When we’re out with clients, or even out on our own, there are days when nothing stands out and,\u00a0simply, everything is memorable \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Sometimes though there will be one thing that really sticks in the memory.<\/p>\n
I collected Vin and Nicky from Whitley Bay yesterday morning and we set out on an exploration of the Druridge Bay\/Southeast Northumberland area in idyllic weather conditions.\u00a0 Grey Wagtail, Long-tailed Tits, Mallards, Kestrels <\/em><\/strong>and a Buzzard <\/em><\/strong>all entertained before we came across the remarkable goose flocks that we’re enjoying this winter.\u00a0 Pink-footed, Bean <\/em><\/strong>and White-fronted Geese<\/em><\/strong> were bobbing about on lakes, flying in skeins towards other geese feeding in nearby fields and…scattering in panic.\u00a0 That scattering always focuses everyone’s attention; we know that there’s something happening that the birds are unhappy about, and that something is often the arrival of a predator.\u00a0 Sure enough, as the Common<\/em><\/strong> and Black-headed Gulls<\/em><\/strong> took to the air and made a mad dash for the centre of the lake, a Peregrine<\/em><\/strong> scythed through the flock.\u00a0 For 20 minutes it climbed, stooped and harried the gulls, who had presumably realised that it wouldn’t dive into the water so became less\u00a0willing to take flight as it repeatedly buzzed them.\u00a0 Eventually, and preumably tired after all the exertion without a kill, it settled in a nearby field with a goose flock.\u00a0 We all had the same thought whilst we were watching it; when we were young and first interested in birdwatching this was an almost mythical species.\u00a0 Once incredibly rare, due to a combination of persecution, egg-collection and the effects of organochlorine pesticides, it takes my breath away that I have the opportunity so often to watch Peregrines<\/em><\/strong> in the wild, and share the experience with our clients.\u00a0 It probably deserves the title of this blog post…but the flock of 50 displaying Goldeneye<\/em><\/strong> in the hour before dusk were something special too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we’re out with clients, or even out on our own, there are days when nothing stands out and,\u00a0simply, everything is memorable \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Sometimes though there will be one thing that really sticks in the memory. I collected Vin and Nicky from Whitley Bay yesterday morning and we set out on an exploration of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,139],"tags":[526,168,256,527,55,392,525],"class_list":["post-1442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-bean-geese","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-long-tailed-tits","tag-peregrine","tag-pink-footed-geese","tag-white-fronted-geese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442","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=1442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1443,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442\/revisions\/1443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}