding – it was definitely time to bring in more reindeer. The Norwegian import brought the herd to around 30 animals.
One of the pages of our press cuttings scrapbooks from 1961.
Their success was varied however. Breive, Lisa, Olga and Valle had all died before the end of 1961, though I can’t find reference in the records as to whether they simply went missing, or died of a particular illness. Reindeer under the age of three are particularly susceptible to illness, having not had as much time to build up immunity to disease, and the Norwegian reindeer also arrived at a time of year when ticks are rife – still the main cause of illness amongst our reindeer today.
Laila on the left (with the collar) with Mr Utsi in March 1962.
Laila was the only reindeer of the consignment to calve the following year, on the 8th June 1962, but disaster struck when she died less than 24 hours after the birth. The calf was strong however, so Mr Utsi went on to hand-rear him, naming him Boko. Boko followed Mr Utsi everywhere and was extremely tame, going on to become a breeding bull in later years. He survived until December 1967, but as with all hand-reared animals, could be a little bit of a liability – there is a reference in the records which says ‘Very tame to lead if you keep your eyes on him’! Hand-reared animals don’t tend to understand the boundaries of acceptable behaviour – as any of you who have been on the receiving end of Fergus will know, our reprobate in the herd today!
Laila with Boko, a few hours after he was born.Mr Utsi with the ever-present Boko at his heels, in 1963.Mr Utsi at the Strathspey Farmers’ Club Show with Boko and bull Vikhta (August 1963).
Of the original 8 Norwegian reindeer, by far the most successful of them were the bull Jacob, and two cows Janet and Bykle. Jacob was used as a breeding bull for several years in the 60s, his bloodlines still very prevalent in the herd today, and Bykle produced one calf, Heather, who in turn went on to produce several offspring. This line died out in the 70s however but Janet went one better, producing three calves whose descendants continued in the herd until well into the 80s, finishing with another hand-reared calf, Wally. Wally was hand-reared by Alan, and a photo still hangs in the living room of Reindeer House of Alan bottle-feeding him, back in 1982.
Jacob in Coire Sneachdha, a familiar background to us all even now…Alan (with considerably more hair than nowadays!) bottle feeding Wally.
So there we go. The success of the bull Jacob, in particular, goes to show the importance of introducing new bloodlines to the herd, and we have continued to import reindeer every now and then to keep our genetics as strong and as varied as possible. Right now there are 25 reindeer in our herd who were born in northern Sweden, one still remaining from our 2004 introduction (Addjá), two from 2008 (Magnus and Laban), and the remainder from 2011, many of whom are still breeding bulls today.
Featured Image: Eco and Santa having a moment at one of our Christmas events. Eco probably wanted to know where Santa was hiding the lichen!
Young bull Eco
Every reindeer herder working here remembers the calves here when they first started, who tend to go on to hold a special place to them in the herd as the years go by. When I first worked here in late 2007, the ‘green things’ were calves. Not actually green, I should add (although we did give them all green ear tags), but ‘green’ was our naming theme for reindeer born that year, so some of the very first reindeer I got to know had names like Kermit, Go, Ever, Fern and Uaine (Gaelic for ‘green’). And there was also Eco (as in eco-friendly!). Eco wasn’t the prettiest of calves, having a big bulky head and slightly roman nose, but he was very friendly and greedy. I also remember that by the end of the first winter he had become slightly annoying, due to his habit of occasionally jumping up at people when he wanted feeding.
10 months old
The ugly duckling grew into a swan though, and Eco morphed into an extremely handsome young bull, and a big one at that. Not for very long though, as in 2009 we castrated many of our two year old bulls as they were all so enormous rather than waiting until they were three, and Eco was one of the ones who found himself suddenly slightly lacking in a certain department. But the flip side of the coin (for us at least!) was that we gained a fabulous ‘Christmas reindeer’, who could be trained to harness and join the teams of reindeer out and about at Christmas time.
Hen and Eco on a Christmas event together
Anyone who knew Eco didn’t have a bad word to say about him, or not seriously anyway. He was a lovely character, always cheerful and always delighted to be involved in whatever was going on, whether it be hand-feeding, greeting people in a pen at a Christmas event or taking part in one of the half-day treks that we used to do with visitors.
Always inquisitive and up to something!Eco entertaining the crowds at an event
He was a bit of a handful at times however, and certainly not a reindeer to hand over to a novice or nervous person to lead. He spent much of his life slightly like a child who has been given too many blue smarties and is bouncing off the walls – he could be completely hyperactive. Without doubt he was the Labrador of the reindeer world. I once tried to take him out for a walk around Glenmore when halter-training a calf, which turned out to be a real mistake as the calf, five months old and untouched by humans until the previous day, behaved far better than Eco. Why walk calmly forwards in a straight line when you can leap in the air, jump up a bank or down into a ditch, and spin round in a circle, preferably all whilst ‘knitting’ the lead rope around your antlers??? I never tried to use such a nutcase as my steady ‘training reindeer’ again… I also had a battle with him at the back of the sleigh at an event in a garden centre once, trying to negotiate the parade without him beheading every plant he could reach en route – and surreptitiously removing leaves from his mouth at the end.
Eco looking incredibly handsome as a two year old
He was fab, and one of my all-time favourite reindeer. Sadly he died when only middle-aged which was a huge pity, but these things happen and that’s the way the world works. It sometimes feels like it’s always the ‘good ones’ that die younger than average, but when there’s 150 reindeer in the herd at any one time it’s easy to forget the shy background characters as they come and go, remembering only the reindeer who stand out for one reason or another.
A slightly telling fact of how long I’ve been working here is that the green tags are now mostly no longer with us. It was a small calving that year anyway, but only five remain now, females Hopper, Fly, Fern and Meadow and male Puddock. We now have the ‘new green tags’: all the 2016 calves. I’ve come full circle through the lives of an entire generation of reindeer, which is a thought that makes me feel old.
I thought for a wee change I’d write a bit about one of the most important parts of the Reindeer Company, without which we could not function as a business and place of many a giggle and frustrated sigh. It is… The Office.
Reindeer herding is an unparalleled job for variety and us herders cover the whole job, we serve visitors in the shop, take visits, cover the paperwork, walk reindeer, train reindeer as well as heading out on tour with reindeer over the festive period. All in all there’s a lot to be done on a daily basis and the office is no exception and we all have our little niche that we’re responsible for. Myself, it’s adoption renewals and advertising, some of you may have come across Hen who is the lady to speak to if you’re buying antlers, or this blog itself which is under the firm control of Imogen.
Imogen showing how she will imprison us if we don’t supply her with blogs
The office is often a hive of activity and the festive period is no exception, over a period of two months we made over 500 adoption packs. That means over 500 handwritten certificates, ID cards, letters (lots of letters), special requests and addresses… all in all a lot of writing. The calligraphy pens become very coveted at this time of year, woe betide you if you blunt a nib! All in all, we do industriously enjoy our office time and our wee nook is the epicentre of everything reindeer. In one tiny room all adopt records are filed, reindeer movements are noted alongside vet records, locations and family trees.
Our trusty computers must every day wake up and download the day’s queries and requests and today the great delight of an email informing us that our order of replacement mop heads has been dispatched which was a triumphant feeling as it took a surprising amount of online mop education to finally locate just what type of mop head was required. Has anyone else heard of the Kentucky mop…?
The Famous Kentucky Mop
There’s always a new something in the office too whether it’s my mound of weird snacks (chia pudding being my current favourite), Hen on her ball, there have been around 5 ‘on the ball’ puns per minute since the appearance of said green sphere! After a trip away on yoga teacher training I’ve been attempting to share some of the cool wee things I’ve learned including myofascial release with a tennis ball.
Hen on her ball
Here’s Andi working on her back!
Andi looking to be in a little pain!
All in all it’s a pretty weird place to be in at times… as I write this I’m being serenaded by Boyz 2 Men (& Imogen) singing ‘I’ll make love to you’…. need anymore be said…
Reindeer are the past masters at keeping warm. When you evolve to live in temperatures below minus 30 Celsius then you need all your wits about you to keep warm.
Some of the boys toughing out a blizzard, ice plastered to their foreheads, including big Magnus (centre) who even has snow layering his antlers.
To begin with they have an extremely dense winter coat, 2,000 hairs to the square centimetre although I have to confess to not having confirmed that by counting them myself! Secondly, each individual hair is hollow for the same reason that we have holofil in our duvets. Air is a very good insulator so the combination of air in each hair and around each hair increases the insulation factor. In fact, reindeer are like a mobile thermos flask, neither allowing the cold in or indeed the warmth out. A bed of snow is a comfortable spot for a reindeer, and they can lie on it without even melting it.
Caddis and her young calf Mozzarella (in 2013) – calves have even thicker coats than adults so they can stay snug in late snowfall.
You may have noticed that cows or horses out in fields in windy weather tend to put their backs to the prevailing winds (as well as look pretty miserable). That is actually not a very clever thing to do, as the wind lifts the hairs and takes away more of their body heat. They need to copy reindeer who face a blizzard. By doing this they keep the hair across their body flat and so do not lose heat. The only disadvantage to this is you end up with a ice pack on your face. Lucky that reindeer have hairy foreheads.
Jenga in just a wee bit of snow, but not cold!
Actually if you study a reindeer closely from nose to tail you will find no bare skin anywhere and that even applies to the bottom of their feet. Yet another fine adaption to the cold, and with the added bonus of improving their grip on the ice and snow.
Finally, if you measure the temperature of the blood of a reindeer at its extremities you will find it is cooler. Once again this is to prevent heat loss. To do this a counter current system has evolved whereby the warm blood exiting from the main part of the body passes close to the colder blood coming back from the extremities. The net effect is the cold blood is warmed and the warm blood is cooled and the heat remains in the body.
A reindeer’s perfectly designed coat beats all of the artificial layers us herders have to wear – no contest! Look at the snow sitting unmelted on top of the fur.
There are other heat saving aspects to reindeer but I think that’s enough for now. Food for thought however it does mean that they can get awfully hot in the warmer weather. I reckon reindeer would be the first to sign up to a programme to slow down global warming!
In January, we are closed to the public, and it’s the time of the year when we all take the opportunity to take holidays and have a bit of a break. There’s still plenty to get on with though at the Centre – the reindeer are all free-ranging but we still feed them daily, if of course we can find them! At this time of the year their appetite is greatly reduced and the weather doesn’t always permit us to walk out onto the mountainside. If we can’t feed them, it doesn’t matter as they’re perfectly capable of finding enough food themselves, but its always nice to check them over and see that they’re all fine. On snowy days, this can take two or three of us two or three hours, as we’re often breaking a track through deep snow, whilst carrying feed, to get to where the reindeer are.
Gorgeous views, spying for the reindeer
Calling the reindeer – the better your call, the less distance you have to walk…!Not always the easiest of walks – reindeer may be designed for the snow but us herders aren’t!Hen’s call must have been good enough – the herd come to meet us.Follow the leader. This is on the outside of the enclosure fence line.Posers! This is Gazelle.Waiting expectantly for the food.
Aside from feeding the reindeer, there is plenty of maintenance to do at the Centre, which we can’t really do whilst we’re open. Painting the exhibition shed floor is a big job each January – it gets very worn over the course of the year so needs three coats of garage floor paint to smarten it up in preparation for all of our visitors over the coming year! It’s always entertaining reading the instructions on the paint can “Ensure the temperature is over 10*C”, then looking out of the window at the snow – anyone who’s visited will know that our exhibition shed is unheated, so it’s unfortunate that we have to do the floor in the coldest month of the year, when the temperature is mostly sub-zero. Our solution is to block off the doors and get a fan heater on, which helps, but I still wear a hat and gloves and take a cup of tea to help keep me warm!
Coat one is well under-way, you can see how worn the floor gets.
The other big job for me is to oil all of our Christmas harness and make any necessary repairs before it is popped into storage for the year. If you’ve met me, you may realise that I absolutely love order and lists, so organising harness is one of my favourite jobs. It’s also a little warmer sitting oiling harness in the shop than most of the other tasks. The shop is the only place large enough to do this really, which is another reason that its done whilst we’re closed, along with the fact that we’d never get round to it if we left it until before Christmas!
The shop in its January role.
There’s still also plenty of office work to get on with: making up adoption packs, answering emails, planning what gifts we’ll order to go in next year’s adoption packs, counting and reordering shop stock (again a delight for me as I get to make lists!). So whilst we may be a little quieter, don’t imagine we’re just sat around with our feet up!
Perhaps the most important purpose of being closed to the public in January is that after a hectic Christmas season (in fact all of 2016 was hectic…) it gives both us herders and the reindeer a proper break and change in routine, which means that when we reopen in February we’ll be bright and bushy tailed, and actually look forward to meeting our visitors and introducing everyone to the beautiful reindeer!
I thought I’d enlighten readers of a typical day in the life of a reindeer herder on tour.
7.30am: Anyone who knows me will know that I am terrible in the mornings, so my alarm clock is greeted with the usual feeling of utter horror, quickly followed by extreme distress. Fiona (my manager at Reindeer House) will testify that this can last till lunchtime sometimes.
Andi and I (collectively known as team Handi) are on tour with our reindeer once again and are currently right down in Cornwall. This is the furthest afield that we travel and are away from home for 2.5 weeks, the longest time we ever take reindeer on tour for. Home from home just now is a farm near St Austell, when both us and the reindeer have accommodation – but we’ve stayed on two other farms en route down here, and have had several days with no events, so by no means have we travelled all this way in one go.
Morning boys!
8am: Our event today doesn’t start till late afternoon, so it’s a fairly relaxed start for us. First priority is to check the reindeer, who are all still lying down dozing when we reach them. On this farm they have a lovely large barn with a deep straw bed, and it’s a particularly nice building for them as it is very well ventilated and they can see out at every angle. They also have some very close neighbours here, in the form of several groups of cattle, all of whom couldn’t quite believe their eyes when we led the reindeer into their shed on arrival yesterday!
Paintpot ignoring his inquisitive neighbours
Before we feed the reindeer their breakfast, we pop their halters on and lead them out in to a neighbouring field to stretch their legs. There’s a brief bit of galloping about and ‘dancing’ (the reindeer equivalent of a horse bucking), but they soon knuckle down to the more important business of grazing. Grass is far too rich for a reindeer’s diet for them to exist purely on it, but a short spell in a field does them no harm and they enjoy it immensely. Andi and I have the usual team of 6 reindeer with us – 4 castrated males (‘Christmas reindeer’) and two 6-month-old calves. Our team this time consists of Paintpot, Tanner, Sooty, Minute, Nazca and Olmec, and having been away from home for 8 days now, we have got the measure of them all, knowing all their little quirks and the exact pecking order between them.
Olmec, Nazca and Sooty following us round the fields
They look so relaxed out in the field that we prepare their breakfasts in the barn, but decide to have our own breakfast before bringing them in. It’s a nice secure field so there’s no worries about them deciding to explore the Cornish countryside on their own.
9am: We bring the reindeer in, but as this team are so relaxed, experiment with a laid-back method i.e. we don’t bother putting leadropes on the calves (we are nowhere near a road). They potter along – just the ticket – if only all teams were quite this easy to lead about! They dive into their breakfast bowls with enthusiasm and we leave them to it.
Leading the whole team back to the barn
Team Handi head inside – at this time of year Reindeer House is in the grip of Christmas chaos, and the staff left at home fight to keep their heads above water amidst (among many other jobs) the adoption packs that require making up in time for Christmas presents. As such, Imogen has emailed us through a list of letters that need writing, and Andi and I just happen to be equipped with headed paper, envelopes and stamps. Fancy that.
2pm: We’ve had a couple of hours off chilling out, but lunch has been had and there’s work to be done. We’re off to a Cornish seaside town today, about an hour’s drive away. We load up the reindeer, and off we go!
3.30pm: We arrive on schedule, and are greeted by the organisers of the event. Our pen is outside a hotel on a grassy area, and there’s a brief delay while they frantically locate some more barriers, the number needed having been lost in translation. This is why we always arrive with plenty of time to spare! I move the lorry around the back of the hotel into its car park, with one of the (male) staff taking it upon himself to ‘help’ me reverse. Have been driving a lorry for years, and have made it all the way here from northern Scotland – can probably just about manage this bit myself, thank you very much…
4pm: The reindeer are on public display before the parade today, so we get them settled into their pen with feed and water, and pop up our info signs. I wangle a couple of cups of tea too, essential for reindeer herders on tour. Well me anyway – Andi’s day was ruined earlier by a coffee machine producing a cup of hot milk without a hint of caffeine to be found. Disaster.
Delighted people looking at the reindeer
With a couple of hours to go before the parade Andi goes off to decorate the sleigh, while I man the fort in the pen, chatting to people and handing out leaflets. The reindeer still have their furry noses in their bowls and ignore the fairly large crowd, particularly, it seems to me, all the people hanging over the barriers calling out ‘Rudolph!’…
6.10pm: 20 minutes to go, so it’s time for us to start harnessing. Minute and Paintpot are the chosen sleigh pullers today, so they wear the bigger harnesses, while the ‘back reindeer’ wear smaller body belts and bells. We get a bucket of lichen to keep Olmec, who is the shyer of the two calves, busy while we put his harness on, but it just results in a mugging from the bolder Nazca – who has earned the reputation of ‘small and annoying’ in the last few days! Olmec stands quietly watching the antics of his buddy…
6.20pm: T-minus-10 minutes, so it’s time to put the reindeer ‘into trace’ (attach them to the sleigh). Andi is leading the reindeer at the front today, so it’s my job to clip the various straps to the right places, and make sure everything is correctly connected. Not helped halfway through by having to retrieve Nazca from the other side of the pen, complete with a wreath and set of bells on his head that he’s collected from the front of the sleigh. ‘Small and very annoying’ today, but it gives the crowd a good laugh! I attach his leadrope to the back of the sleigh, and hope he behaves himself. He doesn’t.
Minute and Paintpot all set for the parade
6.40pm: After a slightly late start (not our fault), we are off! The boys excel themselves to say the least, and are proper pros, ambling along steadily. Nazca even manages to keep his wee antlers to himself for a little while, rather than poking them where they don’t belong: into the decorations, another reindeer, the leadropes, parts of my anatomy. It’s a fairly short parade, so we’re finished by 7pm. Work done for the day, we unharness the boys (while the organisers and hotel staff all take selfies with Nazca!) and repack everything into the lorry.
7.25pm: The reindeer are loaded up, and we set off. A brief stop for fuel, and a short detour in the wrong direction at a roundabout, but we’re back at the farm by 8.30pm. The reindeer are unloaded back into their barn, the cows looking on, and as soon as I pick up the feed bag there’s a chorus of moos, just in case it’s for them. The reindeer are utterly unperturbed.
9pm: Boom! Job done! Dinner is in the oven and pyjamas are on. At this time of year they are the only item of my clothing without a background aroma of reindeer pee. And people think travelling all over Britain on tour with reindeer must be glamorous…
Amber was one of the very first reindeer I remember meeting when I arrived back in 2007. At that time she was in the hill enclosure with her 6-month-old son, Go. Both were very tame and friendly, and with her distinctive curved antlers, I found her easy to recognise amongst the sea of reindeer I was frantically trying to tell apart. Amber was also incredibly pretty, with a delicate, dished face and a gentle expression.
Amber in 2007 with her awesome antlers
Born in 1999, Amber was the final calf from her mum Trout. Trout and her compatriot, Tuna, lived to the grand old age of 18, which as far as I know is the record for any reindeer in our herd (Editor’s note: Lilac now holds this record, surviving to age 19 in 2018). No prizes for guessing the naming theme for their year of birth (1984)! Unlike Trout, who has 11 calves to her name on the family tree, Amber never proved to be such a successful breeding female, with her only offspring being Esme, Oasis, Go and Sambar, or at least those are the only ones that survived long enough to be named (we usually lose a calf or two each year in the summer months when they are very young and vulnerable). Esme managed a better job of breeding than her mum, with 7 calves to her name.
Amber in 2009Amber looking out over the hills towards Meall a Bhuachaille
Amber was one of those lovely, gentle reindeer, but a fairly dominant character in the herd – a matriarch, if you will. She was a great reindeer to have around in the winter months when the herd all free-range completely as she so was easy to catch, and therefore an ideal candidate to be put on a halter and used as the ‘lead’ reindeer when needing to move the herd from place to place. I remember Fiona once leading her all the way from Eagle Rock back to near the Ciste carpark (where we were going to take the tour to that day) with her belt looped loosely around Amber’s neck, in place of a halter which we had managed to forget to take with us.
The continuation of Trout’s branch of the family tree now rests squarely upon the shoulders of Amber’s last calf Sambar, who is the sole remaining female in Trout’s descendants, other than Esme’s daughter Okapi. Unfortunately we don’t want to risk breeding from Okapi as she has had a prolapsed uterus a couple of times, so we think it’s better to not risk the chance of this happening again. We want it to stay firmly where it belongs! So Sambar has a lot of expectation on her, and is a lovely reindeer to boot, although a wee bit shyer than Amber was.
Esme in 2009, with yearling OkapiAmber with Sambar on the left, in 2008
Amber herself passed away at some point in 2013, although we never knew exactly when as she just didn’t return from the summer grazing range in the autumn. She was over 14 by this point, so a very respectable age for any reindeer, and we are glad she finished her days out on the hills roaming freely.
So as many of you know we have various folk who volunteer their time and come and work alongside us. This may be for a week or even slightly longer depending on the circumstances. Often they are doing placement work through university or college but sometimes they just want a change of scenery from their lives as you have read in Sonya’s (3-part) blog!
There are our regulars Paul and Kathleen who have been visiting us for many years now and who try to get up at least once but sometimes a couple of times a year. Paul being an ex-carpenter and joiner comes armed with his tool box and basically fixes everything we break throughout the year. We also aren’t allowed to touch the feed bag as we would get our wrists slapped by him if we did. He keeps it filled to the brim and we don’t even have to fill our own daily bags of feed as they are waiting for us in the morning… We love Paul! Kathleen has been a great supporter and ambassador of our herd for a long time now and when she comes up to visit helps out in our shop and taking guided tours onto the hill… It’s a nice break for the girls and boy (Dave) who do the tours the rest of the time so thank you Kathleen. Caroline also manages to join us all the way from Oxfordshire from time to time to donate her arty skills and good humour.
So they are our yearly regulars but we still get a few others for week placements through the summer. You have read all about Sonya’s time with us. I hope it’s brought great entertainment to your weekly blog reading. Fran (who volunteered with us in 2015) joined us for six weeks gathering data for her dissertation… that’s a whole different blog so I’ll let her explain that one. Beth is another great supporter of the herd and whenever she comes up on holiday with the family always pops by for a day or two to help out. This year she did a whole week with us and ditched the family, they were obviously cramping her style! It was great having her around and we have all noticed a big change from the first time she came along till now, she has grown into a very independent young lady.
Sonya helping Hen to train Gandi and some other boys
Joe was with us in May and is a relation from Tilly’s side of the family. Along with Blyth, Leander, Erin and Shannon, he was looking to gain more experience within the animal industry to further his career. Amy came to us in August and for those of you who know the history behind our herd, you will recognise the name Dr Lindgren. Amy is Dr Lindgren’s great granddaughter, so it seems it still runs in the blood. Emm, like Beth, has been a supporter of the herd through our adoption scheme for many years. Her enthusiasm and hard work glowed! She knew most of the reindeer by name after only one week of working with them, and her herd list had notes all over it to help her recognise their individual features… Puts any reindeer herder who doesn’t know their reindeer to shame!
From L-R: Fiona, Blyth and Beth
I’m sure they all have their individual story to tell of their week, maybe many! And we always try to encourage them to take their very own guided tour by the end of the week. After they have heard all our bad jokes and cool reindeer facts they can then pass that onto the public in their own way. Most of them managed to do this, even Leander whose first language was German so good for him!
But I also just want to say thanks to them all as well. Having that extra pair of hands is great and I hope their time spent here was fun as well as informative. They do all this hard work during their time here yet, without fail there is always a box of chocolates (or other cake goodness) left on the table from them to us at the end. Seems the wrong way around, it should be us giving them the treats but hey who are we to complain… don’t let that comment stop any future chocolate/cake giving!
Sonya, author of this blog, came up to us in June to volunteer with our beautiful reindeer. She has very kindly written us a blog about her experience, and we will be sharing it over the next few weeks. Thanks so much to Sonya for coming along and being so helpful, and we really hope to see you again in the not too distant future!
Day One
In June 2016 I arrived for my volunteer placement at the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre in Glenmore with no previous experience of working with animals but lots of enthusiasm and affection for the reindeer I had visited as a tourist many times before. I had recently taken the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy from my 20 year career and had a whole summer to fill before starting university in September. I had no idea what to expect but was seeking solace and comfort in the remoteness of the fabulous Cairngorms and the company of the placid reindeer. I was blessed with a rare dry day on the first Monday and arrived promptly at 8am alongside fellow herders Imogen who has a zoology degree and big-bearded Dave who I later found out to be exceedingly well travelled and originally from New Zealand. By the way, it’s the beard that’s big, not Dave himself.
So after meeting a confusing muddle of strangely named dogs, I was introduced to Fiona who runs the Centre, and tasks were allocated for the morning. Can you guess what my first job was? That’s right…. reindeer poop scooping. Keen to carry out all necessary tasks enthusiastically, I wielded the bespoke pooper scooper and collected a remarkable bucketful of the stuff from the paddocks. A few of the herd are kept in the paddocks for two weeks at a time so they are more accessible to very young, old or less-able visitors who can’t manage the hill trip to see the whole herd. After scooping all the poop I could find, transferring the contents of the bucket to a sack was a trickier and less appealing task but the trusty Dave was on hand to show how it’s done without spilling too much. I confess from that moment on I found myself a pair of gloves for this task and many others, much to Dave’s derision, I suspect. But hey, you can take the girl out of Essex………
I had a full and detailed explanation from Dave on how to open up the exhibition ready for visitors and spent some time replenishing the children’s craft materials, I wish I was 5 years old again so that I could make paper chains or make an antler headband, and draw colourful pictures of my reindeer friends. However, with pencils sharpened, loan wellies sorted into sizes and the shop vacuumed, it was time to set off on the first hill trip. The tourists were very impressed with Dave’s authentic appearance of bushy beard and battered green hat and took several photos of him and the van before we even set off. I’m convinced I need to change my image, which currently consists of generic walking attire, so as to appeal to the tourists but I am stuck for inspiration, more of this later.
On the first hill trip the cheeky Svalbard is overly friendly and pushes and prods me repeatedly with his antlers and nose. The tourists mistake his behaviour for affection and there are many oohs and aahs and clicks of cameras, however it’s far more likely that he recognised the smell of food on the jacket I was borrowing from the Reindeer Centre.
Svalbard
I also learnt that my adoptee ‘Gandi’ is there somewhere, in amongst the swirling sea of moulting coats and velvet antlers that greeted us. Correction, they are greeting the sack of food, not us, and I have learnt they couldn’t care less about us or how the food gets there. Despite this pragmatic realisation, I am still deluding myself that Gandi recognised me, if he could talk he’d even remember my name, of course!
Visitors admire Gandi
I am delighted and relieved to see him in such good health with a remarkably majestic pair of antlers. I feel inordinately proud that I chose such a worthy recipient of my sponsorship, for he is also a recent TV star in the BBC Scotland programme about the Highlands due to be shown across other BBC regions in Autumn 2016.
After lunch Dave teaches me how to mix the reindeer food, I was keen to get started as I love a piece of machinery and rather ingeniously, I thought, a cement mixer is used to mix the food. And when you realise the quantity of food they get through, you realise why it’s necessary to mechanise the process. There is little demand for a commercially available reindeer food, as this is the only large free-ranging herd in the UK, so I was shown the recipe and the shed full of ingredients. We started with sheep food containing corn and grains, then added extra barley, some starchy sugar beet, some fibrous malt pellets which are a waste product from the numerous nearby distilleries, added a sprinkle of a secret mineral supplement and four big handfuls of hay enriched with garlic and molasses. Well this was all fascinating for me and I was enjoying making this tasty treat until we ran out of grain. Dave despatched me to the shed to fetch more barley, all good so far. I located the barley and saw with some dismay how huge the new sack was. I should mention at this point that I only manage to measure five feet with my shoes on, and the heaviest thing I’d lifted in my previous job was a bottle of Chanel No 5! Battle with the barley sack commenced but I should have been grateful for small mercies as some of the other ingredients are much heavier.
Preparing the feed
By the time we had mixed about half a cubic metre of food, it was a relief to leave behind the previously fascinating cement mixer, and head up to the hill again on the 2:30pm trip. Dave encouraged me to carry the sack of food but I chickened out and took the lighter and smaller sack of hand feed. Poor Dave gets the bigger, heavier sack yet again, but gallantry isn’t completely dead in my world!
Near the end of the trip Dave gets a phone call, we’re a 20 min walk from the nearest road and goodness knows how far from the nearest dwelling but amazingly there’s a mobile signal in the reindeer enclosure. I can’t always get one of those in flat, overpopulated Essex. Anyway the phone call is to invite me to the reindeer shed to see some vaccinations taking place where I met the famous Tilly, Fiona’s mum and owner of the herd. The injection is to help prevent the potentially fatal red water fever that can kill a reindeer if not caught early enough. Imogen had previously told me that Tilly always comes to administer these injections as there is a tiny chance the reindeer will go into anaphylactic shock and she has the most experience to deal with that possibility. Despite their huge antlers and sharp hooves, I had never felt even remotely intimidated by reindeer before. But closed in a tiny shed with six of them circling round and round in an effort to escape the needle, it felt a bit like being caught up in a whirling dervish of hoof and hair and taught me a greater respect for the fact they are still wild animals even though they generously humour us with their presence and grace.
Day Two
Tuesday starts with much excitement and anticipation when Fiona tells me I can join her and Hen on a harness training session. Hen is the longest serving herder based at Reindeer House other than Fiona and I found out she can recognise and name every single reindeer, as can most of the herders. However, if a pair of antlers are cast in the autumn, Hen knows which reindeer they belonged to as she recognises the distinct and unique form of each and every reindeer’s antlers even when they’re no longer on the animal. The Cairngorm reindeer participate in many Christmas events across the country and it’s important they keep practising with the halter and harness throughout the year so that Christmas is a relaxed affair with no anxiety. Another treat for me is that my adoptee Gandi is one of the reindeer coming along on the practice session because he and Elvis are experienced trekkers and will set a good example to Camus, Balmoral and Shinty. I hadn’t met the last three reindeer before and I’m pleased to say they all did very well with their training. Shinty was the most reluctant to get going and he gave Hen a thorough workout by making her tug him up the hill, but with Gandi encouraging him from behind, we were soon underway on our circuit.
So this is Hen on the left and me on the right with reindeer (from left to right) Elvis, Shinty, Gandi, Camus and Balmoral. It was to be the last glimpse of the sun for several days so I’m glad I took up Fiona’s offer to take a photo of me with the reindeer and I sent it to my ex-colleagues to illustrate the dramatic difference to my working day.
The rest of the day was spent on hill trips with tourists, becoming more familiar with the information we impart to the eager visitors. Many people meet a favourite reindeer on their visit, as I did with Gandi, and decide to adopt them. In between the trips we all work on the biannual newsletter as it’s time to send it out to all the reindeer adopters. This edition of the newsletter features many tales of the reindeer and activities and events at the centre. There are some hilarious stories about Fergus, a hand-reared calf who has turned out to be a very cheeky boy indeed, and sadly, there’s a moving obituary to Grunter, a much loved reindeer who was also hand-reared when he was a calf.
I’ve learnt the name of another member of the herd today, the endearing Blue, who was named in the year of cheeses 2013. He was born with a condition which means he is very pale, almost completely white and he’s also deaf. Many visitors think he is albino but Imogen explained to me that albinism means a complete lack of pigment, whereas Blue just has a reduced level of pigment which means he is Leucistic. His skin is very pink and prone to sunburn and any broken skin could lead to infection so he has bright yellow ‘summer cream’ on his face which is a mix of sunscreen and insecticide to keep the midges away. Blue has been a bit slow to come for food today and hasn’t hand fed from the tourists as much as normal so on one of my hill trips with Imogen, it’s necessary to take his temperature once the visitors are gone. I’ve seen this before and it involves luring them close with an irresistible bucket of lichen to get a halter on them, one person holds the head while the other person takes the temperature from the ‘other end’. Whilst Imogen does the ‘business’ she regales me with detailed advice about insertion of the thermometer, which angle is best, how long to leave it in, etc. I decide it’s time to manage her expectations and make it clear, I’m happy to learn the theory, but as far as practise goes, I think I’ll remain at the head end, thank you very much!
Blue having a wee lie down
Today I also discussed with Imogen how I could possibly look less like a tourist when we take the visitors out. Her insightful but wildly impractical suggestion is that I should dress for conditions at least ten degrees warmer, so go up the hill in just a t-shirt when everyone else is in hats and jackets, and claim it’s a warm day. I fear this soft southerner might catch her death if she attempted that, so I bear it in mind but keep my multiple layers firmly in place.
Sonya
Stay tuned for part 2 of Sonya’s blog, which will be out in a couple of weeks!
