{"id":1757,"date":"2012-09-05T10:04:45","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T09:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1757"},"modified":"2012-09-05T10:04:45","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T09:04:45","slug":"north-pennines-040912","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/north-pennines-040912","title":{"rendered":"North Pennines 04\/09\/12"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favourite locations, at a time of year when it isn’t often visited, and returning clients (always a pleasure!) made for an excellent day’s birdwatching in southwest Northumberland and north west County Durham yesterday.<\/p>\n

I collected Reg and Val from their home in Newcastle and, as we headed west along the Tyne valley, the clear blue sky promised a good day.\u00a0 Starting with a walk along the River Allen, we soon encountered a mixed flock that included Nuthatch, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Blackbird <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Robin<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 The river produced some stunning Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> and a brood of Goosanders<\/strong>,<\/em> shepherded <\/em>by mum as they scoured the river, heads held below the surface as the current carried them along.\u00a0 Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> were calling from high against the azure sky and we could have been forgiven for thinking it was a nice Spring day – other than that the only birds singing were Robins<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Once we were out on the moors. we started to encounter Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em>. \u00a0Always a stunning bird, whether you’re looking at the handsome males or the intricately patterned females, the sunlight really brought out the best in this moorland specialist.\u00a0 Black<\/strong><\/em> Grouse<\/em><\/strong> proved slightly more difficult, unsurprising as there was a ‘stiff’ breeze racing across the fells of the North Pennines<\/a> AONB \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 After a lot of effort, we did find three young Blackcocks<\/strong><\/em> sheltering between clumps of rush, and they were very obliging for Reg’s camera.\u00a0 As we crossed one (very) minor road, we came across my own personal highlight of the day.\u00a0 Two Ravens<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong> appeared over a nearby ridge and headed towards a plantation at the top of the ridge ahead of us.\u00a0 As they soared higher, a third Raven<\/strong> <\/em>came into view and began tumbling.\u00a0 The two closer birds responded with a breathtaking display of aerobatics and, as they plunged towards the ground before swooping up again, their deep croaking calls carried on the breeze to where we were sitting.\u00a0 A special bird in a special place, and simply awe-inspiring \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"birdwatching,northumberland,north<\/a><\/p>\n

\"birdwatching,northumberland,north<\/a><\/p>\n

\"birdwatching,northumberland,north<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favourite locations, at a time of year when it isn’t often visited, and returning clients (always a pleasure!) made for an excellent day’s birdwatching in southwest Northumberland and north west County Durham yesterday. I collected Reg and Val from their home in Newcastle and, as we headed west along the Tyne valley, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[54,101,378,45,256,128,453,300,457,208,116],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-coal-tit","tag-goosander","tag-great-tit","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-kestrel","tag-north-pennines-aonb","tag-nuthatch","tag-raven","tag-red-grouse","tag-robin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","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=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1764,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}