{"id":1051,"date":"2011-05-29T17:05:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T17:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2011-05-29T17:05:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-29T17:05:02","slug":"juggling-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/juggling-act","title":{"rendered":"Juggling act"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve just finished what has almost certainly been our hardest week since we started NEWT; organising and guiding a 7-night Northumberland birdwatching holiday for no less than 18 clients.<\/p>\n

The Bamburgh Castle Inn<\/a>\u00a0was our accommodation base for the week and the upstairs conservatory, with it’s excellent views over the harbour, Farne Islands<\/a> and\u00a0Bamburgh Castle, was reserved for our\u00a0dinner each night of the holiday.\u00a0 Many, many thanks to Sean and his team for the entire week \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The unseasonal high winds weren’t going to get the better of us, and our original itinerary for the week was shuffled\/re-jigged\/abandoned as we took some calculated risks to ensure that our planned boat trips to the Farne Islands and Coquet Island both went ahead.\u00a0 They did, and we’re eternally grateful to Billy Shiel’s Farne Island Boat Trips<\/a> and Dave Gray’s Puffin Cruises for the incredibly professional way that they handled our clients.<\/p>\n

I asked the group for their highlight of the week…and got a lot of answers;\u00a0A mixed flock of waders, resplendent in breeding plumage, along the coastline of Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 An Otter<\/strong><\/em>, lazily fishing in a coastal pool. Sailing around Coquet Island as the sky darkened and all of the terns flushed from the island when the RSPB warden walked up the slipway.\u00a0 A pair of very pink Roseate Terns<\/strong><\/em> mating.\u00a0 Walking through the dunes at Newton in the howling gales of Monday afternoon.\u00a0 Staple Island and Inner Farne.\u00a0 Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> wandering through the heather on our day in the Cheviots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All too soon, the week was over and I led a brief foray into the North Pennines<\/a>\u00a0for a few of the group as they headed south.\u00a0 There, in the driving rain and howling gale, a Black Grouse<\/em><\/strong> sat hunched in the bracken – looking even more annoyed than they usually do \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The week wouldn’t have\u00a0run so well without the quality of service from all of the other companies we worked with, but I\u00a0want to say a massive thank you to Sarah.\u00a0 Client care, liaison with suppliers, running the NEWT office for the week and realising what I was going to ask before I had even\u00a0asked it were all taken in her stride and made the week work.\u00a0 Thank You \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

We’re already dealing with enquiries for group holidays in May 2012, so get in touch to find out what we can offer you and your group; whatever time of the year, whatever the size of your group…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve just finished what has almost certainly been our hardest week since we started NEWT; organising and guiding a 7-night Northumberland birdwatching holiday for no less than 18 clients. The Bamburgh Castle Inn\u00a0was our accommodation base for the week and the upstairs conservatory, with it’s excellent views over the harbour, Farne Islands and\u00a0Bamburgh Castle, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3,8,9,11,119,10,105,5,141,139],"tags":[54,474,475,837,208,274],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bamburgh-castle","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-druridge","category-farnes","category-holy-island","category-lindisfarne","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-group-birdwatching-holidays","tag-northumberland-birdwatching-holidays","tag-otter","tag-red-grouse","tag-roseate-tern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","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=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}