Living in southeast Northumberland, we’re spoiled by having easy access to some outstanding birdwatching areas.\u00a0 Holy Island, which we still think is at its best during the winter, is just an hour north up the A1…<\/p>\n
I collected Keith and Mary on Saturday morning and we crossed the causeway onto the island for a day of birdwatching around the Northumberland Coast AONB.\u00a0 Although we encountered wintering Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em>, Bar-tailed<\/strong><\/em> and Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em> and other waders and wildfowl, there was a definite spring feel to the day.\u00a0 The weather was glorious (although a little breezy), and Skylarks<\/strong><\/em> could be heard high overhead.\u00a0 Curlews<\/em><\/strong> were in full voice, Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> were stalking through poolside vegetation, Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> were hauled out at low tide and a steady stream of Gannets<\/strong><\/em> passed by offshore.\u00a0 Early afternoon we headed back to the mainland and more waders and wildfowl, as well as a mixed flock of Yellowhammers<\/strong><\/em>, Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em>, Linnets<\/strong><\/em> and Tree Sparrows<\/strong><\/em> (with the male Yellowhammers<\/strong><\/em> looking particularly stunning) before finishing in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle with roosting Oystercatchers<\/strong><\/em>, Redshanks<\/strong><\/em> and Purple Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em>, Eiders<\/strong><\/em> bobbing about in the surf and a mixed raft of Common Scoters<\/strong><\/em> and Slavonian Grebes <\/strong><\/em>diving repeatedly in the swell and really testing powers of concentration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Living in southeast Northumberland, we’re spoiled by having easy access to some outstanding birdwatching areas.\u00a0 Holy Island, which we still think is at its best during the winter, is just an hour north up the A1… I collected Keith and Mary on Saturday morning and we crossed the causeway onto the island for a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,119,5,141],"tags":[147,823,242,67,172,185,283,835,140,531,210,401,176,534,358,191,177,125,126],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-holy-island","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-birdwatching","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-scoter","tag-curlew","tag-gannet","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-seal","tag-linnet","tag-northumberland-coast-aonb","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pale-bellied-brent-geese","tag-purple-sandpiper","tag-redd-bunting","tag-redshank","tag-skylark","tag-slavonian-grebe","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-yellowhammer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","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=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1481,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}