{"id":1712,"date":"2012-07-13T16:01:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T15:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1712"},"modified":"2012-07-13T16:01:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T15:01:42","slug":"a-damp-day-in-north-northumberland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/a-damp-day-in-north-northumberland","title":{"rendered":"A damp day in North Northumberland"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I got home on Tuesday night after our evening pelagic the rain was still hammering down.\u00a0 With a forecast of more rain for Wednesday, and a planned Farne Islands safari<\/a>, I started thinking about a contingency plan as I dried off all of my camera equipment.<\/p>\n

Wednesday dawned…with more heavy rainfall.\u00a0 I needed an idea of what was happening further north\u00a0and a quick text to William was soon answered; the rain in Seahouses was light and sea conditions were fine so boats were sailing \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I collected Louise and Martin from Warkworth and we headed north along some decidedly damp roads.\u00a0 A morning birdwatching on the Northumberland coast, including Grey Seal, Roe Deer, Swallow <\/em><\/strong>nestlings, Shelduck, Eider, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Redshank<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>and a very obliging Whitethroat<\/strong><\/em>, was followed by a lunch break just north of Bamburgh Castle, and then it was time to board Glad Tidings<\/em> for the sailing across to the islands.\u00a0 With a bit of swell on the sea, a chilly wind kicking spray from the bow, and another\u00a0oppressive sky the islands were incredibly atmospheric.\u00a0 Puffins<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>were sitting in huge rafts just off the islands, Guillemots<\/strong> <\/em>and Razorbills<\/strong> <\/em>were flying back to the cliff ledges with fish, Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>were soaring majestically by the boat, Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>lazed in the surf and Kittiwakes<\/strong> <\/em>called incessantly from their precipitous nest sites.\u00a0 As we landed on Inner Farne the aerial bombardment from the Arctic Terns<\/strong><\/em> was much reduced from the level of recent weeks, and there were plenty of young terns trying out their wings in short flights across the boardwalk.\u00a0 Sandwich<\/strong> Terns<\/strong> <\/em>were carrying food back to quite large chicks and the island seemed to be awash with Puffins.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>Every flat area next to the sheer cliff faces was covered in them and\u00a0hundreds were flying around the island.\u00a0 Louise, like\u00a0many of our clients when seeing Puffins<\/strong> <\/em>for the first time said “Aren’t they small”.\u00a0 Everyone expects them <\/strong>to be bigger than they actually are.\u00a0 Kittiwake<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>chicks were almost too big for the nest ledges, and Razorbills<\/strong> <\/em>and Guillemots<\/strong> <\/em>were watched at close quarters too.\u00a0 With the poor weather the number of visitors to the island was quite low, making for quite a different experience to\u00a0our trips earlier this year when all of the boats were full.<\/p>\n

Most of our Farne Islands trips this year have been on Glad Tidings 1, and Bobby and Billy always keep their passengers entertained.\u00a0 Now,\u00a0as I look out of my office window while I’m typing this on a fine, dry, sunny afternoon, Bobby’s words, as he delivered us safely back to Seahouses come to mind “Aye, it’s improved.\u00a0 Now it’s like a fine autumn day rather than a bad winter one”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I got home on Tuesday night after our evening pelagic the rain was still hammering down.\u00a0 With a forecast of more rain for Wednesday, and a planned Farne Islands safari, I started thinking about a contingency plan as I dried off all of my camera equipment. Wednesday dawned…with more heavy rainfall.\u00a0 I needed an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,5],"tags":[230,229,149,185,835,186,301,210,225,226,358,66,223,189,234],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-farnes","category-northumberland","tag-arctic-tern","tag-common-tern","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-grey-seal","tag-guillemot","tag-kittiwake","tag-oystercatcher","tag-puffin","tag-razorbill","tag-redshank","tag-roe-deer","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-shelduck","tag-whitethroat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","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=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1713,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}