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Spring arrivals; Druridge Bay Safari 30/04/2015
It’s been a cold windy spring, and a few of our summer visitors seemed a bit tardy; we found our first Sand Martin and Chiffchaff later than we would have expected, but the day has been coming when things would start to happen… I collected Jan and Peter from Church Point and we set out…
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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…
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Now you see them, now you don’t; mini-safari 22/03/2014
To many people, the natural world around them is a bit of a mystery. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in a hide, people have come in, gazed quizzically out of the shutters, very quietly said “there’s nothing here” and left…oblivious to all of the wildlife that was actually there 🙂 …
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Performer
There are times when we’re out with clients and encounter a species that’s really unexpected, other times a bird or animal will do something really impressive and sometimes, just sometimes, it’s the often overlooked ‘little brown jobs’ that are the stars of the show. I collected Stephen from home in North Shields and headed north…
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Arrivals
As I pulled into the car park at The Swan, Peter and Elizabeth were sitting in the bright sunshine. There was still a cold edge to the breeze though, and we set out to explore Druridge Bay, south east Northumberland and the Northumberland coast. Masses of frogspawn was evidence that our amphibians were getting on…
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Fireworks
As a chemist I’ve found fireworks fascinating for some time. While I was still teaching, I developed a series of demonstration experiments that illustrated how different colours are produced by varying the chemicals in the mix and managed, during one particularly spectacular demo, to set fire to a pile of homework and the surface of…
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Hide and seek
Sunday was a Prestige Otter Safari for Chris and Sophie. It was Chris’ birthday and, as I collected them from Berwick in some pretty horrible conditions, I was hoping that we would drive south into better weather. Sure enough, we did pass out from under the rain clouds, but the day stayed quite gloomy and…