{"id":1937,"date":"2013-05-27T16:56:58","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T15:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1937"},"modified":"2013-05-27T16:56:58","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T15:56:58","slug":"flying-in-for-a-day-birdwatching-in-the-north-pennines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/flying-in-for-a-day-birdwatching-in-the-north-pennines","title":{"rendered":"Flying in for a day birdwatching in the North Pennines"},"content":{"rendered":"

I always enjoy meeting up with our previous clients again, and Saturday morning found me at Newcastle Airport waiting to meet Jacob and Nancy as they arrived for a couple of days birdwatching in Northumberland.\u00a0 They were going to be spending Sunday on the Farne Islands<\/a>, but our destination on what was developing into a gloriously sunny Saturday was the North Pennines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just 12 days earlier I’d been marvelling at the temperature of 1C at 10:30am but now Curlew, Lapwing <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> were all flying around and calling noisily as we reached the higher ground southwest of Hexham, Skylarks<\/strong> <\/em>were singing exuberantly against the azure sky, Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em> were ‘parachuting’ down at the end of their song flights and Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> were calling from concealed positions in the grassland.\u00a0 In the stunning light, Barn Swallows<\/strong><\/em> were eye-wateringly iridescent, a pair of Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> flew in front of us and a pair of Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> watched closely over eight chicks.\u00a0 Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> was a lifer for Jacob and Nancy and one male allowed a very close approach and provided a lot of photo opportunities for them.\u00a0 Eyebrows, raised, eyebrows lowered, facing left, facing right, staring into the lens; he went through a veritable supermodel repertoire of poses before seemingly melting into the vegetation.<\/p>\n

As we travelled across a high moorland road, a Northern Wheatear<\/strong><\/em> posed obligingly for photographs.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

Skylarks <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em> provided a memorable aural backdrop to our lunch stop, and a Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> was silhouetted on top of a nearby ridge, keeping a close eye on it’s territory.\u00a0 Near perfect weather, a gentle breeze, spectacular landscape and stunning birds; what more could you want from a day’s birdwatching?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always enjoy meeting up with our previous clients again, and Saturday morning found me at Newcastle Airport waiting to meet Jacob and Nancy as they arrived for a couple of days birdwatching in Northumberland.\u00a0 They were going to be spending Sunday on the Farne Islands, but our destination on what was developing into a […]<\/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":[451,373,172,175,123,207,572,210,208,358,191],"class_list":["post-1937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-barn-swallow","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-golden-plover","tag-lapwing","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-northern-wheatear","tag-oystercatcher","tag-red-grouse","tag-redshank","tag-skylark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937","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=1937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}