Daisy
Photo Blog: Reindeer in the snow
A busman’s holiday – AKA the delight of bumping into reindeer on your day off
Now we’re in the middle of winter, it’s hard to imagine the hills in summer time. But I found these photos on my phone from a day off in August and thought I would share them in a blog.
I was off for a walk with a friend around Cairn Gorm. During our walk we saw three groups of free-rangers, in different places on the hill which was really wonderful. The first group consisted of Orinoco, Nuii, Vanilla and Solero. The second group was Helsinki, her calf River and Brew. The final group was Sundae, her calf Salsa and Mississippi. My friend Hannah was visiting for the weekend and she had come on a Hill Trip to see the reindeer the day before so it was a real treat for her to see some of the girls out free-ranging. We also had my friend’s dog with us, Foss, so we had to take it in turns going over to see the reindeer whilst one of us waited with Foss at a good distance. We all had a wonderful walk and seeing the groups of free-range reindeer certainly made my day.
Lotti
Photo Blog: November 2025
November has whizzed by. Even more so because I took a week off at the beginning of the month. Don’t worry though, this blog has just as many photos in as normal!
When I left at the end of October the rut was still underway for a couple of our breeding bulls. On my return the rut was well and truly over, and sleigh training had started! One reason I love this job is that every season is different with new things happening every few weeks.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy this snapshot of November. The snowy days were some of my favourites!
Ruth
Photo Blog: April 2025
April has been a glorious month! The first half of it was wall-to-wall sunshine for what felt like weeks on end. The reindeer were on the move quite a lot so it meant some big walks getting them each morning keeping us all fit. By the middle of the month we brought some of our (hopefully) pregnant reindeer into the enclosure so it’s been a busy time with reindeer everywhere: on the free range, in the enclosure, in the Paddocks, and of course over with Tilly at the farm. The Paddocks was very busy during the holidays with visitors and even though the Exhibition isn’t ready yet we’ve got a wee quiz for kids, lots of information boards to read, and of course four beautiful reindeer on display! Hopefully everybody who visited had an enjoyable time.
Very excitedly we’ve also had our first calf of the season!! A lovely wee boy who is doing incredibly well. Hopefully the May photo blog will be packed full of calves!
Ruth
Amy’s winter photo blog
Turns out a lot of my picture taking when it comes to the herd is usually done in the winter. But who can blame me as the environment on Cairngorm chops and changes so much, you almost receive whiplash! On the run up to Christmas, we had a herd of females out free ranging which consisted of yearlings, two year olds and a hand full of our retired girls. This meant that we would occasionally head out to feed the free rangers and here is a picture of Alba from such a trip- she’s looking rather magestic if I do say so myself.
The weather takes a turn a couple of weeks later and here is a picture of Akubra ladened with snow in the morning and a picture of Borlotti on the feed line in the afternoon once the weather had settled. Any eagle-eyed readers will notice a little snow bunting in the picture which turned out to be super tame, trying to pick up the remains of the reindeer food and almost landed on my head!
On the 23rd of November the weather was pretty severe. Myself, Lotti, and Sheena made and attempt to feed the herd in our hill enclosure where we couldn’t see (even with ski goggles on) and hardly could stand up. It was that wintery that snow had started to freeze onto Lotti’s hat! For anyone that knows Lotti, she has a pretty frosty exterior, which she is taking quite literally here.
Cheer is very aloof in character and has recently realised that the hand feed that us herders carry around on the Hill Trips is rather tasty! This has been quite the success for us herders as Cheer will often come up to us looking for food.
We’re jumping another couple of weeks here with a picture of lovely Mochi out on the free range. I am sure the girls had been sauntering over the ski road prior to this picture, so we decided to move them to higher ground so they weren’t causing chaos. You can also see Winnie and Juniper in the same trip.
Finally, we are finishing with pictures from a beautiful day we had during January. We had trudged through quite a depth of snow, falling into lots of drainage ditches on the way out to feed the free ranging reindeer, for them not to come over to meet us. It had been two days since they had last been fed by us herders, so we were expecting a little more enthusiasm from them. But just before we were going to turn back for our lunch, the reindeer started making their way down to us which meant we could kick back, enjoy the sunshine and views and wait for the herd to make their way over.
Amy
Photo Blog: February 2025
February has been a great month as we moved into our NEW Reindeer Centre. We opened the doors to the public on the 8th of February for the very first time – hoorah!
The Hill Trips have been running as normal every day (apart from one where we had to cancel due to wild weather!) and we’ve been taking visitors to the free ranging herd here on Cairngorm. We’ve also had reindeer on display in the Paddocks for the February half-term holidays. The entire herd is now back out free ranging in the hills, split between two locations. I love this time of year – getting out to see the reindeer in their mountain home every day is an absolute privilege.
Here’s a selection of photos just taken on my phone over the last month.
Ruth
Photo Blog: November 2024
November has been a very mixed month for me in terms of work! Here at home I’ve been on the hill working with the herd, taking lots of people up to meet the reindeer on Hill Trips, and spending most afternoons sleigh training or working though the gazillions of adoptions that are coming in ahead of Christmas. I’ve also been on road with Christmas teams doing parades in Dumfries and as far south as Wilmslow. The reindeer were super and made me incredibly proud. Biggest shout out to Akubra who pulled the sleigh like an old pro in his first public events!
Ruth
A Reindeer Herder and Artist
My involvement with the reindeer goes back 30 years when Tilly and Alan were my neighbours and Alex and Fiona where still very wee.
I came up to the Highlands to work at Badaguish Outdoor Centre for people with additional needs before I was due to start a nursing degree . I never left – I fell in love with the mountains, and then a reindeer herder!! And now the reindeer.
My wonderful friendly golden retriever Rosie used to end up at Reindeer House after following any walker passing by my house down at Badaguish. Tilly would phone me and I would often end up there socialising, helping out, then for dinner and end up walking home with Rosie after a wee whisky or two!
I eventually went to university but not to study nursing. I did a Honors Fine Art degree in 2004.
Over the years I have kept in touch with Tilly and the reindeer, volunteering, an extras pair of hands or legs walking out onto the mountains to help herd in the girls for calving or just going up to spy the herd in the summer months on the mountain.
Several years ago, I got a call to work with the team and use my artistic talents for ‘Christmas Fun’ (weekends in December when Santa visits the Paddocks). By this time Fiona was all grown up and coordinating all things Christmas and the herd on Cairngorm along with her mum and the team. Now I am just a regular part-timer in the team.
So, when I am not a reindeer herder you might find me working in my studio at home as an artist, working on some colorful wild abstract paintings. These days I also work on some reindeer crafts, inspired from my trip to Jokkmokk, Sweden in 2020 with fellow reindeer herders Fiona, Joe, and Olly where we stayed with friend Sofia, Mikel Utsi’s great niece. Inspiration for art was everywhere. The snow, visiting herds of reindeer, northern lights, traditional cloths, and traditional food.
That part of Sweden is the capital of Sami culture in Sweden holding the Sami winter festival, which involve reindeer racing, reindeer parades, and all things Sami culture. And I had a wonderful time in the Sami Museum viewing the traditional arts on show. This was very much my inspiration for small reindeer art and crafts for the shop.
Sheena
Photo Blog: September 2023
I love September! The reindeer look super, we’re busy with free ranging reindeer, we name the calves and we start learning their individual personalities, plus the rut kicks off. Having said that, I planned a two week holiday in one of my favourite months – must remember not to do that again! So there is a big gap in the photos for this month’s blog, but I’ve made up for it by just sharing more from the same day.
Just a reminder – we don’t reveal the names of the calves online until our adopters receive their newsletter next month.
Ruth
Photo Blog: August 2023
August has been a fun month. The first half of the month was super busy with holiday makers but as Scottish schools went back the second half of the month got slightly quieter with visitors and we’ve been having lots of free range action which I love. Generally we start to see the free ranging females more as they come down in altitude as the weather gets cooler. Towards the end of the month we also start bringing in the mums and their calves back into the enclosure. They spend June through to August/early September out roaming the hills learning how to be little wild reindeer and enjoying all the best grazing, but when the autumn rolls around it’s time for them to learn what a feed bag is and in time, how to walk on a halter etc. The following photos are a small snapshot of what’s been occurring…
Ruth