Daisy
Photo Blog: Reindeer in the snow
The Story of Chickpea
Chickpea is a beautiful lass with a distinctive white nose. She was born in 2020 to mum Angua and dad Spartan. Her first couple of years were quite tough, with illness and not one but two periods of time where she went missing from the herd whilst she was out free ranging in the hills. Thankfully she has truly come into her own and is now a strong healthy lass, in excellent condition. She had her first surviving calf in 2025, a handsome male we named Jig, so a true happy ending after the rather wobbly ‘teenage’ years.
Chickpea’s full brother Zoom (who has very similar markings) also has a rather interesting tale which Andi wrote about in this blog. Well worth a read, another lovely story!
I didn’t meet Chickpea until summer 2021, when I returned to reindeer herding, so I missed the first year of her life but she certainly looked like a gorgeous calf. The first time I remember meeting Chickpea was in summer 2021 whilst I was out on a free range mission. I found a lovely group of reindeer which included Chickpea and her mum Angua, who both looked very relaxed and in good health.
At the end of the summer/early autumn we start seeing the free ranging reindeer more on lower slopes of the hills as the higher plateau gets colder, the grazing deteriorates, and the tasty mushrooms start appearing at lower altitudes. By around mid-September 2021 we’d managed to catch up with all of the free rangers, except for one, Chickpea! What had happened to her? This occasionally does happen, a reindeer goes missing and after a while we have to very sadly conclude that they must’ve died whilst out free ranging, perhaps succumbing to an illness. But we didn’t give up hope for Chickpea! On the 29th of September a hillwalker reported a small single reindeer on the mountain plateau. With all other reindeer accounted for this had to be Chickpea. The rest of the free ranging herd were in a good area not too far away from the hill enclosure, so we just had to hope Chickpea was able to navigate her way to them.
Just over a week passed and there were no more reports of her. As normal at that time of year, we drive up to Cairngorm Base Station and spy the hills to see if we can see any free ranging reindeer. On the 9th of October, Sheena and I were up on the hill early looking for reindeer and who did we bump into? Chickpea! Hooray! Along with another yearling female called Sunflower. Her new winter coat looked a bit tatty, and we think she must’ve had an illness in the late summer, but otherwise she appeared just fine.
Chickpea then spent the first part of 2022 out free ranging in the hills. As a young female, she didn’t need to come into the hill enclosure for calving, so she remained out free ranging with the rest of her cohort and all the other non-breeding females. Her mum Angua was brought in for calving and gave us a gorgeous calf, we later called Zoom!
We caught up with Chickpea as normal in the beginning of the summer and Andi found her in a nice big herd of cows and calves in mid-July 2022 looking healthy and in good condition. But as autumn rolled around and once again, we start bringing reindeer in off the free range, Chickpea, Angua and her calf Zoom were the only reindeer not to be accounted for. You’ll read the full story of Zoom’s return in Andi’s blog (link above) but once he was brought back into the enclosure the only reindeer left unaccounted for was Chickpea… again!
We got several reports from hillwalkers of a single reindeer and we even received a couple of emails with photos of her so we knew she was out there somewhere, but frustratingly we were unable to catch up with her ourselves. There are no fences on the free range so the area they can roam is vast and the sightings of her were all from the furthest part of their range.
Then on one otherwise completley normal morning on the 21st of March 2023, Hen and Lisette went out to find and move the herd in time for the Hill Trip. And who was there?! Chickpea! She looked very scruffy and was a little on the lean side but was otherwise in good spirits and keen to get into the handfeed bag!
It is normal for us to go weeks or months without seeing a particular free ranging reindeer over the summer. However, Chickpea ended up evading us for around eight months! Thankfully, this is very unusual! I certainly do not know of another reindeer who has gone AWOL for anywhere near that long whilst I’ve been working here.
Thankfully Chickpea has not made us all this anxious again! In fact, she’s absolutely thrived and you certainly couldn’t tell by looking at her she has had a couple of rather big solo ‘adventures’. She remained with the herd throughout March and April 2023 and we gave her some extra calorific food to give her a wee boost. She then continued to free range all spring and summer, but we saw her much more frequently!
In May 2025 Chickpea gave birth to a gorgeous male calf, also with a white nose. The pair went out to free range for the summer, we caught up with them several times, and they clearly had a good season as they both came back into the enclosure in the autumn in great condition. We named Chickpea’s calf Jig, and he’s one of the biggest calves of the year. Chickpea is going from strength to strength and hopefully will never make us worry so much again!
Ruth
Hen’s Christmas wall of shame – 2025
I thought I might start an annual blog of photos I’ve taken over the winter season, of things that are supposed to be reindeer – and aren’t. Although it turns out that being as I didn’t really go anywhere this winter, I didn’t take that many photos. Will try harder next year…
First up, shortbread. The commonest offender at Christmas I reckon, every shop has Christmassy tins of red deer, blatantly assuming they are reindeer. Or maybe just assuming that ‘deer are deer’ and they’re all the same… (arggh).
Shame on you, Tesco.
Ah, wrapping paper. Also a common offender. I’m not even sure what this (below) is supposed to be. It ain’t no reindeer, that’s for sure…
Another image I saw online that I thought warranted a mention, despite not being my own photo, was a new Banksy on a wall in Birmingham. The ‘reindeer’ (prancing Christmas affairs) are pulling a sleigh represented by a bench that is often used by homeless people; in the Guardian’s words: A Christmas cracker with a bang of reality. I like Banksy’s artwork, but ya know, would have been better if the mural showed actual reindeer…
Whilst I mostly failed miserably at remembering to take photos of the Christmas monstrosities masquerading as reindeer (quite possibly because I usually take a wide berth around the Christmas aisles in most shops), my winner this year (below) came looking for me at the Reindeer Centre, arriving in a box of stationary I’d ordered from Viking.
Eventually, having stared for too long at the vaguely fallow deer-esque antlers, still in velvet, on a head that isn’t a fallow, I realised it’s an AI picture entirely (as opposed to some bubble wrap and a ribbon being photoshopped onto an actual photo). God help us. So I’m naming and shaming you, Viking Office Supplies!
I’ll be back in a year with the Christmas 2026 edition of this blog…
Hen
2025 – another wonderful year of volunteers!
Once again we had an excellent volunteer season in 2025, with a lot of familiar faces returning to spend another week with the reindeer, and also plenty of fresh new ones!
We take on volunteers for a week at a time, starting on a Monday, from roughly the start of May (start of April from 2026 onwards) when we move up to two daily guided Hill Trips, through to the end of the October holidays. In 2025 we had the Paddocks up and running once again so everything has had a more ‘normal’ feel to it, with volunteers learning the daily routine down at the Centre as we open to the public each day – lots of poo-picking and sweeping and general smartening up of the place each day! But most time is spent up on the mountainside with the main part of the reindeer herd, helping with the guided tours and chatting to all the visitors. Taking a volunteer along on one, often two, tours a day is the best way we can provide heaps of time right in amongst the reindeer – time that is something I suspect us herders can take for granted rather easily.
So, in no particular order, huge thanks to our ‘new’ volunteers in 2025 – Stephan, Victoria, Dylan, Marsaili, Ruth, Jo, Jane, Sarah, Kathy, Jamie K, Anna, Sue and Jamie C. There was also Daisy and Alicia, but it seems a bit odd now to list their names as volunteers as they’ve both come back to work for us – this time in return for money! Alicia, who lives locally, has been doing a couple of days a week, whilst Daisy (and her lovely collie dog Echo) loaded up her camper van and made the long journey north from Kent and is working full time for us. Volunteering is our favourite way of recruiting future staff, so hint, hint if you want to get your foot in the door here… Here’s a link to the excellent blog Kathy wrote for us after her visit, if you want an idea of what volunteers get up to. And here’s another blog written by Anna who amongst her volunteer duties enjoyed taking photos of the reindeer.
For the returnees, we had Kathleen, Jayne, Sophie, Lisa, Helen, Rachel, Katie, Stephanie, Anne, Becca and Emm. Long-term followers of ours will probably know of Emm, who’s helped us out over the years multiple times, and always writes us wonderful blogs about her time here! You’ll find her most recent blog from her visit in February here – no doubt there will be another from her October visit published in the next few months.
In 2025, 15 year old Maisy has turned from a volunteer to a paid member of staff, working some weekends and in the school holidays. She apparently can’t get enough reindeer time though, as she still turns up to volunteer too at times, sometimes arriving off the school bus unexpectedly! She wrote a blog with lots of lovely photos here, back in the summer. And Carol, our local volunteer from Moray, has been in on some weekends too.
All in all, another excellent year! If YOU are interested in volunteering, we start booking people in from the start of January each season, so drop us an email. Volunteer weeks start on Mondays from April to October inclusive, and are 5-7 days a time. We can only take on one person at a time though, so it’s first come, first served…
Hen
Volunteer Blog: Anna’s Photography
I volunteered with the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre in September from the 22nd to the 26th after being accepted which I was so happy about as I have been a fan of the Centre since moving from England up to the Highlands five years ago. I fell in love with Aviemore and the Cairngorms quite early on and experienced a Hill Trip after my husband surprised me with a reindeer adoption (Dr Seuss) for my birthday and since that I have been on three further Hill Trips in varying weather but particularly enjoyed it in snow.
I love reindeer, I find them fascinating, beautiful, calm, serene and endlessly photogenic plus I have acquired a passion for wildlife in the Highlands from seals, dolphins, whales, deer and to my favourite animal which is the reindeer. I am a very keen hiker and am getting to know more of the Cairngorm hills and mountains as time has gone by and my experience grows, so the combination of being amongst my favourite Highland scenery in addition to helping out with this physically demanding and rewarding role was an absolute must for me.
I am also a photographer who specialises in landscapes, locations, scenery and mountains but not much experience of wildlife so I really wanted to explore how to capture these majestic and friendly animals.
On my first day at the Centre I was struck by the amazing images that have been taken by herders already and that are produced into postcards, calendars and prints in the beautifully presented and stocked shop which only opened earlier this year. I noticed that landscape was the preferred format for a postcard and was inspired to try and produce my own stunning image when I first went out into the Paddocks and then onto one of my many Hill Trips that week. I was blessed with great weather luckily, some lovely blue skies combined with dramatic cloud over the Cairngorm range and plenty of sun too.
My first attempt was to capture the reindeer in the Paddocks first thing in the morning when the cold breath was visible from their nostrils and the trees surrounding them made the early sunlight more interesting.
My second attempt was when I was up at the top area of the hill enclosure with the other herders tending to a couple of poorly reindeer and while I had a few moments I managed to snap the other reindeer through the fence and a gate, plus an open door of the shed. There was I thinking I was clever and that I’d nailed it I went and showed Fiona back at the Centre, who has taken her own amazing photos over time that have made it on postcards. She told me very nicely that anything interrupting the view of the reindeer does not appeal to the public as they prefer to see the animals in their natural, free habitat without fences etc, great advice which I straight away took on board, even if a little crest fallen…
On my other Hill Trips once we had done our jobs feeding the reindeer and engaging with the public, answering their questions or taking photos of them with the reindeer near them, I was able to walk around a bit and try to get my own images from that day, depending on which reindeer was still enough or what would strike me as an interesting shot.
I did manage to get a couple of photos through the antlers with a reindeer herder in the background which was a treat and I was very lucky one lovely day when I spotted the most amazing reindeer under the big photogenic tree with Meall a’ Bhuachaille (the hill) behind it and I took a few different pics while it was reaching up to the branches of the tree as if it was a giraffe on the African plains feeding from the high up leaves and then the same reindeer around the base of the tree with beautiful sunlight on it.
On my very last day I was blessed at the end of the second Hill Trip with a quick dash up to the ridge with Maisie to call and feed the roaming reindeer. on the top of that ridge (which I have hiked many times before) you get the most incredible view of the Cairngorm plateau so I was very happy to be in one of my favourite places. Maisie did a brilliant job of calling the small herd who swiftly ran down into the valley below and headed up into the wild heather just below us to have some food. I was amazed by the stunning scenery around me and the very beautiful reindeer with pristine antlers that came and stood right in front of me, so I promptly fell back into the soft heather behind me and started to photograph this unique scene.
I believe I was very fortunate that afternoon to have the blue sky, mountains with the dramatic cloud and the joy of the prettiest reindeer around. Maisie did also take a photo of me with Cairngorms behind me which I very much appreciated.
Of course I did not want to leave at the end of the week as I was so loving being in this familiar environment with the animals that I had admired for ages and the herders that I had wanted to be like and learn from too, who all turned out to be amazing, helpful and friendly. What I learnt in those five days will stay with me for ever and the gratitude I have for the most amazing experience is as real as the reindeer and I remain hopeful that maybe one day a photo of mine will make it into the shop…
Anna
Catching up with Charleston and Quickstep
At the end of the summer, we begin to collect our female reindeer off the free range which allows us to give them a check over and start preparing for the rutting (breeding) season in October. How soon the reindeer make their way back to our hill enclosure usually varies per year and this year we were heading into October with two cows and their calves still somewhere out on the free range with very limited sightings of them.
We were close to mid-October when we received a very exciting call about some reindeer being spotted on the free range. Due to it being the rutting season, it meant that us reindeer herders were busy checking on reindeer in our hill enclosure and on Hill Trips meaning there wasn’t really anyone to spare to head out on to the free range. Since we had those two pairs of cows and calves still to be accounted for, we were keen to get out to the group as soon as we can.
The next day, I headed out to where the group was last seen and enjoyed a wonderful search on a quiet area of the mountainside with gorgeous weather. Lucky for me, the group of reindeer that had been seen weren’t that far from where they had last been reported. So, I headed down to them to identify who was there. Initially, I spotted girls that we had seen often through the summer period; Spy is easy to ID from afar as she is aloof and has a stunning set of antlers, Oatcake is another reindeer we had seen recently and is easy to ID on the free range as, as soon as she realizes you have food there is no getting away from her!
I moved closer to the group and noticed a few other younger reindeer like Fab and Mocha, who were both looking great and catching up with the group was made even more special once I had noticed we had a cow and a calf present (a calf who was huge and in great condition). Tap and her calf (now named Charleston) hadn’t been seen for a wee while, which meant that it was great to catch up with them. Tap was also uncharacteristically sociable and was keen to eat the hand feed that I had to offer, she is usually like her sister Spy in nature- very independent!
Now that we knew who was in the herd, I grabbed a few photos and then fed the group in a spot where it would be easy for my fellow herders to find them the following day. Once Tap and Charleston were moved into our enclosure, this just left one cow and calf on the hill side which we hadn’t seen since the start of the summer.
Fast forward a week, and we were in our hill enclosure walking out to one of our breeding groups who we were due to feed. At this time our free-range reindeer were keeping close to our hill enclosure in hopes of extra food and were right outside the fence line. I personally hadn’t thought much about it as I was focused on how Jimmy (the breeding bull) would react to our arrival and it wasn’t until Fiona took account of the group that we realized our last cow and calf had made their way back to the hill enclosure on their own accord; we weren’t expecting to catch up with Pinto and her calf Quickstep that morning, which was the most welcome of surprises.
I have enjoyed heading out onto the free range a few times over the summer, getting to experience different areas that the reindeer frequent and I am constantly in awe at how much our girls move around during the summer and would love to get an inside view on their knowledge of the hill side, as it is quite common that we do not catch up with reindeer for a few months until they arrive on the door step of our hill enclosure.
Amy
Photo Blog: December 2025
The last photo blog of the year! I’ve actually been rather rubbish at taking photos this month as it’s just been so busy (and rather dark with the shortest days of the year) but here’s a wee look at some of the pics I’ve taken on my phone over the past few weeks.
Christmas events went well with teams making us all very proud. Hill Trips have been mostly sold old for weeks (well done if you got tickets) and Christmas Fun was mostly sold out too – it’s been great to see so many people enjoying the brand-new Exhibition and folks getting to meet Santa! Meanwhile up on the hill the reindeer have all been well and unaware of the slight frazzled state of the herders down at the Centre.
Enjoy the photos and Merry Christmas! A big thank you to all who have read the blog over the last 12 months.
Ruth
Wee calfie antlers!
With autumn being the season that the calves return to the hill enclosure, along with their mums, it’s always exciting to see them and to start to get to know them as characters. Having spent all summer with males only in the enclosure, it’s suddenly a bit overwhelming to have a sea of ‘new’ reindeer to get to know once again! The calves are the hardest to learn who is who.
Last time we saw them properly, in late spring, they were tiny and heading out to free-range in their calf coats, which are quite different in colouration to an adult reindeer’s coat. By autumn they’ve moulted, grown their new winter coat, and are many times bigger – i.e. they look COMPLETELY different! Other than very obvious colour variation and face markings, their wee antlers are the easiest way to tell them apart. The photo below shows Macchiato at 4 months old, looking about as generic as is possible for a reindeer calf – very average size and shape antlers, along with being very much the ‘normal’ body colour. Difficult to tell one from t’other, looking like this!
So I thought I’d show some of the antler shapes of calves over the years in this blog. The memorable ones tend to be the biggest ones, of which the outright winner – by a country mile – is Gandalf. However, he was born in Sweden, and many of the Swedish calves we’ve imported over the years (to increase our genetic diversity within the herd) have had very big antlers so maybe he should be disqualified my list…
So… my winner for sheer height of antler is Jester, who definitely looked a bit out of proportion as a calf. He’s gone on to grow enormous adult antlers too, though tending towards wider rather than tall.
Some calves have really complex antlers – not quite as tall as Jester’s but more elaborate with several points on each. Examples include:
Duke gets a bonus point for having a forward-pointing tine at the base of one of his calf antlers – perfectly normal in an adult reindeer, but rare in a calf.
Whilst not the biggest calf antlers ever, Fez wins my ‘prettiest’ antlers award. Small and perfectly formed, with several points top and bottom. Beautiful!
But sometimes, it all goes wrong. Calf antlers, being thinner than adult antlers, are easily broken, especially as adult reindeer show no love whatsoever for anyone else’s offspring other than their own, and are all too willing to whack a calf on the head with a hoof should they get in their way. This results in antlers breaking, and this happens whilst the antler is still growing, they will sometimes fuse at the break and the calf is left with a flopped-over broken point.
If this happens early enough in the season, the antler will, once the break is fused and healed, start to grow upright once again from the break. Here’s Fava below, who had managed to break his right hand antler not once but twice, resulting in two downward pointing bits. His antler shows a centimetre of new, upward growth from the break – and then he ran out of time to grow any more!
Antlers broken right at the base can cause a problem with obscuring vision, poor Hopscotch here had to have this disaster (above) sawn off once it had lost all feeling in the autumn, so she could see where she was going!
And sometimes, it all just goes terribly, terribly wrong…
Holy Moley’s broken antler resulted in a shaved head after the vet had to remove the broken bit right at the base to prevent further damage. Some of you might remember watching her story on our Channel 4 documentary in 2020!
Hen
Learning to ID reindeer
One of the trickiest things to learn when starting out as a herder is telling reindeer apart! With over 150 reindeer in the herd, all with their own name, it can seem a very daunting task. So how do you tell a reindeer apart from all the rest?
Every herder has their own method of identifying reindeer. Most can just take one glance, and due to having spent years with the same reindeer and learning to tell them apart – instantly know who it is. But if you haven’t spent years watching the reindeer grow and change with the seasons, there are a few techniques you can use. Be warned though, you’ll constantly feel like you’re back at square one should you visit us throughout the year and try to recognise your favourite.
I’ll start with the easiest way to tell the reindeer apart – their ear tags. Each of our reindeer are tagged with a group colour and a unique number. The colour changes each year, allowing us to quickly work out how old they are. For example, yellow ear tags are for this year’s yearlings, born in 2024 and all named after hot drinks. Silver ear tags belong to the peas, beans and seeds calves of 2020, making them all five this year, and so on. The number then allows you to straight away know exactly who the reindeer is (orange tag 201 for instance, being the lovely, and very well-known Sherlock). The downside to this method is, you have to memorise over 150 ear tag colours and corresponding numbers…
The more enjoyable method is personalities. All our wonderful reindeers have their own unique quirks and traits. Whether they’re extremely greedy and can always be counted on to be front and centre for our hill trips (I’m talking about you Nile!), or if they have a more reserved character and tend to be the shy contemplator at the end of the feed line. Their personalities shine through and can be a good way for us to tell who’s nearby.
Now let’s talk about antlers! From little twigs on top of a calf, to magnificent displays fit for a castle fireplace once a bull has finished with them – antlers can be a great way to tell reindeer apart. After the age of three or four, when a reindeer is fully grown, you can usually count on a reindeer to grow the same set of antlers every year. The shape and size of a reindeer’s antlers is genetically inherited by their parents, and is unique to that reindeer, just like our thumb print (how cool is that?!). there are some factors that can influence this, such as the health of the reindeer, their age, if a male has been castrated or a female is caring for a calf. But generally, you can count on antlers being a very reliable way to identify a reindeer. Until they shed them of course!
So, their antlers are gone, and you didn’t study your list of ear tag numbers – now what do you do? Well now you have the not so fun task that no body would possibly want to do… get up close and personal with 150 cute and fuzzy faces! The longer you look at the reindeer, the more obvious the differences in their coat and face markings and the shape of their bodies becomes. With an odd white reindeer here and a brown face with a white speckled nose there, you quickly begin to use markings and patterns to learn who’s who.
But don’t forget those changing seasons… The reindeer you think you learnt in winter are likely to be all brown by summer. So, maybe you should get memorising those ear tag numbers after all.
Daisy
Glacée
It’s nice to do a blog about an individual reindeer every now and again. Naturally it often ends up being an older reindeer, or someone with bags of in-your-face character. However this week’s blog is all about a three year old female called Glacée who up until recently didn’t really stand out in the herd that much.
Glacée was born in 2022 and her mum, Dante, happens to be a reindeer who I have a big soft spot for. Dante is mega! She’s a big girl, who grows large antlers. She has an independent nature, she’s not super greedy or pushy but if we work with her gently, she’s reliable and catchable. In 2022, Dante had her second daughter, who later was named Glacée. (As of 2025 Dante now has four daughters – Mangetout, Glacée, Amazon and a new calf for 2025 named Disco!).
As usual, Glacée was born in the hill enclosure and after a few weeks, she and Dante headed for the hills. By the end of August it was time to bring them both back into the hill enclosure so we could start getting wee Glacée used to visitors, teach her what a bag of food is, and train her to walk on a halter.
We found Dante and Glacée in an area quite far away from the hill enclosure, too far away to simply walk them back in. However, we couldn’t get anywhere near Glacée to catch her, she was a very timid calf. So, us herders took it in turns to go out and feed Dante with the intention of slowly getting Glacée used to being around us so we could get close enough to catch her. What a chore – getting to walk in a beautiful area to find and chill out with two lovely reindeer! After a few trips out to see them both, Dante decided she would actually just bring herself home, and one morning we found her on the ‘ski road’ here on Cairngorm, where Fiona simply walked them in! They spent the autumn in the hill enclosure where Glacée quickly grew in confidence around people.
As a yearling and a two year old, Glacée blended into the background a bit. She is ‘normal coloured’ and grows nice but relatively simple antlers. She had an independent streak so wasn’t super ‘in-your-face’ greedy but she always remained reliable when catching her out.
In May 2025, aged three years old, Glacée had her first calf – a wee girl who we later named Ceilidh! Just like her three years earlier, Ceilidh was born within the hill enclosure and spent the summer out free ranging. Glacée and her calf came back into the enclosure in late August. This process was slightly easier than when Glacée herself was a calf as they were in walking distance from the enclosure and Lotti and Mel had a wonderful morning bringing them home.
Since Glacée has been back in the enclosure we’ve noticed a real change in her behaviour – she has turned into a complete beast! She’s got bags of attitude and confidence and spends a lot of her time chasing other reindeer around, including some older girls I was quite surprised to see her dominating. This can be quite distracting whilst trying to give a talk to our Hill Trip visitors, with her charging around in the background! She certainly like her own space! She’s only three years old so it will be interesting to see how she develops over the next few years. I can imagine her being one of the big dominant cows in the herd. Time will tell…
Ruth