{"id":1203,"date":"2011-08-18T09:55:58","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T09:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2011-08-18T06:38:02","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T06:38:02","slug":"goat-on-make-my-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/goat-on-make-my-day","title":{"rendered":"Go(at) on, make my day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday saw something we haven’t done before; a mid-August Kielder Safari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrew, Nick (on his 3rd trip with NEWT), Stephen and Georgina all arrived at our starting point within minutes of each other.\u00a0 Under a deep blue sky, with some big fluffy white clouds, conditions looked perfect and we set off\u00a0for the western reaches of Northumberland.<\/p>\n

Common Buzzards <\/em><\/strong>were seen en route<\/em>, a good sign that conditions were right for raptors.\u00a0 The thing that makes our Kielder Safaris\u00a0so special\u00a0is the access we’ve been granted by the Forestry Commission, allowing us to take our clients on a drive along remote tracks that are not open to vehicle access by the general public.\u00a0 With so little disturbance, the wildlife along the tracks is often very approachable.\u00a0 A family party of Common Crossbills<\/strong><\/em> perched obligingly in trees just ahead of us, and kept flying down to the track to eat grit, Siskins<\/strong><\/em>, Chaffinches<\/strong><\/em> and a Spotted Flycatcher<\/strong><\/em> were all watched as they went about their business close by and a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> twisted, turned and swooped through the trees just a few metres away, hot on the tail of a flock of Siskins<\/strong><\/em> and Chaffinches<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Perhaps one of the most extraordinary moments of the trip was something I’ve never seen before, in over 40 years of birdwatching;\u00a0 as we watched a juvenile Common Buzzard<\/em><\/strong> soaring above a remote steep-sided valley, Andrew noticed a second bird further along the valley.\u00a0 The juvenile flew in that direction and the second bird, an adult buzzard,\u00a0flew up towards it, rolled on it’s back in mid-air and passed prey\u00a0up to the juvenile.\u00a0 I’ve seen that happen so many times as courtship behaviour in all of our harrier species, but I’ve never seen a food pass between Common Buzzards,<\/em><\/strong> and to see it executed so gracefully by this broad-winged raptor was breathtaking.\u00a0 We continued on our way with Wheatear, Stonechat, Kestrel, Raven, Pochard, Tufted Duck\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and Mandarin<\/em><\/strong> all joining the day list.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best of the day though came near the end; as we drove across the Forest Drive, a large mammal crossed the track ahead of us.\u00a0 Looking like a dark Roe Deer <\/em><\/strong>on steroids, the nanny Wild Goat<\/em><\/strong> was soon followed by a billy goat and 2 kids.\u00a0 We’ve seen Wild Goats<\/em><\/strong> with clients on our trips before, but never at such close quarters.<\/p>\n

We’ll be visiting Kielder again on 31st August and 2nd September, so give us a call on 07908 119535 to find out how you can share the experience of the border forests, and the unknown quantity of those remote tracks, with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday saw something we haven’t done before; a mid-August Kielder Safari. Andrew, Nick (on his 3rd trip with NEWT), Stephen and Georgina all arrived at our starting point within minutes of each other.\u00a0 Under a deep blue sky, with some big fluffy white clouds, conditions looked perfect and we set off\u00a0for the western reaches of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,5],"tags":[148,165,128,203,420,457,89,131,285,215,182,235,495],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-kielder","category-northumberland","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-crossbill","tag-kestrel","tag-mandarin","tag-pochard","tag-raven","tag-siskin","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-spotted-flycatcher","tag-stonechat","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wheatear","tag-wild-goat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","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=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1205,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}