Northern Experience Wildlife Tours

Tag: Kingfisher

  • “You should have been here yesterday…”

    On days when one species doesn’t appear, the supporting cast can often be equally stunning.

    An icy breeze was whistling around the car as I collected Matt and Kate for a day searching for Otters and other wildlife around southeast Northumberland.  We started with a riverside walk and were soon enjoying excellent views of a Kingfisher, stunning orange and electric blue, as it perched, hovered, dived and whizzed backwards and forwards along the river.  A Grey Wagtail bobbed around, oblivious to our presence, and a Little Grebe dived in the gravelly shallows.

    Our next port of call produced a mixture of pleasure and sadness; while we were watching three Red Squirrels a Grey Squirrel appeared 🙁 Northumberland is probably the best place to see Red Squirrel in England, and the southeast of the county still has a few sites where excellent views can be obtained, but the arrival of Greys is often followed by the rapid spread of parapox through the local Red population.

    A stop at East Chevington produced lots of Tufted Ducks and Goldeneye, more Little Grebes and a Grey Heron…and a strengthening breeze and increasing cloud cover.  If there was an Otter about, it was doing the sensible thing and keeping itself hidden away out of the wind.  Whooper Swans were sitting in a flooded field, with Mute Swans nearby for ease of comparison, and everything we encountered was facing into the wind to minimise heat loss.

    Our final site for the day was another stretch of river; one that we walk regularly ourselves, and where we’d had up-to-date info about Otter activity.  A stunning Red Fox watched us inquisitively from the opposite side of the river, Moorhens swam back and forth with that curious jerky motion that they have and, as daylight gave way to darkness and a Tawny Owl called nearby, a succession of dog walkers commented “you should have been here yesterday…”.

  • 4 out of 5

    A lot of enquiries that we receive are along the lines of “we’d like to see a…”.  Naturally, we do our best to oblige (and, far more often than not, successfully).

    Paul and Louise had a list of 5; Grey Seal, Puffin, Badger, Otter  and Kingfisher.  The first 2 were straightforward; a trip around the Farne Islands on Glad Tidings V produced plenty of each.  We headed south towards Druridge Bay and enjoyed close views of a huge bull seal, as he hunted fish in the Coquet estuary.  Our one Otter sighting of the day came at the NWT reserve of East Chevington; a young kit feeding in the North pool.  With lots of terns, cormorants, geese and 3 Marsh Harriers and a Common Buzzard, there was plenty to see.  Kingfisher, however, eluded us.  They’ve been quite scarce this year, in fact, during 2011, I’ve seen more of each of the other 4 targets for this trip than I have Kingfishers.

    As the sun headed down towards the horizon, our favourite Badger sett once again produced the goods as a Badger passed within a few metres of us, completely unconcerned, before vanishing up an adjacent hillside to continue foraging.

  • Walking the Wansbeck

    We’d planned to do some survey work this morning, but the prospect of walking along the beach from Cresswell to East Chevington into a stiff northerly with heavy rain and temperatures only hovering just above freezing wasn’t too tempting.

    Instead we opted for some southeast Northumberland birdwatching with a walk along the River Wansbeck near Morpeth.  Our local river is a real gem in some parts and we walk several of them regularly.  In the gloom and wet of this morning we still enjoyed the Mallards and Moorhens on the river, the flocks of Coal Tits and Long-tailed Tits in the trees and, best of all, the iridescent electric blue of a Kingfisher as it perched on a tree overhanging the water.  An afternoon spent working (on the Northeast Cetacean Project and a business plan that we’ve been preparing) will be followed (we hope!) by a relaxing Sunday evening and then a busy week ahead; finalising and submitting the business plan, bringing the Northeast Cetacean Project database up to date, drafting a couple of articles that Martin’s writing and meeting up with some old friends (and new ones) as we put together next year’s itinerary for NEWT.  Oh, there’ll be a few blog posts as well 🙂

  • To intervene in nature…or not?

    We were watching Autumnwatch yesterday evening and one discussion between the presenters, concerning intervention when you’re filming/photographing an animal in distress, was particularly pertinent to the mini-safari that Martin led earlier yesterday evening…but back to that later in this post.

    The half-term week was busy, as expected, and included some fantastic wildlife watching; Salmon leaping up a weir on the River Coquet, Starlings massing and swirling above a coastal reedbed before dropping to roost, 2000+ Pink-footed Geese filling the sky overhead, as they left their feeding sites and headed for the overnight safety of the water, and Grey Seals around the Farne Islands as they approach the height of their breeding season.

    Yesterday brought an evening mini-safari in southeast Northumberland.  Damp gloomy conditions and increasingly glowering clouds weren’t making things look too promising.  Our walk along the River Blyth produced a Nuthatch, and a Kingfisher called as it flew along the swollen, muddy river.  Two birdwatching gems, but quality rather than quantity was the order of the evening.  A Sparrowhawk provided some entertainment as it swooped repeatedly down towards the trees, flushing flocks of Woodpigeon with each descent, before finally vanishing into the canopy.  We continued our walk and, as we rounded a bend in the path, we found the reason for the Sparrowhawk’s disappearance; flapping lamely in the undergrowth was a Woodpigeon with a nasty head wound.  The predator had presumably flushed as we approached.  We’ve seen similar before and the question from clients is always “what are we going to do?”.  The answer may seem quite cold and heartless but we do nothing.  The pigeon was mortally wounded and would provide a meal either for the hawk or possibly a Red Fox would come along and make off with it.  Nature really is ‘red in tooth and claw’ and we shouldn’t interfere in the everyday life (and death) of our wildlife where we can avoid doing so.

    Our next destination was what is rapidly becoming our favourite Badger sett.  As we watched quietly (and we really have to congratulate the 6-year old in our group for remaining so very quiet) over the open area close to the sett, a Red Fox crossed the track ahead of us, we could hear scuffling in the undergrowth and then two stripy black-and-white faces appeared out of the gloom.  After a withering stare in our direction the two cubs trotted along the hillside and were joined by a third before vanishing into the night.  The final leg of the trip was a search for owls.  Local knowledge paid off, as the ghostly figure of a Barn Owl floated through the beam of our headlights just where we expected it to.  There was still time for more wildlife though and the application of our bat detector revealed a Common Pipistrelle feeding on the rich bounty of moths.  After the recent frosts it was good to find bats still active, and our final event for this October is a Bat Walk at Bamburgh Castle tomorrow evening.  Give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place for what should be an evening of family fun.

  • Skating on thin ice

    After seeing my photos appearing in Martin’s blog posts for the last couple of days, I thought I’d turn my hand to writing today’s blog.

    I started the day by taking my father-in-law for a birdwatching walk around Choppington Woods although, with everything frozen solid, there were very few birds to be seen.  We did find a couple of distant Roe Deer but, on the whole, the walk consisted of a consistent attempt to not fall on the ice.  With the partial thaw and heavy rain of yesterday, followed by another hard freeze overnight, all of the footpaths were covered with a treacherous layer of transparent ice.  A couple we passed were complaining about their new walking boots not being any help to remaining upright.

    Back at home, lunch was home-made vegetable soup, baked ham and a selection of cheeses.  Just the thing in this weather.  Martin had spent the whole morning in bed with a sore throat, ear-ache and a splitting headache; probably the outcome of having a puncture on the Landrover late last night and being outside in the bitter cold…without a hat or gloves!  I have to wonder sometimes…

    He did perk up a bit once lunch was ready though, and then spent most of the afternoon processing and backing-up the images from the last few days.  Tomorrow the plan (weather permitting) is to try and photograph Kingfishers, and to get closer shots of Roe Deer. Good job we’ve got two cameras 🙂