{"id":1471,"date":"2012-02-17T12:41:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T12:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2012-02-17T12:41:33","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T12:41:33","slug":"expect-the-unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/expect-the-unexpected","title":{"rendered":"Expect the unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever we have a trip with clients who have been given gift vouchers<\/a>, I always wonder what they expect.\u00a0 Some will have chosen gift vouchers when asked what they would like, some will have been given\u00a0them by our existing clients, and for some it must be a complete mystery tour.\u00a0 When we get an enquiry we always try to determine exactly what our clients want, but at the start of a trip I’ll always enquire “is there anything you’re particularly keen to see while you’re in Northumberland?”\u00a0 Then, the pressure is on to try and deliver that experience…<\/p>\n

I collected Patrick and Bronwyn from Amble yesterday morning for a day of birdwatching around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 As we set off it was a beautiful morning; sunny, calm and dry and I soon determined that one bird they would love to see was Bittern<\/em><\/strong> – they’ve visited sites where Bitterns<\/strong><\/em> breed and\u00a0Bitterns<\/strong><\/em> overwinter but not, so far, anywhere where the aforementioned birds were obliging enough to come into view for them.\u00a0 An hour into the trip and it was already windy, bitterly cold and spotting with rain but the birding was good.\u00a0 2 Bewick’s Swans<\/strong><\/em> in a roadside field were very obliging, nibbling on the vegetation as we studied them, 12 Goosanders<\/strong><\/em> sailed majestically across a lake, Patrick’s sharp eyes picked out an immaculate male Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> on a fence post\u00a0and the air was filled with skeins of geese (Canada, Greylag, Pink-footed, White-fronted and Bean<\/strong><\/em>), a Skylark<\/strong><\/em> battled into the wind and Wigeon, Teal, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Pochard, Mallard <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Great-crested Grebe <\/strong><\/em>were picked out from the flock on the water.<\/p>\n

A brief\u00a0visit to Newbiggin to track down a Mediterranean Gull<\/strong><\/em> (or four) was followed by lunch overlooking the North Sea. Heading up through the bay, Red-breasted Mergansers <\/em><\/strong>were displaying and a Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> (the first of three for the afternoon) perched on a roadside fence-post.\u00a0 Reedbeds were illuminated by that beautiful winter afternoon light (I wax lyrical about it frequently, but it really is a breathtaking backdrop to the wildlife and part of the experience).\u00a0 As\u00a0the afternoon light began to\u00a0fade, Venus appeared overhead, a herd of Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0trumpeted their arrival for the evening roost and a\u00a0Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> shot out of one reedbed, flew across in front of us, landed just out of sight and flushed a Bittern<\/em><\/strong> that flew almost the reverse of the route taken by the heron, along the near edge of the pool directly in front of us\u00a0and dropped into a reedbed and out of sight!\u00a0 Wildlife may be unpredictable, but those days when it seems to perform to order leave me, and our clients, with a big grin \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 After that what more was there to do than spend the evening relaxing back at home with a glass of good red wine. Cheers \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever we have a trip with clients who have been given gift vouchers, I always wonder what they expect.\u00a0 Some will have chosen gift vouchers when asked what they would like, some will have been given\u00a0them by our existing clients, and for some it must be a complete mystery tour.\u00a0 When we get an enquiry […]<\/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":[526,194,167,53,506,372,378,283,505,128,171,178,392,188,456,131,169,525,130,181],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-bean-geese","tag-bewicks-swan","tag-bittern","tag-buzzard","tag-canada-geese","tag-cormorant","tag-goosander","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-geese","tag-kestrel","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-pink-footed-geese","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-teal","tag-white-fronted-geese","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","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=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}