{"id":1708,"date":"2012-07-10T13:02:30","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T12:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1708"},"modified":"2012-07-10T13:02:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T12:02:30","slug":"not-the-farne-islands-09072012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/not-the-farne-islands-09072012","title":{"rendered":"(Not the) Farne Islands 09\/07\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a Farne Islands<\/a> Prestige Tour…or at least that was the plan…<\/p>\n

As I drove towards Seahouses to collect Dick and Jenny, having already figured out that there weren’t going to be any sailings to the islands in those\u00a0conditions, I received the call that confirmed it.\u00a0 So, what to do instead?\u00a0 A quick discussion with clients who had realised before I arrived that it wasn’t a day for heading across to the Farnes…and then we were off on a tour of the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 Grey<\/strong> Seals<\/strong> <\/em>were ‘bottling’ just offshore, female Eiders<\/strong> <\/em>were supervising the creches of this year’s youngsters, Shelduck<\/strong> <\/em>were feeding along the tideline and Oystercatchers<\/strong> <\/em>and Redshank<\/em> <\/strong>were probing next to the breaking surf.\u00a0 We headed south to see what the weather at that end of the coast would bring…and\u00a0had a not too bad afternoon around Druridge Bay<\/a> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Mediterranean Gulls<\/strong><\/em> were loafing alongside Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em>, a female Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> flew across in front of the car (and we later found her again, perched in a bush overlooking her nest site), Dick found a Long-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> that performed for over ten minutes – hunting amongst the reeds and rushes in broad daylight, Jenny spotted a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> and a Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em> lolloped into view nearby, no less than 23 Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> were in a roost that also had three Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em>, a Dunlin<\/strong><\/em>, still with a solidly black belly, was sleeping next to a small pool and we even managed a spot of seawatching; a huge flock of Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>and terns<\/strong> <\/em>was circling and plunging, three Arctic Skuas<\/strong><\/em> pursued and robbed the successful terns and a raft of Common Scoter<\/strong><\/em> rose into view, and then fell again, just beyond the surf.\u00a0 Perhaps the most unusual sight of the day though, was a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> carrying prey, not unusual in itself, but the bird flew 3\/4 of the way anticlockwise around the north pool at East Chevington, then flew back all the way it had just come before flying 3\/4 of the way around the pool clockwise\u00a0to get back to where it had been\u00a0five minutes earlier.\u00a0 Wildlife, you never know when it’s going to appear, you never know what it’s going to do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a Farne Islands Prestige Tour…or at least that was the plan… As I drove towards Seahouses to collect Dick and Jenny, having already figured out that there weren’t going to be any sailings to the islands in those\u00a0conditions, I received the call that confirmed it.\u00a0 So, what to do instead?\u00a0 A quick discussion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,11,5,141],"tags":[362,97,271,242,57,67,288,149,185,835,93,174,397,193,210,358,66,189],"class_list":["post-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-farnes","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-arctic-skua","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-brown-hare","tag-common-scoter","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-grey-seal","tag-little-gull","tag-long-eared-owl","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-oystercatcher","tag-redshank","tag-roe-deer","tag-shelduck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708","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=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1709,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions\/1709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}