{"id":1944,"date":"2013-05-29T07:17:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T06:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1944"},"modified":"2013-05-29T07:17:39","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T06:17:39","slug":"head-for-the-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/head-for-the-hills","title":{"rendered":"Head for the hills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Away to the northwest of our base in southeast Northumberland is the skyline-dominating range of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=1\" target=\"_blank\">Cheviot Hills<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I collected Susan from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cheviotview.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cheviot View<\/a> and we headed towards the Harthope Valley via the ford at Coldgate Mill.\u00a0 A stop along the road produced <em><strong>Redshank<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Lapwing<\/strong> <\/em>and the always impressive <em><strong>Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 In glorious weather we walked for nearly five hours around various parts of the valley.\u00a0 <em><strong>Curlews<\/strong> <\/em>sang their eerie song from the heather clad slopes above, <em><strong>Tree Pipits<\/strong><\/em> delivered their challenge to rivals, and serenade to potential partners, the descending silvery cadence of <em><strong>Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> shimmered in the air around us, a <em><strong>Whinchat<\/strong> <\/em>flitted from rock to heather, and back again, <em><strong>Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> lived up to their name &#8211; wagging their tails from rocks and fence posts along our route &#8211; and the &#8216;swee-wee-wee-wee-wee&#8217; of <em><strong>Common Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> echoed around the sides of the swiftly flowing stream in the valley bottom.\u00a0 As the afternoon wore on we watched as a <em><strong>Kestrel<\/strong> <\/em>patrolled the steep valley sides, a <em><strong>Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>soared across the valley and a\u00a0<em><strong>Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>hovered over a distant plantation<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Delivering peace, solitude and some excellent wildlife-watching opportunities, the hills are a great place to enjoy your wildlife and get some exercise too \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Away to the northwest of our base in southeast Northumberland is the skyline-dominating range of the Cheviot Hills. I collected Susan from Cheviot View and we headed towards the Harthope Valley via the ford at Coldgate Mill.\u00a0 A stop along the road produced Redshank, Oystercatcher, Lapwing and the always impressive Brown Hare.\u00a0 In glorious weather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,5],"tags":[57,214,172,256,128,123,210,131,258,262,213],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-northumberland","tag-brown-hare","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-curlew","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-oystercatcher","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-tree-pipit","tag-whinchat","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","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=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}