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The colour of light; Autumn Colours Photography Workshop 27/10/19
Sunday’s photography workshop was a guest short after a late rearrangement for one guest. I collected Sachin and Lucy from the Battlesteads and we headed to Cawfields Quarry. That wasn’t our original plan, but heavy rain meant needing to find a location that wouldn’t be treacherous underfoot. In just over 3hrs we covered exposure, focusing…
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Murmuration; Bespoke Druridge Bay Safari 21/10/19
Late October and big flocks of stuff are starting to feature more and more prominently… I collected Caroline, Ian and Ted from Embleton and we headed down the coast towards NEWT’s local patch, Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. Little Grebes were diving in calm water as Cormorants sat on long dead branches and a Kingfisher…
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Fishing; Otter Safari 22/09/19
I collected Ulf and Alison, Ian and Lainey and Leigh and Paul from Newbiggin and we set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland… Little Egrets were darting at small fish in the shallows as Mute Swans and Canada Geese got out of the way of two paddle-boarders who were…
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Finale; NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 14/09/19
After two cancellations due to pretty awful conditions offshore, our final 10hr Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic for 2019 survived the weather and fittingly, given recent changes in cetacean distribution off our coast, was topped and tailed by Bottlenose Dolphins around the mouth of the Tyne with White-beaked Dolphins in the Farne Deeps sandwiched between the start…
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Mystery; Otter Safari 05/09/19
I’ve neglected the blog over the last month so here come a series of short posts to get us back up to date… Sometimes we see things that our clients can’t believe, sometimes we see things that we can’t believe and sometimes, we see things that we can’t find any explanation for… At the end…
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Quick start; Otter Safari 20/08/19
I collected Jo from Newbiggin for her 2nd day out with NEWT and we set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland searching for Otters… As we set off I decided to change the order that we’d visit our usual sites…and it paid off almost immediately with an Otter cub…
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Persistence; NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 13/08/19
Our first 10hr ‘Northumberland Ultimate Pelagic’ for 2019 had Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Gannets, Great Skuas, Puffins, Guillemots, a little bit of rain, a long rolling northerly swell, dark skies away over the mainland and, thanks to Kirstie’s sharp eyesight, some very obliging White-beaked Dolphins just before the squally weather reached us 🙂
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The sun sets on our evening pelagics; NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 07/08/19
What should have been our penultimate 4hr evening pelagic for 2019 turned out to the final one, with poor weather and rough sea conditions getting the better of our planned sailing on Friday. Wednesday was another really odd quiet night, with a stiff westerly ruffling the surface of the sea, no Fulmars, Puffins or Razorbills,…
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Desolate wastes; NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 02/08/19
Yesterday’s 4hr evening pelagic was a strange one; a few Guillemots, a Puffin, a Razorbill with juvenile, Fulmars circling, Kittiwakes following us, a Mediterranean Gull that came and inspected us before heading back towards the shore, a Common Seal, a briefly seen fin that was probably a Harbour Porpoise and then line after line of…