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Scouring the moors; North Pennines birdwatching 25/06/2013
Returning clients have become a bit of a theme for NEWT in the last couple of years, and it’s always lovely to meet up and hear what our clients have been doing, and seeing, since they were last out with us. Mike and Maggie were visiting Northumberland again, and their day out with me this…
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Sailing the ocean blue; Seal Safari 20/06/2013
In any list of ‘Northumberland’s Big 5’ there will always be disagreements about the species that should be included. One species that really epitomises the wildlife of North Northumberland is the ‘hook-nosed sea pig’…or Grey Seal to give it a less offensive handle than the translation of it’s Latin name 😉 I collected John and…
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A picture paints a thousand words; NEWT’s North Sea pelagic 21/06/2013
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Back to school
Occasionally I still get to do the whole school teacher role…but it’s enjoyable for me and my students 🙂 I met up with Carol at Seahouses Harbour last Saturday for an all-day one-to-one photography session, only to learn the inevitable – conditions weren’t suitable for landing on Staple Island, so we were going to be…
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“a real birding day” Birdwatching in the North Pennines 14/06/2013
After a successful sailing around Coquet Island last Thursday, with sightings of Roseate Terns perched and flying, our re-arranged North Pennines Safari was on Friday. I collected Liz and Ronnie from The Swan and we headed southwest into the hills. Only a month earlier we had a North Pennines trip in near-zero temperatures, but now…
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Seabird Spectacular 10-13 June 2013; birdwatching on the Northumberland coast
Arriving at The Swan on Monday evening I met up with Ronnie and Liz at the start of our Seabird Spectacular holiday. Of all of our holidays, this is the one that concentrates on the really outstanding wildlife available on the Northumberland coast in the summer. Tuesday started out very nice, although cloud cover was…
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One Cuckoo flew over the pipit’s nest; birdwatching in the Cheviot Valleys 09/06/2013
Sunday was another trip into the Cheviot Valleys, with two of our returning clients. We first met Pete and Janet at the Bird Fair in 2008 and this was their third trip with us (plus a trip that they organised for their local Natural History Society in 2009). It’s always a pleasure to meet up…
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Heading for the hills; Birdwatching in the Cheviot Valleys 06/06/2013
Thursday brought a trip that I’d been looking forward to for some time; I first met Chris many years ago, while I was Field Trips Officer for the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club, so it was going to be a day out with a client who knew me several careers ago. We met up at…
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Otter Watching 02/06/13 – Patience pays off
Just a couple of days before the end of 2008, I led an Otter Safari that produced prolonged sightings of our target species…just 5 seconds after arriving at the first site I’d planned to visit that day! That produced a complication all of it’s own – how do you keep a family with a young…