{"id":1315,"date":"2011-09-13T09:31:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T09:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2011-09-13T09:31:25","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T09:31:25","slug":"now-that-was-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/now-that-was-unexpected","title":{"rendered":"Now, that was unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I collected Ian and Pauline from Rothbury for a Prestige Tour of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=2\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland and headed towards the coast in what could only be described as a stiff breeze \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Nuthatches,   Great Tits,   Blue Tits, <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>Coal Tits <\/em><\/strong>and a <strong><em>Treecreeper<\/em><\/strong> were all watched as we sat amongst the trees and Pauline spotted our only <strong><em>Red Squirrel<\/em><\/strong> of the trip as it ran between patches of fern nearby.<\/p>\n<p>Beside the River Coquet a <strong><em>Grey Heron<\/em><\/strong> sat impassively, <strong><em>Goosanders<\/em><\/strong> were sleeping along the riverbank and <strong><em>Curlew <\/em><\/strong>prodded around in the mud.\u00a0 The wader roost at East Chevington was a bit lacking in variety; lots of <strong><em>Lapwings<\/em><\/strong>, 20 <strong><em>Ruff<\/em><\/strong>, 30 <strong><em>Curlew<\/em><\/strong> and single <strong><em>Knot <\/em><\/strong>and <strong><em>Bar-tailed Godwit<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 An unfamiliar call heralded the arrival of 4 <strong><em>Snow Geese<\/em><\/strong>, accompanied by the 3 <strong><em>Bar-headed Geese<\/em><\/strong> that have been wandering around Druridge Bay this summer, and a juvenile <strong><em>Marsh Harrier<\/em><\/strong> was tossed around on the wind.\u00a0 A good selection of ducks was on offer; <em><strong>Mallard<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Shoveler<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Teal,<\/strong><\/em> <em><strong>Wigeon<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Pochard<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Pintail<\/strong><\/em><strong>. <\/strong>Birdwatching can be tricky in strong wind, but there was plenty to see.\u00a0 As we drove towards\u00a0Druridge Pools, I stopped the car so we could look at an unfamiliar shape flying from Cresswell towards Druridge.\u00a0 A (presumably) escaped <strong><em>Eagle Owl<\/em><\/strong>! Druridge produced another magical moment as well, with a juvenile <strong><em>Peregrine<\/em><\/strong> hunting <strong><em>Teal<\/em><\/strong> above the main pool.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0As the final traces of daylight faded, a <strong><em>Tawny Owl<\/em><\/strong> serenaded us as the wind whipped around our ears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I collected Ian and Pauline from Rothbury for a Prestige Tour of Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland and headed towards the coast in what could only be described as a stiff breeze \ud83d\ude09 Nuthatches, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tits and a Treecreeper were all watched as we sat amongst the trees and Pauline spotted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[502,147,46,101,172,500,170,378,45,283,334,123,171,397,300,55,179,420,833,241,269,501,78,169,338,182,181],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","tag-bar-headed-goose","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-blue-tit","tag-coal-tit","tag-curlew","tag-eagle-owl","tag-gadwall","tag-goosander","tag-great-tit","tag-grey-heron","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-nuthatch","tag-peregrine","tag-pintail","tag-pochard","tag-red-squirrel","tag-ruff","tag-shoveler","tag-snow-goose","tag-tawny-owl","tag-teal","tag-treecreeper","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315","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=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions\/1316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}