{"id":1697,"date":"2012-07-02T10:19:53","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T09:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2012-07-02T10:19:53","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T09:19:53","slug":"some-hobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/some-hobby","title":{"rendered":"Some Hobby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was a trip that I’d been looking forward to for some time.\u00a0 Syd is a regular client, and always very entertaining, and this time around his son Gavin was booked with him as well, for a Farne Islands safari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With plenty of comments on Twitter in the weeks leading up to the trip, we were all praying for good sea conditions\u00a0for the day.\u00a0 The forecast suggested that the afternoon could be a bit wet\u00a0so I thought about visiting Staple Island instead of Inner Farne, before satisfying myself that it would stay dry for us in the afternoon and sticking with my original plan of walking along the dunes at Newton in the morning, and catching the 1pm boat to Inner Farne.\u00a0 The morning walk produced lots of Skylarks <\/strong><\/em>and Meadow Pipits <\/em><\/strong>as well as\u00a0Common Blue Butterflies <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Northern Marsh, Pyramidal <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Bee<\/strong> Orchids<\/strong><\/em>. The tern colony was a hive of activity, with the Arctic Terns<\/strong><\/em> bringing food to their chicks and some\u00a0 Little<\/strong> Terns<\/strong> <\/em>engaging in some late season breeding activity.\u00a0 While we were there, the terns kept lifting from the dunes in a ‘dread’ but the source of their concern wasn’t immediately obvious.\u00a0 Myself and the wardens commented that it was what we would expect if a Peregrine<\/strong> <\/em>was passing over, but scanning the sky overhead didn’t produce the menacing shape of that particular predator.\u00a0 Eventually we did spot a raptor, although not an expected one, as a Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> flew south along the fields inland from the terns.\u00a0 After having our lunch stop in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle, we took the short drive to Seahouses.\u00a0\u00a0Approaching Monk’s House Pool, Syd and Gavin had the bird of the day as a Hobby<\/strong> <\/em>flew north over the roadside fields.<\/p>\n

We boarded Glad Tidings IV<\/em> for the journey across to the islands and sat next to local birder TC, who had watched all of the hirundines in Seahouses start alarming…just\u00a0a few\u00a0minutes before the Hobby<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>was between Seahouses and Bamburgh.\u00a0 After the sailing around the islands, with their Gre<\/strong><\/em>y Seals, Guillemots, Razorbills, Puffins, Kittiwakes, Fulmars,\u00a0Shags <\/em><\/strong>and <\/strong>Common, Sandwic<\/strong>h <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Arctic<\/strong> T<\/strong><\/em>erns<\/em>, <\/strong>we landed on Inner Farne and Gavin concentrated on photographing Puffins<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We were ‘treated’ (if that’s the right word…) to an example of just how cruel nature can be as a Kittiwake<\/strong><\/em> chick wandered away from it’s nest and towards the edge of the ledge.\u00a0 It turned back from the edge, made it’s way unsteadily back to the nest, and was promptly tossed over the edge of the cliff by the adult!\u00a0 As it landed on the next ledge down, it was attacked and killed by 2 juvenile Shags <\/em><\/strong>in front of a group of horrified onlookers.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After nearly 2 hours on Inner Farne, we boarded Glad Tidings<\/em> for the journey back to the mainland…and the first few drops of rain fell as we reached the top of the steps on the harbour \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was a trip that I’d been looking forward to for some time.\u00a0 Syd is a regular client, and always very entertaining, and this time around his son Gavin was booked with him as well, for a Farne Islands safari. With plenty of comments on Twitter in the weeks leading up to the trip, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3,11,5,141],"tags":[230,554,344,229,122,835,186,294,301,476,397,326,225,486,226,223,377],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bamburgh-castle","category-birdwatching","category-farnes","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-arctic-tern","tag-bee-orchid","tag-common-blue-butterfly","tag-common-tern","tag-fulmar","tag-grey-seal","tag-guillemot","tag-hobby","tag-kittiwake","tag-little-tern","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-northern-marsh-orchid","tag-puffin","tag-pyramidal-orchid","tag-razorbill","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-shag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","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=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}