The last 14 months has been a strange time of arranging, postponing, rearranging, postponing, so it was a relief to finally be heading to Newbiggin to collect Mel, George, Betsy and Ernest for a few hours around southeast Northumberland and Druridge Bay.

Starting with clear blue skies we watched mallards, gadwall, Canada geese, mute swans, cormorants, herons, and pied wagtails as common whitethroat, willow warbler and chiffchaff all sang from the bushes around us and sand martin and swallow plundered the myriad of flying insects over the water. Pygmy goats that had found a way out of their enclosure watched as we walked by, demonstrating an apparent disdain for thorns as they munched on bramble leaves.

After a picnic stop on a clifftop overlooking the North Sea, with gannets heading north and fulmars arcing gracefully by, just a few metres away from us, we headed up the coast, stopping when we saw a group of photographers, and were treated to incredible views of a barn owl as it quartered rough grassland. As cloud cover enveloped the entire sky, other than a small strip on the western horizon, reed buntings sang their simple song, coots, mute swans, tufted ducks and great crested grebes drifted through flat water and the reeds were lit orangy-red by a spectacular sunset as the explosive rant of a Cetti’s warbler burst from the reeds as a red fox made it’s way through poolside vegetation.