This morning we had a mini-safari to Kielder. Our clients were local and had received Northern Experience Gift Vouchers from their daughter, with the main aim of the trip being to reveal some of the hidden gems for birdwatching in Northumberland’s biggest forest. Although it was warm and sunny near the coast, as we headed inland it started to cloud over. There are a lot of rivers and streams throughout the border forests and we were soon watching a male Grey Wagtail as he bobbed his tail up and down from his vantage point on a mid-stream rock. Oystercatchers angrily chased Crows around the fields and a pair of Siskins were resplendent in their striking black and yellow plumage. We settled to watch over the forest from a vantage point and sure enough, as the sun began to break through the clouds, Common Buzzards began soaring with the lift provided by thermals. One strayed over the territory of a pair of crows and soon found these angry black birds snapping at his tail feathers. Other buzzards began rising and one was in view for a few minutes as it hovered repeatedly over an area of clearfell. A Sparrowhawk flew by and, all around us, Coal Tits, Goldcrests, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Chaffinches and Willow Warblers were singing. A Little Grebe was chased by a female Mallard and responded by swimming across the reservoir and singing. A pair of Oystercatchers were tending a nest, and Mallard ducklings skittered in and out of the vegetation by the water’s edge. As we headed back towards Bellingham I pulled over at the side of the road, where there was just a large enough gap between the trees to afford a view of the river. Swallows, Sand Martins, House Martins and Pied Wagtails all hunted the abundant flies just above the water and a pair of Mandarins with a duckling swam by.<\/p>\n
And no, the other sort of thermals weren’t necessary; Spring has come to the forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning we had a mini-safari to Kielder. Our clients were local and had received Northern Experience Gift Vouchers from their daughter, with the main aim of the trip being to reveal some of the hidden gems for birdwatching in Northumberland’s biggest forest. Although it was warm and sunny near the coast, as we headed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","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=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}