{"id":1784,"date":"2012-09-24T07:56:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T06:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1784"},"modified":"2012-09-24T07:56:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T06:56:14","slug":"autumn-chill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/autumn-chill","title":{"rendered":"Autumn chill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday was a trip that I’d been looking forward to for quite some time.\u00a0 Emily had been on the bird ID course that I ran as part of North Pennines WildWatch<\/a> and had then booked herself and her dad, Steve, onto an Otter Safari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I arrived at Church Point to collect them, and we set off up the coast.\u00a0 With bright sunshine and a northerly wind, I predicted that our regular Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> would be sunning itself on the edge of its nest hole.\u00a0 Sure enough, it was sitting in full view soaking up the rays \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Waders featured throughout the afternoon, as they have done for over a month now, with Black-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em>, Curlew<\/strong><\/em>, Common Redshank<\/strong><\/em>, Common Snipe, Lapwing<\/strong> <\/em>and very close views of Dunlin<\/strong> <\/em>and Ringed Plover<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Pochard <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Mallard<\/strong><\/em> were all paddling around, Little<\/strong> <\/em>and Great Crested Grebes<\/strong> <\/em>were, as always, much admired, restless flocks of Greylag<\/strong> <\/em>and Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> swirled from field to pool and back again, and several skeins of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> passed south high overhead, their presence betrayed by their high-pitched calls.\u00a0 A Grey Seal<\/strong><\/em> was loitering with intent in the Coquet Estuary, and a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> sat motionless by the water’s edge.<\/p>\n

We ended the day by a\u00a0 moonlit river, under a starry sky.\u00a0 A Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> stalked through the riverside vegetation, and a group of Mallards<\/strong><\/em> stared intently into the shadows of the overhanging trees on the opposite bank, then scattered soon after the wake from an, otherwise unseen, animal caught our attention.\u00a0 Darkness, and the chill night air, settled on the river as we made our way back to the car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday was a trip that I’d been looking forward to for quite some time.\u00a0 Emily had been on the bird ID course that I ran as part of North Pennines WildWatch and had then booked herself and her dad, Steve, onto an Otter Safari. I arrived at Church Point to collect them, and we set […]<\/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":[242,556,288,170,488,283,835,505,128,360,420,224,182,181],"class_list":["post-1784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-redshank","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-seal","tag-greylag-geese","tag-kestrel","tag-little-grebe","tag-pochard","tag-ringed-plover","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784","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=1784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}