{"id":1798,"date":"2012-10-10T10:37:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T09:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2012-10-10T10:37:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T09:37:32","slug":"sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/sentinel","title":{"rendered":"Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a rare day when a trip features a limited number of birds and other wildlife, but even the days with lots to see often have a few things that really stand out; sometimes by being scarce, sometimes it’s an intriguing behaviour, and sometimes it can be something that’s quite common but rarely seen.\u00a0 An outstanding day would produce all of those…<\/p>\n

I collected Helen and Chris from Church Point for an afternoon of birdwatching and other wildlife around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland in near-perfect weather.\u00a0 Before we headed up the coast though, we spent some time studying the Mediterranean Gulls<\/strong><\/em> on the beach and in the car park.\u00a0 Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> were feeding just offshore and a very long-billed Dunlin<\/strong> <\/em>was pottering about on the sand.\u00a0 Working our way along the reserves that line Druridge Bay, one of NEWT’s favourite winter visitors provided some entertainment; a small herd of Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em> had chosen a pool as a stop-off point – provoking a furious reaction from the resident pair of Mute Swans.<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong> Teal, Goldeneye, Wigeon, Shoveler, Mallard <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> drakes were all looking good, following their exit from eclipse plumage, Long-tailed Tits<\/strong><\/em> flew past, one by one, a Goldcrest<\/strong> <\/em>was flicking around in a bush nearby, a chirping Tree Sparrow<\/strong><\/em> allowed us to approach incredibly close and a Guillemot<\/strong> <\/em>was hanging around at the base of the weir on the River Coquet.\u00a0 Flocks of Curlew<\/strong><\/em>, Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong> <\/em>filled the air, and a Jack Snipe<\/strong><\/em> provided lots of entertainment as it bobbed up and down on the edge of a reedbed, as nearby Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> seemed more interested in disputing possession of feeding areas than actually feeding.<\/p>\n

As the end of the trip approached, much too soon with such good company, we were in a small wooded valley, searching for Badgers<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We could hear the sound of them blundering through the undergrowth, but a barking dog nearby seemed to spook them and all went quiet.\u00a0 For most of the time that we were there we were under the baleful glare of a feathered sentinel, as a Tawny Owl<\/strong><\/em> stared at us from the fork between a branch and tree trunk.\u00a0 Wildlife, watching the wildlife-watchers \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a rare day when a trip features a limited number of birds and other wildlife, but even the days with lots to see often have a few things that really stand out; sometimes by being scarce, sometimes it’s an intriguing behaviour, and sometimes it can be something that’s quite common but rarely seen.\u00a0 An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,139],"tags":[286,373,372,172,288,170,135,175,168,186,562,123,121,171,193,178,269,78,169,125,130,181],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-badger","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-goldcrest","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldeneye","tag-guillemot","tag-jack-snipe","tag-lapwing","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-mute-swan","tag-shoveler","tag-tawny-owl","tag-teal","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","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=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1799,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions\/1799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}