{"id":1424,"date":"2011-12-07T17:49:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T17:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2011-12-07T17:49:25","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T17:49:25","slug":"winter-wonderland-281111-011211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/winter-wonderland-281111-011211","title":{"rendered":"Winter Wonderland 28\/11\/11-01\/12\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was our Winter Wonderland birdwatching\u00a0holiday, although as I arrived at Saughy Rigg<\/a>\u00a0I wondered if Windy Wonderland would be a better name for it \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The original itinerary involved the Solway coast on Tuesday and the North Pennines on Wednesday, but a quick discussion with our guests on arrival meant that our coastal day was switched to Northumberland to avoid the poor weather in the west.<\/p>\n

The plan worked well, at least until mid-afternoon when the weather caught up with us and we had a couple of hours of\u00a0dodging the showers.\u00a0 The waders and wildfowl that winter here featured throughout the day\u00a0and Greylag, Pink-footed, Pale-bellied Brent, Barnacle <\/strong><\/em>and\u00a0Eurasian White-fronted Geese<\/strong><\/em> were all enjoying the mild weather on the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 3 splendid drake Goosanders<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 were blown across Druridge Pools before battling their way back against the wind, and a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> was grazing in the gap between 2 reed beds.\u00a0 As so often seems to happen, some of the best wildlife of the day saved its appearance until the light began to fade.\u00a0 First a Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em>, with a strikingly white face, quartering backwards and forwards along the margins of a field, then 2 Water Rails<\/strong><\/em>, those small, secretive denizens of the reeds, stepped gingerly into view; prodding and\u00a0poking and squealing like piglets as they vanished back into the gloom.\u00a0 Then, as flocks of geese descended to roost, a Bittern<\/strong><\/em> flew from the reeds and headed south.<\/p>\n

Wednesday brought another breezy morning, and we headed into the hills.\u00a0 Remarkable numbers of Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> chuckled at us as we watched from the comfort of the car, and 7 Black Grouse<\/strong><\/em> were the first of no less than 75 that we found during the day.\u00a0 The weather closed in all around us and, after a quick check of a lough\u00a0wher Teal, Wigeon<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> were roosting and Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> were feeding, we finished the day at one of our favourite evening venues.\u00a0 An unidentified raptor flew low across the heather moorland and out of sight over a ridge, Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> burst from cover before settling again a short distance away and a lone Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> battled into a brutal headwind as the evening faded to darkness.<\/p>\n

Winter Wonderland is one (in fact, two) of the holidays on our itinerary for 2012<\/a>, so give us a call on 01670 827465 for more details or to book your place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was our Winter Wonderland birdwatching\u00a0holiday, although as I arrived at Saughy Rigg\u00a0I wondered if Windy Wonderland would be a better name for it \ud83d\ude09 The original itinerary involved the Solway coast on Tuesday and the North Pennines on Wednesday, but a quick discussion with our guests on arrival meant that our coastal day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141],"tags":[391,519,167,54,520,168,378,505,123,401,392,208,66,456,169,237,181],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-barnacle-geese","tag-birdwatching-holiday","tag-bittern","tag-black-grouse","tag-eurasian-white-fronted-geese","tag-goldeneye","tag-goosander","tag-greylag-geese","tag-lapwing","tag-pale-bellied-brent-geese","tag-pink-footed-geese","tag-red-grouse","tag-roe-deer","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-teal","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","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=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}