{"id":1362,"date":"2011-10-25T10:52:32","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T10:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2011-10-25T10:52:32","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T10:52:32","slug":"hiding-from-the-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/hiding-from-the-wind","title":{"rendered":"Hiding from the wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a forecast for heavy rain today, we had one more client than expected yesterday for our Druridge Bay<\/a>\/southeast Northumberland tour.<\/p>\n

I c0llected Annie from High Weldon, Brian from Bedlington and then David from Warkworth before our first stop at one of our favourite birdwatching spots beside the River Coquet<\/strong>.\u00a0 The first thing that was apparent was that there was a not inconsiderable wind-chill factor\u00a0in play.\u00a0 Thankfully our local area has plenty of reserves with north-facing hides, so plotting a route that would keep us out of the wind wherever possible was quite straightforward.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a day for passerines, although Blue Tit<\/em><\/strong> and Goldcrest<\/em><\/strong> could be heard calling from deep inside coastal hedgerows, and we found ourselves in the middle of a big swirling flock of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> as we ate lunch overlooking the sea, so waders and wildfowl provided the main focus of the day.\u00a0 Bar-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em>, Ruff<\/strong><\/em>, Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> and some very nice flocks of Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em>, Curlew<\/strong><\/em>, Knot<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> were feeding, roosting and, at Cresswell, taking to the air in a panic as a Peregrine<\/em><\/strong> exuded menace as it passed over.\u00a0 ‘Scope-filling views of Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> always go down well, and there was an excellent array of wildfowl and waterbirds to enjoy; Gadwall<\/strong><\/em>, Mallard<\/strong><\/em>, Teal<\/strong><\/em>, Wigeon<\/strong><\/em>,Pochard<\/strong><\/em>, Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em>, Tufted Duck,<\/strong><\/em> Pintail,<\/strong><\/em> Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em>, Coot<\/strong><\/em>, Moorhen<\/strong><\/em>, and Pink-footed<\/strong><\/em>, Greylag<\/strong><\/em> and Barnacle Geese<\/strong><\/em> were all well appreciated, especially with a lot of the drake ducks out of eclipse plumage and looking quite stunning. especially when the sun broke through the clouds.<\/p>\n

When the autumn really starts to feel autumnal, I’m always optimistic \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a forecast for heavy rain today, we had one more client than expected yesterday for our Druridge Bay\/southeast Northumberland tour. I c0llected Annie from High Weldon, Brian from Bedlington and then David from Warkworth before our first stop at one of our favourite birdwatching spots beside the River Coquet.\u00a0 The first thing that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,139],"tags":[147,391,46,373,270,172,288,170,135,175,168,505,334,123,360,198,55,392,179,420,241,161,169,182,181],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-barnacle-geese","tag-blue-tit","tag-common-snipe","tag-coot","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-goldcrest","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldeneye","tag-greylag-geese","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-moorhen","tag-peregrine","tag-pink-footed-geese","tag-pintail","tag-pochard","tag-ruff","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","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=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}