{"id":1339,"date":"2011-09-29T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1339"},"modified":"2011-09-29T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T09:37:00","slug":"raptorfest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/raptorfest","title":{"rendered":"Raptorfest"},"content":{"rendered":"

We don’t usually do North Pennines<\/a> trips in September; by this time of the year we’re focused closely on the coast, and our inland visits tend to be limited to our own photography projects.\u00a0 However, when we had a ‘phone call on Monday “we’re stopping in Allendale, what can you do for us this week?”, it seemed logical to head into the bleak open expanse of southwest Northumberland and Upper Teesdale.<\/p>\n

I collected Jan and Pete from their holiday cottage and we headed cross country as I explained that birdwatching in the North Pennines tends to be about quality rather than quantity…<\/p>\n

Sure enough, the mouth-watering quality of birdwatching on the moors was soon evident.\u00a0 After lots of obligingly photogenic Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> we went through a remarkable period of raptor sightings.\u00a0 Kestrels<\/em><\/strong> and Common Buzzards<\/em><\/strong> were followed by a Peregrine<\/strong><\/em> harassing a Carrion Crow<\/strong><\/em>, a Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> somehow getting embroiled in that same dispute, a Merlin<\/em><\/strong> that raced across the fell behind the intriguing\u00a03-way dogfight, more Kestrels<\/em><\/strong> and Common Buzzards,<\/strong><\/em> and a Sparrowhawk<\/em><\/strong> that had caught a Lapwing<\/em><\/strong> (which broke free and flew off, with the Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> in pursuit).<\/p>\n

Then we had a quantity of quality, as our afternoon and evening produced no less than\u00a073 Black Grouse<\/strong><\/em>! 54 Blackcocks<\/strong><\/em> and 19 Greyhens<\/strong><\/em> was an extraordinary total for one trip and we enjoyed the sight of the cryptically patterned Greyhens<\/strong><\/em>, the iridescent blue of the adult\u00a0Blackcocks<\/strong><\/em> and we picked out a few young birds amongst the groups as well.<\/p>\n

Rounded off with a carmine pink sky just after sunset, we’ll have to think about adding some autumn North Pennines trips into our schedule for 2012 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We don’t usually do North Pennines trips in September; by this time of the year we’re focused closely on the coast, and our inland visits tend to be limited to our own photography projects.\u00a0 However, when we had a ‘phone call on Monday “we’re stopping in Allendale, what can you do for us this week?”, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[54,272,148,128,123,56,55,208,131],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-carrion-crow","tag-common-buzzard","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-merlin","tag-peregrine","tag-red-grouse","tag-sparrowhawk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339","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=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1341,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}