{"id":1765,"date":"2012-09-07T07:41:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T06:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2012-09-07T07:41:25","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T06:41:25","slug":"mud-murmurations-med-gulls-and-and-marsh-harriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/mud-murmurations-med-gulls-and-and-marsh-harriers","title":{"rendered":"Mud, Murmurations, Med Gulls and Marsh Harriers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, just one animal or bird can make a trip a special experience for our clients.\u00a0 Other times it’s the scenery.\u00a0 Maybe a combination of the weather, Northumberland’s stunning skies and the ‘atmosphere’.\u00a0 Occasionally, it’s a little bit of each.<\/p>\n

I collected Keith and Anne from their home in the Tyne valley, and headed east towards Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 As we scoured the woods for Red Squirrels<\/strong><\/em>, the high winds made it impossible to pick out any movement that might have been our quarry.\u00a0 Dragonflies<\/strong><\/em> hawked around the edges of the trees and some rather late tadpoles<\/strong> <\/em>were wriggling around in shallow ponds.\u00a0 A quick stop at Church Point, produced the hoped-for Mediterranean Gulls<\/strong><\/em>; beautiful ghostly pale adults hanging in the breeze over our heads.<\/p>\n

Then we were on our way up the coast in search of mud, glorious mud.\u00a0 Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Redshank, (Grey) Red Knot <\/strong><\/em>and an immaculate<\/strong> Curlew Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> were all found at very close range and then noisy skeins of Greylag<\/strong><\/em> and Canada<\/strong> Geese<\/strong> <\/em>filled the air around us.\u00a0 Alarmed by the sudden appearance of a juvenile Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em>, the geese lifted from where they were feeding and headed straight for the nearest pool…where they encountered an adult Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em>, hanging almost motionless above a reed bed, held in position by the wind.\u00a0 Small groups of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> started to appear, tossed around like leaves on the breeze, merging to form a murmuration.\u00a0 The late evening light made the haystacks in nearby fields seem to glow, the sky was quite breathtaking and, as dusk rapidly advanced and the wind strengthened, flocks of Golden Plover <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Curlew<\/strong><\/em> arrived to roost as we headed west again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, just one animal or bird can make a trip a special experience for our clients.\u00a0 Other times it’s the scenery.\u00a0 Maybe a combination of the weather, Northumberland’s stunning skies and the ‘atmosphere’.\u00a0 Occasionally, it’s a little bit of each. I collected Keith and Anne from their home in the Tyne valley, and headed east […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,139],"tags":[560,556,372,172,557,559,288,190,128,334,140,397,193,833,224,161],"class_list":["post-1765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-redshank","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-curlew-sandpiper","tag-dragonflies","tag-dunlin","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kestrel","tag-knot","tag-linnet","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-red-squirrel","tag-ringed-plover","tag-starling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765","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=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1766,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions\/1766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}