{"id":1498,"date":"2012-03-26T15:29:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T15:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1498"},"modified":"2012-03-26T15:29:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T15:29:20","slug":"breaking-new-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/breaking-new-ground","title":{"rendered":"Breaking new ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since we started NEWT we’ve always tried to innovate and keep our tours refreshed.\u00a0 Saturday gave me the opportunity to do something that really was\u00a0innovative – our first Harwood <\/a>Safari.\u00a0 We’ve walked the route 5 times during the last 3 winters, but driving it was something of an unknown quantity.<\/p>\n

As a business we’re happy to support the Northumberland Wildlife Trust<\/a>.\u00a0 As well as being a corporate member of the trust, we sponsor the under 13 and 13-18 age categories of the NWT Annual Photography competition.\u00a0 Saturday’s Harwood trip was the prize for last year’s 13-18 winner and his dad.\u00a0\u00a0When I collected them from Newbiggin it was worryingly misty, but as we headed inland the mist began to lift.<\/p>\n

We started at the viewpoint near Winter’s Gibbet,\u00a0where Skylark<\/strong><\/em>, Meadow Pipit<\/strong><\/em>, Crossbill<\/strong><\/em>, Siskin<\/strong><\/em>, Goldcrest<\/strong><\/em>, Lesser Redpoll<\/strong><\/em> and Chiffchaff<\/strong><\/em> were all calling or singing.\u00a0 As the mist over the forest lifted, it was time to break new ground as we headed off along tracks with no vehicle access to the public.\u00a0 More Crossbills<\/strong><\/em> and Siskins<\/strong><\/em> were in the trackside trees and Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> were soaring high overhead giving their mewing calls.\u00a0 Soon after lunch we stopped to check out a distant raptor over the plantation on the opposite side of a clearfell area.\u00a0 Within a minute we were watching 3 Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em>…and a pair of Goshawks<\/strong><\/em> that had risen out of the trees to shepherd the buzzards away!\u00a0 As the buzzards moved on the Goshawks<\/strong><\/em> quickly melted back into the obscurity of the trees.<\/p>\n

A stop to search for Adders<\/strong><\/em> didn’t produce any of these fearsome reptiles, but we did find a dozen Common Lizards<\/strong><\/em>, lazing in the sunshine and then scuttling out of sight.<\/p>\n

Our first Harwood Safari, the air filled with raptors, trees filled with Crossbills<\/strong><\/em>…looks like a winner \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since we started NEWT we’ve always tried to innovate and keep our tours refreshed.\u00a0 Saturday gave me the opportunity to do something that really was\u00a0innovative – our first Harwood Safari.\u00a0 We’ve walked the route 5 times during the last 3 winters, but driving it was something of an unknown quantity. As a business we’re happy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,184,5],"tags":[371,268,148,165,346,135,164,134,89],"class_list":["post-1498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-harwood","category-northumberland","tag-adder","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-crossbill","tag-common-lizard","tag-goldcrest","tag-goshawk","tag-lesser-redpoll","tag-siskin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498","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=1498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1499,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498\/revisions\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}