{"id":1710,"date":"2012-07-12T17:07:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T16:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2012-07-12T17:07:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T16:07:10","slug":"dark-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/dark-night","title":{"rendered":"Dark night"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has been a difficult year for boat operators on the east coast, with unseasonable winds and frequent heavy rainfall making it unwise to head out to sea.<\/p>\n

Tuesday was the first of this year’s evening pelagics<\/a>\u00a0to survive the weather so, as we set out from Royal Quays on the SarahJFK,<\/em> I was full of optimism.\u00a0 Soon after leaving the mouth of the Tyne, Allan spotted a Harbour Porpoise<\/strong><\/em>, although it remained typically elusive.\u00a0 Kittiwakes<\/strong> <\/em>were following us throughout the evening, no doubt wondering if we were going to throw any scraps overboard, Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>and Fulmars<\/strong> <\/em>were passing by and, all around us, the sky looked heavy with something…<\/p>\n

I’d had a call earlier in the day to say that a small pod of dolphins were passing Newbiggin, so I took a guess on where they would be by mid-evening and asked Allan to plot a course that would take us through the area.\u00a0 Sure enough, just where we expected them, 6 White-beaked Dolphins,<\/strong><\/em> including the smallest calf that I’ve seen in the ten years since we first found White-beaked Dolphins<\/strong> <\/em>on one of our pelagic trips, appeared in front of the boat and then came in to bow-ride \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 They stayed with us for\u00a0several minutes before heading south, probably to feed, and we continued north.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5 Manx Shearwaters<\/strong><\/em> were heading north, and a flock of 30 Common Scoters<\/em><\/strong>All the while the weather around us was looking poor, and eventually we found ourselves in a heavy, misty drizzle as we headed back to port, and by the time we docked it was properly dark – not something we’d normally expect in mid-July.<\/p>\n

Glowering, oppressive weather conditions, remarkably good visibility, a sea state that was ideal for cetacean spotting, a boat full of enthusiastic clients and a pod of dolphins…perfect \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This has been a difficult year for boat operators on the east coast, with unseasonable winds and frequent heavy rainfall making it unwise to head out to sea. Tuesday was the first of this year’s evening pelagics\u00a0to survive the weather so, as we set out from Royal Quays on the SarahJFK, I was full of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,105,5,90],"tags":[67,122,185,240,364,841],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","category-white-beaked-dolphin","tag-common-scoter","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-harbour-porpoise","tag-manx-shearwater","tag-white-beaked-dolphin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","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=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1711,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions\/1711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}