{"id":1013,"date":"2011-05-03T09:41:30","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T09:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2011-05-03T09:41:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T09:41:30","slug":"comfort-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/comfort-zone","title":{"rendered":"Comfort zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a general naturalist since an early age, but birdwatching has been the thing that has always gripped my imagination.\u00a0 As a wildlife guide though, is that really enough?\u00a0 That’s a question that seems to arise occasionally on internet forums.\u00a0 I decided at an early stage of NEWT that I needed a much broader and\u00a0deeper knowledge, so I spend a lot of time studying things that once upon a time (I’m ashamed to admit) I would have ignored, or even not noticed.\u00a0 Every day that I spend with clients, I make an effort to learn from them, whilst imparting my own knowledge, skills and understanding of what we encounter.<\/p>\n

On Thursday I led an afternoon of guided birdwatching around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 The blazing sunshine when I collected Karen from Newbiggin made it almost impossible to see anything in the bay but, as each small gull flew by, we checked for the identification features that would provide us with a Mediterranean Gull<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 All proved to be Black-headed Gulls<\/em><\/strong>, and we headed north up the coast.\u00a0 As we stood by the River Coquet, discussing how to separate Carrion Crow<\/strong><\/em>, Rook <\/strong><\/em>and Jackdaw <\/strong><\/em>in flight, I saw the tell-tale ghostly wings of a Med Gull<\/em><\/strong> as it drifted down towards the water’s edge.\u00a0 Jet black hood, pristine white wingtips and, as perfect as if it was scripted, sitting next to an adult Black-headed Gull <\/strong><\/em>allowing easy comparison.\u00a0 Some of\u00a0our favourite birds followed; Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em>, Nuthatch<\/strong><\/em>, Heron<\/strong><\/em> and at least 17 Whimbrel<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 During the\u00a0afternoon I learned\u00a0a feature of Wood Sorrel <\/strong><\/em>that will ensure I never misidentify it (again…).\u00a0 Karen, you were right \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Friday was something very different as we were headed inland to the Cheviots<\/a>\u00a0for a day searching for summer visitors.\u00a0 After a few hours with\u00a0a spectacular roll-call of the wildlife of the valleys, including Brown Hare, Roe Deer, Whinchat, Tree Pipit, Wheatear, Spotted Flycatcher, Red Grouse, Curlew <\/em><\/strong>and Lapwings<\/em><\/strong> (with chicks), we followed the track up a steep sided valley in search of a bird that Sue hadn’t seen before (and really wanted to).\u00a0 As the sky darkened, the wind strengthened and chilled, and the first drops of icy rain began to fall, I spotted 2\u00a0distant birds flying down the valley.\u00a0 I didn’t have any doubt about the identification so, when they eventually settled on the tops of the heather, I aimed the ‘scope in their direction and Sue enjoyed her first views of the ‘Mountain Blackbird’.\u00a0 Ring Ouzels<\/em><\/strong> may often be seen on passage in the spring and autumn, but high in a remote valley, where you think the elements could give you a good working over at any time and the habitat supports so few species, is simply the right place to see them.\u00a0 Another lesson learned; memorable sightings make you forget about the weather \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a general naturalist since an early age, but birdwatching has been the thing that has always gripped my imagination.\u00a0 As a wildlife guide though, is that really enough?\u00a0 That’s a question that seems to arise occasionally on internet forums.\u00a0 I decided at an early stage of NEWT that I needed a much broader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,9,5,139],"tags":[271,57,272,236,382,123,397,193,300,208,263,66,383,285,258,235,231,262],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-brown-hare","tag-carrion-crow","tag-heron","tag-jackdaw","tag-lapwing","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-nuthatch","tag-red-grouse","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-roe-deer","tag-rook","tag-spotted-flycatcher","tag-tree-pipit","tag-wheatear","tag-whimbrel","tag-whinchat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","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=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1014,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}