{"id":1654,"date":"2012-06-08T09:26:28","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T08:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2012-06-08T09:26:28","modified_gmt":"2012-06-08T08:26:28","slug":"three-days-in-early-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/three-days-in-early-june","title":{"rendered":"Three days in early June"},"content":{"rendered":"

We started June with three trips in the first four days of the month, all focused around our ‘local patch’;\u00a0Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning I collected Gary and Claire from their holiday base in Proctor Steads, and we headed\u00a0down the coast.\u00a0 Even though we’ve lived close to Druridge Bay for nearly 12 years, the wildlife of this post-industrial landscape is still as special as it always was.\u00a0 Whether it’s Tree Sparrows<\/strong><\/em> feeding young, ghostly pale Roseate Terns<\/strong><\/em> on their nest boxes on Coquet Island, a Cuckoo<\/strong><\/em> flying low over a coastal reedbed, dense flocks of hirundines<\/strong><\/em> and Swifts<\/strong><\/em> hawking insects low over a lake, Reed <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Sedge Warblers <\/strong><\/em>singing from adjacent reedbeds allowing easy comparison of their song, <\/strong><\/strong>Fulmars <\/strong><\/em>soaring along a cliff edge within a few metres of us as we eat our lunch or\u00a0Blue-tailed Damselflies<\/strong><\/em> drifting along footpaths and tracks before settling on the grasses and apparently vanishing, there’s always something going on, always something to watch and the day always seems to end too soon.<\/p>\n

Saturday was an afternoon\/evening Otter Safari<\/a>\u00a0and I collected Lesley and Kevin from Church Point before heading north.\u00a0 After an afternoon spent birdwatching, with my own personal highlight being a very yellow Yellow Wagtail<\/strong><\/em>, and searching for Otters,<\/em><\/strong> we settled into position for an evening session at one of our favourite ponds.\u00a0 As a pair of Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> grazed poolside vegetation, looking resplendent in the sublime light from a sunset that looked like a fire burning on the horizon, and a Long-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> drifted back and forth over the reedbeds, our quarry made his appearance.\u00a0 Gliding menacingly through the water, the Otter<\/strong><\/em> managed to sneak up on 2 Mallards<\/strong><\/em>, who noticed him when he was just a few feet away and took flight.\u00a0 Exploring the rest of the pool he was pursued by an ever-expanding flock of Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em> before finally vanishing into the sanctuary of the reeds.<\/p>\n

Our third excursion around Druridge Bay<\/strong> was a Prestige Tour for Pete and Rachel.\u00a0 Sedge<\/strong><\/em> and Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> and Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> all sang from obligingly open locations, although Reed Warblers<\/strong><\/em> remained hidden deep in reedbeds, a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> put in an uncharacteristic daytime appearance and a Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> had a remarkable hissy fit.\u00a0 The cause of his slightly embarrasing temper tantrum couldn’t be seen, but as he kept charging at a reedbed it seemed likely that a predator he saw as a threat to his cygnets was lurking out of our sight, but not his.\u00a0 Later in the day an even more impressive display of annoyance was demonstrated by two cock Pheasants<\/strong><\/em> as they spent a good 20 minutes posturing and fighting.\u00a0 Our clients frequently comment about how relaxing a day out with us is…and those Pheasants<\/strong><\/em> could really have done with chilling out too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We started June with three trips in the first four days of the month, all focused around our ‘local patch’;\u00a0Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. On Friday morning I collected Gary and Claire from their holiday base in Proctor Steads, and we headed\u00a0down the coast.\u00a0 Even though we’ve lived close to Druridge Bay for nearly 12 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,21,139],"tags":[264,122,174,837,267,66,274,227,125,552],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-cuckoo","tag-fulmar","tag-long-eared-owl","tag-otter","tag-reed-warbler","tag-roe-deer","tag-roseate-tern","tag-sedge-warbler","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-yellow-wagtail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","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=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1656,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/1656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}