{"id":1700,"date":"2012-07-03T16:38:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T15:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2012-07-03T16:38:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T15:38:41","slug":"the-rain-before-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/the-rain-before-the-storm","title":{"rendered":"The rain before the storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday morning was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=2\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay<\/a> mini-safari and, when I arrived at Church Point, Michelle and Andy,\u00a0and Jane, were already there.\u00a0 We set off for a morning of birdwatching on the southeast Northumberland coast in cool, overcast conditions&#8230;but by the time we reached Cresswell\u00a0the rain had started and visibility was closing in rapidly.\u00a0 Birdwatching in conditions where you can hear the birds, but can&#8217;t really tell where they are, is a quite surreal experience.\u00a0 As the poor weather moved on, so did we&#8230;and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as we enjoyed an obliging <em><strong>Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> perched on a\u00a0 fence post, at least three <em><strong>Long-eared Owls<\/strong><\/em>, including recently fledged young birds, two male <em><strong>Marsh Harriers<\/strong><\/em> and one female, a <em><strong>Common Cuckoo,<\/strong><\/em><strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Common,<\/strong><\/em> <em><strong>Arctic <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Sandwich Terns<\/strong> <\/em>bathing, <em><strong>Great Crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em><strong> <\/strong>and a <em><strong>Grey<\/strong><strong> Heron<\/strong><\/em> peering in our direction through the reeds.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the trip we returned to Church Point and I headed back to the office where, a couple of hours later, it suddenly turned very dark&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday morning was a Druridge Bay mini-safari and, when I arrived at Church Point, Michelle and Andy,\u00a0and Jane, were already there.\u00a0 We set off for a morning of birdwatching on the southeast Northumberland coast in cool, overcast conditions&#8230;but by the time we reached Cresswell\u00a0the rain had started and visibility was closing in rapidly.\u00a0 Birdwatching in [&hellip;]<\/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],"tags":[230,381,373,229,488,174,397,223],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","tag-arctic-tern","tag-common-cuckoo","tag-common-snipe","tag-common-tern","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-long-eared-owl","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-sandwich-tern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","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=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}