Roaming freely since 1952
Normality has resumed and over the last month we have welcomed our lovely visitors to our site in Glenmore and have also caught up with a few of our cows and calves. They’re all looking well and have had a good summer out on the free range!
Amy
You know something has gone very right when you accidentally end up being a reindeer herder for the summer. I met herders Mel and Chris on the Isle of Rum, and about two months later I found myself moving into Reindeer House. I couldn’t have predicted becoming a herder, and it has exceeded all of my expectations!
I arrived in Glenmore at the start of May, right in the thick of calving season. The first month was an amazing blur where every day was different, calves were being born left right and centre, and the sun was shining every day. By June I felt fully settled in to my new role, the calves were now free ranging in the mountains, and I was able to work on perfecting the art of guiding Hill Trips! July brought on some very impressive sets of antlers, looking back at photos from May, I can barely recognise any of the boys! It has been a process of constantly learning and relearning who is who because the reindeer seem to shape shift on a weekly basis. Now that August is upon us, I’m starting to get sad realising my first summer here at Cairngorm is nearly over!
Here’s some photos from this summer of herding:
Caz
In this week’s blog I will write about Texel, one of my favourite reindeer. Texel (pronounced Tessel) will turn 4 years old on the 17th of May. She is the daughter of Addax and Houdini, and in May 2022 had her first ever calf, a young male called 99.
Texel is easily recognisable with a face that is mostly white. She likely inherited this from her mother, Addax, who has a speckled face pattern. Texel’s son, 99, is also pretty unique as he is one of our three leucistic calves that were born last May, meaning that he has a white coat all over his body.
Texel was named in the 2019, in keeping with the naming theme of ‘European Place Names’. Following on from Brexit we decided to name the reindeer after beautiful places in beautiful Europe. We have names such as Vienna, Helsinki, and Athens who were named after the well-known European cities. So where did the name Texel come from?
Texel is the largest North Sea Island in the Netherlands, famous for its long sandy beaches and unique nature reserves. In fact, one third of the island is a protected nature reserve. It is a municipality located in the Northern Netherlands, with a population of 13,656 (as of January 2021). The name Texel is Frisian and because of historical sound-changes in Dutch the ‘x’ is replaced with a ‘s’ sound. You can read more about the island of Texel here: Texel – Wikipedia.
The name Texel was chosen in tribute to Jan Knippenberg, a former reindeer herder who first introduced Alan to hill running. Jan was an ultrarunner who – after reindeer herding – returned to the Netherlands and became a history teacher on the island of Texel, where he later, very sadly, died in 1995. More information on Jan can be read here: Jan Knippenberg – Wikipedia.
Ben
Following on from the blog last week, with lots of silly photos of reindeer yawning (click here to see that) I thought I’d post a blog show-casing the various sleeping postures of reindeer!
It does seem like the perfect time to post this blog as with the busy Christmas season now over, and the Reindeer Centre shutting on Monday the 9th of January until Saturday the 11th of February, most reindeer herders are generally looking in need of a decent sleep too!
So, for no other reason than hopefully to make a few folk smile, here comes lots of photos of snoozing reindeer…
Ruth
Each year, as calving season looms, we reindeer herders have a sweep stake. We place our bets on which reindeer will calve first. Or rather more importantly, try to bet upon which reindeer won’t calve last.
I say ‘bet’…what I really mean is we try to combine luck and science to each predict a reindeer. The herder whose reindeer gives birth last then has to do a punishment. The punishment was historically swim in Loch Morlich. However, this task became obsolete as a punishment a few years ago when it became apparent that most herders regularly braved the cold waters as a leisure activity.
So, the current ‘punishment’ is to bake a cake for the calf naming evening in September. It is on this evening in September that we pick a theme and subsequent names for the recently born reindeer. It’s hungry work, so cake is always greatly appreciated. In fact, in 2009 the cakes were so appreciated that we had a whole naming theme dedicated to ‘cakes, puddings and biscuits’.
We’re in the last week of April as I write this blog and it’s a stage in the year where some of the pregnant females are MASSIVE. We’ll be expecting the first calf in the coming days and each of us will keep a keen eye on who calves throughout the month. I mentioned science as a prediction method in my first paragraph. Some herders like to research when a reindeer stripped the velvet on their antlers in the previous year, some herders like to look at if the reindeer are already growing their new antlers, and some herders like to inspect how big a reindeer’s udder is, all as a sign of their readiness to calve. If a reindeer strips their velvet early it can be an indicator that they come into season earlier. If a reindeer is already growing their new antlers it can be a sign that they are using more of their nutrients for themselves and not sharing them with a foetus.
This makes it all sound very technical actually. I think most of us just tend to pick one of our favourite reindeer. It’s more fun that way in my opinion. Sometimes it’s fun to take a risk as well. Add to the drama. However, herders have been known in the past to make a risky prediction and the reindeer to not be pregnant at all. Just fat!
Some reindeer are so dependable to calve first that they’re off-bounds. Christie was first last year. And it was Pagan the year before that who always seems to be there or thereabouts. This year Tilly has chosen Ladybird who looks rotund. Ladybird, that is. I’ve chosen first time calver (I hope), Texel. My baking skills aren’t up to much so let’s hope Texel pulls through to reduce the risk of a salmonella outbreak up here.
Ben B
Following on from my previous blog about reindeer coloration, I thought I’d highlight some of the funky face patterns in our herd today. White face markings are super helpful at aiding us in identification of the reindeer, as they don’t change much throughout the year (or their lives). Though they can be harder to make out when the reindeer are in their late winter coats, as they are less distinct.
Andi
From January to May, our whole herd are out roaming free on the mountains, enjoying the wintry weather that they’re so well-equipped for. Whilst it can be ridiculously wild at times, on other days it is completely still, with glorious sunshine. I thought it would be nice to put up a selection of photos from the last month or two to give you a taste of our winter days…
Andi
After the hustle and bustle of the festivities and Christmas events, the Reindeer Centre is closed for most of January and part of February. For the staff it’s peaceful here at Glenmore, and a great time for keeping busy catching up on all types of jobs related to all aspects of the Centre: Christmas kit, shop, office and outdoor, involving cleaning, maintenance, decorating, and even a new bathroom for those that live in!
But one of the perks of the job is that we do also have to find time periodically to hike up and find, check on and feed the reindeer. This year is the first time in a long time we have had not only the usual females and calves out free ranging in the Cairngorms for the winter months, but also some of our boys with them too.
For myself, after working here almost two years now, I have become confident at learning the names of most of the male reindeer, due to leading frequent hill trips with visitors up to see them all through the Summer months. However, with the females usually free-ranging along with any calves all through the warmer months, this has given me little opportunity for familiarising myself with the girls. The winter hikes this January to check on our free-ranging reindeer have given me a better chance to get to know the females, and with Andi’s tuition and constantly testing me each week, I finally feel like I am making some progress!
The ones with distinctive markings such as Oatcake, Camembert, Parmesan, Christie and Texel, or that are lighter in colour like Lulu and Mozzarella are the easier ones to learn. I am also guilty of learning them by the size and shape of their antlers, which are like a fingerprint and unique to each reindeer, but also fall off once a year, thus leaving you back at square one! Until they regrow again, but a year is a long time to wait.
When I first started and was learning the names for the male reindeer on my first hill trips, I actually discovered that learning the colour and number of the ear tags was the easiest method for me. By law we have to give each of our reindeer an ear tag with a number, similar to if you keep cows or sheep. To make it more exciting (and easier to learn their names), each year our ear tags are a different colour, and we also pick a theme. For example in 2009 they are pink tags and named after cakes, biscuits and puddings. We have Clootie (after the Scottish Clootie dumpling), Jaffa, Hobnob, Pavlova to name a few. And in 2016 they are named after Ancient Civilisations, so we have Pagan, Inca, Chola, Suebi, Celt, and many more.
The longer you are with the reindeer the more attuned you become to the subtle differences between coat colour, variations in face and body shape, and more obviously their individual personalities and traits. I guess if you have ever worked with horses or dogs before, as I have, or any other animals for that matter, then it’s similar. To the untrained eye a species of animals is just that, but the more you get to know them the more obviously they stand out as individuals, and also the more fond of them you become.
Nicky
Working with the reindeer means spending a lot of time with them. This means we often get amazing photo opportunities, with great weather conditions or reindeer posing. This also means that we can often see their slightly less glamorous side, and tend to capture it every now and then…
Manouk
Recently we were sent some photo’s by one of our visitors, Jamie Isaacs, who visited back in May. We really enjoyed them so thought we’d share some for this week’s blog.
Thank’s to Jamie for sending them in, you can check out his photography pages here.
jamieisaacsphoto.com
facebook.com/jamieisaacsphoto
instagram: @jamieisaacsphoto
