{"id":1140,"date":"2011-07-13T08:03:57","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T08:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1140"},"modified":"2011-07-12T06:32:32","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T06:32:32","slug":"bird-watching-magazine-reader-holiday-day-3-09072011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/bird-watching-magazine-reader-holiday-day-3-09072011","title":{"rendered":"Bird Watching Magazine Reader Holiday Day 3: 09\/07\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday morning our destination was Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland and another poor weather forecast ( a bit of a running theme during the holiday…) suggested that we may well get wet.\u00a0 An addition to the mammal list for the trip raced across the road ahead of us; a Stoat<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 an endearing predator and one of NEWT\u2019s favourite animals.<\/p>\n

We arrived in Amble for our sailing around Coquet Island with Dave Gray\u2019s Puffin Cruises; as Dave manoeuvred the excellent Steadfast<\/em> into the harbour, the rain arrived from the northeast.\u00a0 The sailing around the island produced excellent views of Roseate Terns<\/strong><\/em>, as well as Common<\/strong><\/em>, Arctic<\/strong><\/em> and Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em>, Gannets<\/strong><\/em>, Puffins<\/strong><\/em>, Razorbills<\/strong><\/em> and Guillemots<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As we sailed in a wide arc from the island to begin the journey back to the harbour an Arctic Skua<\/strong><\/em> was harassing terns away to the north.\u00a0 Four more Arctic Skuas<\/strong><\/em> were followed by a real seawatching prize as a Pomarine Skua<\/strong><\/em> lumbered menacingly by before settling on the sea.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our final Arctic Skua<\/strong><\/em> flew over the harbour just before we docked and I suggested that the Country Barn Coffee Shop at Widdrington would be the best destination once we were back on dry land.<\/p>\n

Refreshed, dried and ready to go we visited the NWT reserve of East Chevington.\u00a0 The tern roost allowed close comparison of Common<\/strong><\/em> and Arctic Terns<\/strong><\/em>, but the bird described by one participant as \u2018bird of the holiday\u2019 was a superb male Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 A juvenile harrier appeared briefly over the reedbed as well, but the male perched for several minutes on a fence post.\u00a0 Just after we reached Druridge Pools, the heavens opened, lightning flashed, thunder rolled and 2 Wood Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> bobbed along the edge of the main pool.\u00a0 A trip to Cresswell, and the most northerly breeding Avocets<\/strong><\/em> in England, followed and we all enjoyed\u00a0 views of a very obliging Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em>, Little Gulls<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and both Little <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Great Crested<\/strong><\/em> Grebes<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Another excellent evening meal and entertaining conversation (including David\u2019s comment about Captain Birdseye in a cape..a reference to my appearance during the Coquet Island trip), concluded our final night in Seahouses.<\/p>\n

As I put my coffee cup and glass of orange juice on the table at breakfast on Sunday morning I looked out over the harbour and the words \u201cit\u2019s a glorious morning\u201d were quickly followed by \u201cand there\u2019s a Spoonbill<\/strong><\/em>!\u201d.\u00a0 Everyone rushed to the window to watch, as Northumberland delivered a fantastic finale to the holiday; poor weather forecasts, some stunning downpours, big seas, beautiful weather, iconic landscapes, excellent birdwatching…all in four days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday morning our destination was Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland and another poor weather forecast ( a bit of a running theme during the holiday…) suggested that we may well get wet.\u00a0 An addition to the mammal list for the trip raced across the road ahead of us; a Stoat \u2013 an endearing predator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,275,9,5,139],"tags":[362,230,40,479,57,229,185,488,186,360,93,397,387,225,226,274,223,398,183],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-coquet-island","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-arctic-skua","tag-arctic-tern","tag-avocet","tag-bird-watching-holiday-northumberland","tag-brown-hare","tag-common-tern","tag-gannet","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-guillemot","tag-little-grebe","tag-little-gull","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-pomarine-skua","tag-puffin","tag-razorbill","tag-roseate-tern","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-spoonbill","tag-stoat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","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=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1144,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}