{"id":1006,"date":"2011-04-28T10:10:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2011-04-28T10:10:57","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:10:57","slug":"north-pennines-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/north-pennines-beauty","title":{"rendered":"North Pennines Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All of the areas we visit with our clients have something special about them, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=12\" target=\"_blank\">North Pennines<\/a>\u00a0is often our choice for a day out on our own.\u00a0 The area is vast, with open landscapes, big skies and narrow valleys, and there&#8217;s always a feeling that this is somewhere really special.<\/p>\n<p>A 7am start heralded the first part of the prize (a trip into the North Pennines to photograph <em><strong>Black Grouse<\/strong><\/em>) for the under 13 category winner in the Northumberland Wildlife Trust photography competition.\u00a0 Driving through dense fog all the way to beyond Haydon Bridge didn&#8217;t inspire confidence, but visibility at our first stop revealed a flock of <em><strong>Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Curlews <\/strong><\/em>displaying over the moors and\u00a0a <em><strong>Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As we headed over a road that I always expect to produce memorable sightings, we weren&#8217;t disappointed; Jonathan spotted a bird perched on a\u00a0dry stone wall, and it turned out to be a <em><strong>Greyhen<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Now, we see lots of <strong><em>Blackcocks<\/em><\/strong> on our North Pennines trips, but greyhens much less often.\u00a0 This one was sitting there with a purpose, as 2 <strong><em>Blackcocks<\/em><\/strong> were lekking in an adjacent field.\u00a0 Strutting, cooing and displaying their undertail coverts they somehow added an even more ethereal note to the sun-bathed moorland surrounded by mist-filled valleys.\u00a0 The air was drenched with the song of <em><strong>Skylarks<\/strong><\/em>, <strong><em>Snipe<\/em><\/strong> were calling,\u00a0<strong><em>Lapwings<\/em><\/strong> were doing that thing that they do (I&#8217;ve tried to put it into words&#8230;but I can&#8217;t do it justice!)\u00a0and a nearby field contained at least 16 <em><strong>Wheatears<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 On over the moors, <strong><em>Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> bobbed their heads up and down, watching our progress, and we had the closest views of a <strong><em>Blackcock<\/em><\/strong> that I&#8217;ve ever had; iridescent and imperious\u00a0in the morning sunlight.\u00a0 It may be just about the best place in the world \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All of the areas we visit with our clients have something special about them, but the North Pennines\u00a0is often our choice for a day out on our own.\u00a0 The area is vast, with open landscapes, big skies and narrow valleys, and there&#8217;s always a feeling that this is somewhere really special. A 7am start heralded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,16],"tags":[54,172,123,208,204,235],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-photography","tag-black-grouse","tag-curlew","tag-lapwing","tag-red-grouse","tag-snipe","tag-wheatear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1007,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions\/1007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}