By Monday morning, our car could almost have driven itself to Seahouses 🙂 I collected John and Anthea from their holiday accommodation at St Cuthbert’s House and we had a tour of the North Northumberland coast before boarding Glad Tidings IV and sailing to Inner Farne. The tern colony was as wonderful as ever. I felt a little bit let down though, as not one of the terns managed to hit my head! Arctic, Common and Sandwich Terns were all studied to fix identification criteria firmly in mind and Puffins were, as always, well appreciated. The hour on the islands passed in no time at all, and soon we were heading back across to Seahouses. The Farne Islands are still one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever visited, and that I get to visit them with such nice clients is a real joy.
Blog
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Otter magic
Sunday was my third consecutive collection from Seahouses. By the time I collected Chris and Jayne a sea fret had rolled in. As we drove south, we left it behind and found ourselves in bright sunshine. After an afternoon of birdwatching around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, including 5 stunning adult Little Gulls roosting together, we settled down to search for Otters. With the strong sunlight reflecting off the water it was difficult to see but, just as the sun sank behind a row of distant trees, all of the ducks began to look edgy. Sure enough, our quarry appeared soon after; twisting and turning, diving and leaping, before vanishing into the sunwashed reeds 🙂
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Hot, hot Holy Island
I collected Alan, Carole and Mitzi from Seahouses for their Holy Island mini-safari in the sweltering heat. Through the haze over the mudfalts, we could hear the eerie calls of Curlew and then a flock flew by. Amongst them we could hear the tittering whistle of a Whimbrel, and picked the bird out amongst it’s larger cousins. Golden Plover were back on the coast already as well; the moorland breeding season is a short one. After a tour of the sites along the North Northumberland coast, we had our final stop, at Harkess Rocks. As we scanned the raft of Eider and Common Scoter in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle one bird stood out from all the rest; the Black Scoter, first found in April, and still lingering off our coast. What I wouldn’t give for a nice Surf Scoter or King Eider as well:-)
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Highs and lows
When I collected Charlie from Springhill Farm campsite, for a day’s birdwatching around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, I could never have guessed that the day would bring such extremes of emotion and experience.
As a wildlife tourism business we appreciate that the control of Grey Squirrels, in order to conserve our Red Squirrels, is a difficult issue for many people. And so it should be; after all, that control involves the permanent removal from the population of Grey Squirrels. We’ve shown Red Squirrels to lots of clients over the last three years, and we always explain the Red vs Grey issue in as much depth as we can. It’s almost impossible to describe my feelings as we approached one of our favourite woodland glades, only to be greeted by the sight of a Grey Squirrel scampering up a tree trunk.
The other end of the emotional scale came as we ate our lunch just south of Cresswell, and watched 3 adult White-beaked Dolphins, and a calf, breaching time and again.
Two mammals, eliciting very different emotions. Then again, watching wildlife should be an emotional experience…
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Cetacean season
As we approach July, there’s always a sense of anticipation when we’re close to the sea on a land-based trip, or at sea on one of our Northumberland Pelagics. Good seawatching conditions over the next few months will see us gazing towards the east when the opportunity arises. Seawatching may be one of the more specialised aspects of birdwatching, but it brings an element of unpredictability that can outweigh even our evening mammal trips.
After good cetacean sightings in February and March, while carrying out transect surveys for the Northeast Cetacean Project (NECP), I was excited to receive 2 reports of land-based observations on Sunday and Tuesday; a possible pod of 5 Orcas was seen heading south past Lynemouth on Sunday evening and then 4 White-beaked Dolphins were off the mouth of the River Wansbeck on Tuesday evening. The second of these species is the one that we’re most interested in, after all it is the primary focus for the NECP, however Sunday’s report set the pulse racing; almost mythical off the Northeast coast, maybe the ultimate apex predator, right at the top of the list of our ‘most-wanted’. Maybe this will be the year when we finally connect with it, and my dreams about our forthcoming Farne Deeps pelagics seem to involve something black and white 😉 We’ve still got spaces on those 2 trips so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place now.
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An eventful evening
Thursday was my 3rd consecutive late finish.
Before setting off for a ‘Red Squirrel and Badger Safari’ I had a few admin things to get done including some more planning for the Birdwatching Northumberland stand at this year’s British Bird Fair (I’ve got 2 lecture slots at the Bird Fair this year!).
After collecting our picnic from The Swan, I headed to Church Point to collect Vince and Karin for their second safari day this week. Some unexpected birdwatching highlights included a Little Tern and a Cuckoo. A group of Tufted Ducks staring at a reedbed, and a clearly annoyed Mute Swan staring at the same reedbed and hissing, suggested that we were close to an Otter but in the blazing sunshine it stayed in the shade of the reeds and out of sight.
The first of the day’s targets was achieved with possibly the reddest Red Squirrel I’ve ever seen, simply stunning as it ran along the sun-dappled canopy, and then it was time to position ourselves close to our favourite Badger sett. Would the badgers come close? would they only appear when it was too dark to really appreciate what magnificent animals they are? all worries were eased when, in broad daylight, our first Badger of the evening came trotting along only 5m away, apparently oblivious to our presence. Another 3 Badgers followed, as well as 3 Red Foxes, and Tawny Owls were calling from the trees around us.
Of all of our tours, our evening mammal trips perhaps have the greatest unpredictability and the most remarkable ‘atmosphere’ of them all. It’s still my favourite time of the day 🙂
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The Otter unpredictability of wildlife
After Tuesday’s Otter Safari, Wednesday brought another one, this time a Prestige Tour.
Now, I know that you can never guarantee the wildlife that you’ll see on any day (not entirely true, I know…) but the sentence “what we really want is to photograph an Otter” adds a certain pressure to the proceedings 🙂
I collected Pete and Christine and we began our otter search of Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. After a near miss (wildfowl scattering in a pattern that we’ve come to recognise as strongly indicative of the presence of otters), we settled by a mirror calm pool and waited. As we marvelled at the remarkable weather condition of bright sunshine and heavy rain, a heightened sense of alertness amongst the ducks increased my confidence that ‘mission accomplished’ would be the outcome of the trip. That confidence wasn’t misplaced and we enjoyed 25 minutes of an Otter twisting, turning and feeding. As a stunning sunset developed we waited to see if there would be a reappearance. There was, and with the cover of twilight the star of the show became more enterprising in it’s hunting technique; stealthily approaching ducks and their ducklings. After a couple of failed sorties it returned to feeding on small fish and another 30 minutes of action.
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The passing of a legend
We’re sure that all of the readers of our blog will be saddened to hear of the passing away of Billy Shiel M.B.E., early this morning. Billy was a good friend to NEWT and will be greatly missed.
In recent years, whenever we were in Seahouses with clients or just having a wander on our own, Billy would stop his car if he saw us to ask how we were getting on. He’d always be keen to impart up to date information about the latest sightings around the islands and our clients always commented afterwards about how welcoming and helpful he was.
Martin had some long discussions with Billy when he was carrying out research for the Northeast Cetacean Project. Perhaps the most controversial cetacean off Northumberland, in terms of it’s status and distribution, is Killer Whale, or Orca. Billy was an ideal, and very willing, interviewee. When he began his answer, when asked if he’d ever seen a Killer Whale around the Farnes, with “Have I got a story to tell you…” Martin wondered if this would would be confirmation of the previously unsupported online claims that Killer Whales prey on Grey Seal pups around the Farne Islands during the winter. However, the sentence continued with “…it was 4.30am, sometime in late June, 1948.”!
Tourism in Northumberland has lost a genuine legend and our thoughts are with Mrs Shiel and all of her family at this sad time.
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Elusive
We’ve just finished a run of 3 late finishes in 3 days…and we’re looking forward to more over the next couple of months 🙂
Tuesday was our latest Otter Safari and I collected Steve & Marilyn, Nigel & Jane and Vince & Karin from Church Point before heading north through Druridge Bay. After a tour of the coast that included a fantastic fly-past by a male Marsh Harrier at East Chevington and an impromptu ‘terns and gulls’ ID session we setttled into position by one of our favourite Otter spots. We didn’t see anything other than mild panic amongst the waterfowl, and the elusive predator remained, well elusive. A Barn Owl flying past was so close that the view was like a whiteout through binoculars, but eventually we had to admit defeat when it was simply too dark to see anything. That’s the thing about wildlife…but if it was always predictable it would be boring.