Northern Experience Wildlife Tours

Tag: Avocet

  • Zzzzzzzzzz; Badger mini-safari 31/05/2014

    After dropping John, David and Sheila back in Alnwick after their bespoke photography trip to the Farne Islands, I met up with Sarah to have something to eat and then I was on my way to Alnmouth to collect Zoe, Richard, Ella, Luke and Charlie.  This was their second trip with NEWT, following an evening mini-safari in late May last year.

    One of the species from last year’s trip put in an impressive appearance again, as we watched a Barn Owl hunting along one edge of a pool, while an Avocet fed at the other side, Reed Buntings seemed to be everywhere we looked and a small group of Little Gulls looked tiny alongside nearby Black-headed Gulls.  Soon, light levels had faded to the point where it was time to head off in search of our main quarry for the evening.  Positioning ourselves in a spot that looks over an area where Badgers are regularly seen, we sat quietly.  Almost immediately myself and Ella noticed something black-and-white moving in the vegetation opposite us.. That turned out to be a false alarm though as it revealed itself to be a Magpie 🙂  Things were quiet, although distantly I could hear the alarm calls of Blackbirds, Robins andWrens.  Then another gentle sound just on the edge of hearing; ZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzz.  It was warm and humid so it wouldn’t be a great surprise to encounter lots of insects…although these Z’s were coming from Luke and Charlie!  That’s how relaxing it is to just sit and watch for wildlife…

    Out of the corner of my eye I caught some movement away along the track.. Had I imagined it?  Maybe it was a dog walker having an evening stroll?  No more movement…and then a Red Fox trotted across the clearing in front of us.  A second fox followed soon after, and then a Badger, big and ghostly pale, as an attempt was made to wake the boys without making too much noise 🙂  Another fox, this time a cub, sat watching us for a few minutes, and Luke spotted that there was a Badger in the undergrowth just beyond it.  More fox sightings followed, and then a final Badger, as the light reached a point where even the sharpest of eyes would struggle to penetrate the gloom.  The drive back to Alnmouth had one last good mammal for us, as a Brown Hare loped along the road a few metres ahead of the car 🙂

  • Variety is the spice of life; Coastal safari 26/05/2014

    A brilliantly sunny Bank Holiday Monday is the only time you’re likely to encounter anything even remotely approaching crowds of people in Northumberland, but it does happen occasionally.

    I collected Marcus, Alison, Norman (Grandad) and Isobel from their holiday cottage in the shadow of the Wandylaw wind farm, and we set off for a day wildlife-watching.  With it being such a sunny morning, I thought it would be worth starting with one of our trickier animals; if it’s too cold they won’t be out and about, if it’s too warm they’ll already have slithered off somewhere cooler, and if they feel the ground vibrate as you approach they’ll beat a hasty retreat.  We know just the spot to see them when everything falls into place though; a warm, bare, stony patch of earth surrounded by tall grass.  At first we couldn’t see any sign, but I crept through the vegetation for a closer look.  Two Adders weren’t keen on this, and quickly slithered away into the long grass.  The third one was much more obliging though, and I motioned for Isobel to come a bit closer.  Incredibly, the snake remained coiled, and settled, for a few minutes.  It eventually lifted it’s head to fix us with a baleful reptilian glare for another minute before following it’s companions into the vegetation and out of sight.

    In the bright sunshine Kestrels hovered over roadside fields, Willow Warblers sang their silvery descending cadence, Chiffchaffs endlessly repeated their name, Chaffinches were proclaiming their territories (and Isobel had done a very impressive colouring of a Chaffinch picture), the scratchy rattle of Whitethroat song buzzed through the warm air, flotillas of goslings patrolled the water with their parents in close attendance and darting damselflies added a streak of azure to the lush green of the grass.  Down on the coast, dainty Avocets swept the water edge for morsels, Grey Plovers (probably my favourite wader, certainly when they’re in their summer finery) chased back and forth, Common andSandwich Terns roosted together, Fulmars rode the updraft of the warm breeze along the clifftops, Eiders were resplendent in the sunshine, and ‘wooly bear‘ caterpillars and cuckoo spitwere just the thing for a six year old to enjoy 🙂

    Most entertaining though, judging by the giggling, was a Rook that was rummaging through a bag of rubbish and found what it seemed to consider a suitable food item.  That item was a (full) dog-poo bag…  So disgusting that I almost titled the blog after it 🙂

     

  • On silent wings; Northumberland coast 26/04/2014

    There are some species that are favourites with particular clients, there are others that may be fairly common but still have good wildlife experience appeal, and then there are a select few that have everybody watching their every move…

    I arrived at Church Point and quickly located Carol, Dave, Megan and Emily.  Our carload was soon complete with the arrival of Mr and Mrs Robertson and we headed north along the Northumberland coast.  Our aim for the afternoon was to visit several Otter sites, in the hope of catching sight of the elusive sinuous predator.  Cold and windy isn’t an ideal weather condition for the search and it turned out that the closest we came (probably) was a sudden panic and ducks heading purposefully away from a reedbed, and an unseen menace.  Throughout the afternoon and evening there was plenty of avian interest; male Ruff, part way to breeding plumage, Grey Herons, stalking menacingly along the waters edge, Little Grebes, diving before surfacing with tiny fish, the cartoon-like Goosanders and Red-breasted Mergansers, noisy Greylag and Canada Geese and delicate, dainty Avocets, suddenly transformed into a furious vision of Hell when a female Marsh Harrier drifted foolishly over their pond.  As dark descended, Moorhens were making their way along the river side and Emily demonstrated remarkable hearing, picking out the squeaking of a shrew in the bankside vegetation. Eerie mammalian screeching from the woodland on the other side of the river was probably an altercation between Red Foxes as the last remnants of daylight gave way to the dark.

    The moment that had everyone’s attention focused came at sunset, in beautiful light.  We were almost back at the car when I spotted a familiar shape hovering above the dunes.  It dipped out of sight, before lifting from the grasses and heading towards us.  It dipped again, then perched on a fencepost before resuming the hunt.  Subtly coloured with mesmerising black eyes that are quite unforgettable the ‘Ghost Owl’, ‘Death Owl’, ‘Hushwing’ or simply Barn Owl has a rich folklore and really is one of those select few species that you’ll never tire of watching 🙂

  • A sting in the tale; Druridge Bay 10/04/2014

    With a holiday for a family wedding in Scotland looming, my last day out with clients for a couple of weeks was a mini-safari around Druridge Bay.  The unpredictable weather of recent weeks had been replaced by something much better as we headed north along the coast.

    The remnants of winter birdwatching, in the shape of Wigeon, Goldeneye, Pintail and Red-breasted Merganser, were intermingled with the early spring in the elegant form of at least three Avocets, and a lone Whooper Swan, in the midst of a herd of Mute Swans, probably hasn’t made it’s mind up what it’s doing for the summer yet.  Towards the end of the afternoon a yapping flock of Pink-footed Geese flew north, quickly gaining altitude as if heading off towards Iceland…before encountering the stiff northwesterly wind and looping back round again…and again…and again, before they eventually gave it up as a bad job and settled on the water with the discordant sounds of Canada and Greylag Geese around them.  The comings and goings at a feeding station held the attention for some time, with Great Tits, Coal Tits, Blue Tits, Tree Sparrows and Chaffinches all clustering around the feeders.

    Trips including young children can be a bit fraught but 3-year old Sylvie demonstrated a sharp eye for finding spiders, and 5-year old Felix, with some help from his little sister, wove a remarkable tale of a superhero Otter with a poisonous sting in it’s tail that I could have listened to for the rest of the day – a great way to finish work before NEWT’s first ‘proper’ holiday for a long time 🙂

  • A trip with extra added bite; Otter Safari 02/04/2014

    After a remarkably mild winter, Wednesday brought some weather with a bit of bite, the sort of day where you really need the wildlife to be performing at it’s best to take your mind off the conditions…

    I collected Katherine and Brenda from Church Point for an afternoon/evening Otter Safari, and we headed north up the coast through Druridge Bay.  Our first stop was looking very promising; Goosanders, Grey Herons, Avocets, Wigeon, Teal, Pintail, Mallard, Curlew, Lapwing, Dunlin, Bar-tailed Godwit, Redshank, Common Snipe, Turnstone…and a noticeable lack of birds in one corner of the pond 🙂 Always the first sign we look for when searching for Otters, so I was confident that there was one moving around close by.  It was looking so promising that I thought we should stay put and have lunch where we were.  I went back to the car to fetch our soup and sandwiches and when I got back to the hide, less than 5mins later, I was greeted with “You’re not going to believe it, but there’s an Otter just over there.”  Sure enough, Brenda’s directions had me looking in exactly the spot where it next surfaced 🙂  After a few minutes it went out of sight, before reappearing 30mins later, spreading panic amongst the ducks that were roosting at the water’s edge.  Then, as mysteriously as it first appeared, it dived and didn’t resurface where it could be seen.

    We headed on up the coast in conditions that were becoming less entertaining, with a brutal southeasterly wind that seemed to drive the cold and damp through every layer of clothing that could be mustered.  Noisy Black-headed Gulls were dive-bombing Canada Geese, Little Grebes were just being their cute selves, Sand Martins swirled back and forth over the River Aln, Coot and Moorhen busied themselves around the reedbeds and Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Mistle Thrush, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove and Wren were all singing.

    Probably a more wintry day than any day out we had during the winter, enriched by the sleek, sinuous menace of the Otter 🙂

  • More five star birdwatching; Northumberland coast 24/02/14

    Yesterday continued to lay to rest the myth that February is a quiet month…

    Starting in the north of the county, overlooking the iconic landscape of Holy Island, brought the expected waders and wildfowl, and three lifers for Paul and Katie, who were back for another day out with us, following a trip in 2009; Common Scoter, Long-tailed Duck and Twite. A Peregrine muscled its way menacingly through the air above a flock of Dunlin, Grey Seals were ‘bottling’ at high tide and Bar-tailed Godwits, Redshank and Curlew were probing the soft exposed mud as the tide began to drop.  Eider, Shelduck, Red-throated Divers, Wigeon and Teal were all at or near the water’s edge and the songs of Skylark and Yellowhammer reverberated in the warm sunshine.  Perhaps the highlight of the morning was a bird that is always breathtaking; sailing elegantly into the stiff breeze, a male Hen Harrier was tracking along a hedgerow heading inland 🙂

    The afternoon brought Paul and Katie’s fourth lifer of the day, a Red-necked Grebe, with Little, Great Crested and Slavonian Grebes all close by for comparison.  Two Avocets were rather unseasonal, a pair of Pintail exuded elegance, drake Goldeneye looked very smart in their contrasty breeding plumage, Red-breasted Mergansers looked quite, well, comical as they always do and two Brown Hares were sitting motionless in a nearby field.  With 30 minutes until sunset a small flock of Starlings flying in from the north led to me suggesting that we go and see where they’d gone, and to check if there was going to a significant murmuration…

    What followed was, quite simply, one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever witnessed.  Initially the Starlings were about a mile south of where I expected them to roost, and there were a lot of them.  Soon two other large flocks merged with them and they moved slowly north, eventually passing directly overhead with the sound of wingbeats like a gentle breeze rustling through a forest.  The murmuration drifted away to the south again, then back north.  Almost an hour had passed when the activity levels within the flock were ramped up.  Twisting and turning with more urgency, the density of birds in different parts of our view coalesced to form writhing shapes from the previously uniform oval.  With light levels fading, the birds vanished from sight, only to betray their presence in a series of shapes that resembled a slug, then a snail, then a car.  We soon lost them in the gloom again, only for the finale to the evenings proceedings to take us all by surprise as the flock compacted over the reedbed where they were going to roost, forming a dense arrowhead as they funneled into the reeds.  With the first birds down in the reedbed, the rest of the flock wheeled slightly higher, then repeated the maneuver, a second arrowhead driving into the reeds.  A third, then a fourth, cohort entered the roost and all was quiet.  Fade to black…

  • Nature’s bounty

    After a day in the North Pennines, I had an hour at home before setting out for an evening mini-safari around Druridge Bay.  I couldn’t have anticipated that the evening would bring one of the most astonishing things I’ve seen…

    I collected Fiona and Damien from Morpeth and then headed north east to Amble to collect Mark and Mrs Blake.  The good weather of the earlier part of the day continued and we were soon watching four Avocets, and listening to a fifth, as a flock of Tree Sparrows foraged on a pile of rotting vegetation, a Grey Heron stalked along the edge of the pond and Black-headed Gulls hawked insects over nearby fields.  One of Northumberland’s long-standing Bird Race teams passed through and picked up Avocet and Little Gull for their day list.

    As we continued our journey north through the bay, it became obvious that there had been a huge hatch of insects.  Dense clouds of them were hanging around us and they were providing a feast for Black-headed Gulls (several hundred), at least eight Little Gulls and countless Swallows, Swifts, House Martins and Sand Martins.  With barely any breeze, and mirror-calm water, the birds were flying back and forth deftly picking insects from the water’s surface, and the swallows and martins were passing within a few feet of us.  The whirling, twisting mass of birds was breathtaking, and numbers had barely decreased by the time it was so dark that it was time for us to finish our evening.  Lovely clients, common birds, abundant insects and a memorable wildlife spectacle 🙂

  • Change of plan

    Snow on Monday, glorious weather on Tuesday…and torrential rain on Wednesday 🙁  When I arrived to collect David and Janet for their Prestige Tour in the Cheviot Valleys we quickly decided to head towards the Northumberland coast instead as that would offer the chance of plenty of birdwatching with the prospect of being able to shelter from the worst of the weather.

    Starting at Stag Rocks, we watched flocks of Eider and Common Scoter as they rolled up and over the substantial waves and a Grey Seal swam just beyond the breaking surf.  One thing that was immediately obvious was that there was a movement of Gannets; birds were flying over the rocks and more could be seen offshore.  Heading down the coast, the intensity of the rain increased and we had our second seawatch of the day, this time just south of Cresswell.  An almost continuous passage of Gannets was evident as they headed north, flocks of Kittiwakes and Guillemots were passing by, the occasional Fulmar arced up above the clifftops and a single Manx Shearwater easily outpaced the Gannets.  Avocets sat tight as the rain hammered down around them and, when the deluge finally ceased and blue sky and sunshine replaced the gloom, we watched a male Marsh Harrier as he quartered a nearby field before soaring heavenwards. A Great Crested Grebe sailed by serenely, a Whimbrel flew north, five Brown Hares were engaged in some half-hearted chasing and Swifts, Swallows, House Martins and Sand Martins all took advantage of the feast of insects that had been stirred to activity by the improvement in the weather.

    Even in poor weather, Northumberland can produce some excellent birdwatching 🙂

  • Glorious

    After the snow of last Monday, Tuesday brought two mini-safaris.  The first was a recce trip for a TV production company, assisting with checking out potential filming locations on the Northumberland coast.  The weather was glorious; beautiful blue sky, fluffy white clouds and a gentle breeze.  The peace and tranquility captured what Northumberland is all about – somewhere that you can relax and simply enjoy the countryside around you.

    The second trip of the day began as I collected Neil and Ann from The Swan, and we headed out on a journey along the coast.  Avocets were sitting on nests, Reed Warblers, Sedge Warblers and Reed Buntings were all singing and an incredibly bright Yellow Wagtail walked along the water’s edge.  With a bit of persistence we located a Grasshopper Warbler singing from a reedbed, body quivering as it delivered it’s ‘reeling’ song with it’s head turning slowly from side-to-side.  As we continued northwards we came across the first of three Barn Owls for the evening.  As dusk approached Roe Deer came out of hiding, a Red Fox ran across directly in front of us carrying prey, Common Pipistrelles flitted backwards and forwards against the darkening sky and the assembled ducks, geese and swans started acting very nervously.  I’d checked that site with Sarah two days earlier and watched a very obliging Otter as it fed.  Today though it remained hidden in the reeds, almost certainly the cause of panic amongst the wildfowl…

  • Promising conditions?

    ‘Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep…beep, beep, beep.  Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep…beep, beep, beep’, the mega-alert on my pager wasn’t entirely unexpected…

    I’d collected Charlie and Edna from Holy Island for a day of birdwatching, from Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland north along the Northumberland coast and eventually back to Lindisfarne.  Eponymously disyllabic Chiffchaffs, the descending silvery cadence of Willow Warblers and the mechanical reeling of Grasshopper Warblers accompanied our woodland walk as the first heavy drops of rain precipitated the donning of waterproof jackets.  As we sat eating lunch, overlooking the North Sea, the strengthening wind, heavy rain and decreasing visibility might not have filled everyone’s heart with joy.  I’m not everyone though, and I described the potential of early May, southeasterly winds, poor weather and the Northumberland coast to Charlie and Edna 🙂  As it began to clear we continued our journey and enjoyed excellent close views of Sedge Warblers and Reed Buntings singing and at least six Avocets.  A stunningly yellow Yellow Wagtail was sharing a field with an equally stunning male Whinchat.  Another heavy shower accompanied murky misty conditions…then came the piercing shrill of the pager as we drove through Embleton on our northward journey.

    Just a few minutes later we were at Low Newton, enjoying good views of yet another excellent find by the Beadnell Stringer 🙂

    Collared Flycatcher,Northumberland,bird photography tuition,bird photography holidays
    Collared Flycatcher [Ficedula albicollis], Low Newton, Northumberland, 09/05/2013
    Collared Flycatcher,Northumberland,bird photography tuition,bird photography holidays
    Collared Flycatcher [Ficedula albicollis], Low Newton, Northumberland, 09/05/2013
    Collared Flycatcher,Northumberland,bird photography tuition,bird photography holidays
    Collared Flycatcher [Ficedula albicollis], Low Newton, Northumberland, 09/05/2013