The harsh ‘kev-i-week’ calls echo around the stone walls as Kittiwakes either sit on their precipitous nest ledges or soar against the clear blue sky. Effortless gliding low over the faintly rippled water surface leads to a steep climb to join the other members of the colony. The tell-tale white splashes on the rock face identify this as a well-established site and the density of occupied nests suggests that this really is a des-res. I can sit for hours watching these gentle-countenanced birds; the white underparts, ‘dipped in ink’ black wingtips and dove grey upperwings and mantle all combine to produce a bird so different from the noisy, scrabbling brutes of the gull family that most people are familiar with. A tri-syllabic ticking alerts me to the presence of a Linnet; too high overhead to identify by sight, but it’s flight-call gives it away. Behind me a Greenfinch starts it’s tuneless wheezing, before launching into the air and song-flighting with a canary-like trill.<\/p>\n
Close your eyes and imagine all of these sounds; the clamour of a seabird colony and the call and song of two of our finches. Imagine the faint seaweedy smell of ozone. Imagine you’re sitting below a coastal cliff, bathed in warm summer sunshine. Now open your eyes; and discover that you’re actually sititng beside me in the shadow of the Tyne Bridge and the world’s most inland colony of Kittiwakes…and who would have thought that such a remarkable place could be right there and so accessible?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The harsh ‘kev-i-week’ calls echo around the stone walls as Kittiwakes either sit on their precipitous nest ledges or soar against the clear blue sky. Effortless gliding low over the faintly rippled water surface leads to a steep climb to join the other members of the colony. The tell-tale white splashes on the rock face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","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=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}