{"id":1017,"date":"2011-05-10T16:59:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T16:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2011-05-10T16:59:49","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T16:59:49","slug":"sights-and-sounds-north-pennines-10052011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/sights-and-sounds-north-pennines-10052011","title":{"rendered":"Sights and sounds; North Pennines 10\/05\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a run of 3 North Pennines<\/a> trips in 6 days, I’m going to be seeing a lot of what is rapidly becoming my favourite birdwatching location (outside of the Northumberland coast in mid-October of course…).<\/p>\n

05:30 and the incessant ringing of the alarm clock lets me know that it’s time to be up and about.\u00a0 Within an hour I’m on my way to Hebburn and then heading west with\u00a0Kathleen and Brian, 2 of our Prestige Clients,\u00a0in the car.<\/p>\n

The elements aren’t playing fair; a biting cold wind just adds to the ‘feel’ of the North Pennines, but even the stinging raindrops don’t dampen the enthusiasm.\u00a0 An imperious Blackcock<\/strong><\/em>, taking shelter from the wind behind a dry stone wall, allows a prolonged view (we weren’t to know that he was the first of no less than 21 Black Grouse<\/strong><\/em> that we were going to enjoy, including 7 birds lekking as we had our lunch).\u00a0 Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> popped up like Meerkats from the heather as we passed, Lapwing<\/strong><\/em>, Curlew <\/strong><\/em>and Snipe<\/strong><\/em> were all calling over their territories, Skylarks<\/em><\/strong> were singing a song that was carried far on the wind and a Golden Plover<\/em><\/strong> called plaintively as its little shockingly yellow chicks bobbed up and down around it.\u00a0 A Stoat<\/em><\/strong> dashing across the road in front of us, quickly vanished into the heather; the predator’s route signposted by the string of Meadow Pipits<\/em><\/strong> flushing as it passed.<\/p>\n

One down, two to go…and I might go there early on Thursday myself when I’m in the area for a Northern Experience Holidays<\/a> business meeting.\u00a0 Addicted?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a run of 3 North Pennines trips in 6 days, I’m going to be seeing a lot of what is rapidly becoming my favourite birdwatching location (outside of the Northumberland coast in mid-October of course…). 05:30 and the incessant ringing of the alarm clock lets me know that it’s time to be up and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[470,54,172,175,471,123,208,204,183],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-birdwatching-holidays-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-curlew","tag-golden-plover","tag-guided-birdwatching-northumberland","tag-lapwing","tag-red-grouse","tag-snipe","tag-stoat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","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=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}