{"id":1953,"date":"2013-06-05T15:04:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T14:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2013-06-05T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T14:04:11","slug":"otter-watching-01062013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/otter-watching-01062013","title":{"rendered":"Otter Watching 01\/06\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Single-species trips can be some of the most stressful experiences for NEWT, although possibly not quite so stressful for our clients \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Some species that our clients want to see can be very straightforward, like Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> or Puffins<\/strong> <\/em>(at least if you come at the right time of year!), others can be more difficult, and one in particular has a certain degree of unpredictability…With large home ranges, and as happy on land as in the water, Otters<\/strong> <\/em>aren’t always an easy animal to find.\u00a0 We must spend more of our time looking for them, on days when we don’t have clients, than we spend doing anything else.\u00a0 If a site is producing regular sightings that’s a bonus, but there’s always the possibility that one day they won’t be there, so we keep checking back-up sites as well.<\/p>\n

Arriving at Church Point, I met up with Ian and Ann, Antonia and Henry & Nigel and Mrs Hackett.\u00a0 Our quarry for the afternoon was that elusive iconic predator and, having unexpectedly stumbled across four Otters<\/strong> <\/em>a couple of weeks ago, the location for the first part of the afternoon was decided well in advance.\u00a0 All seemed quiet; Black-headed Gulls<\/strong> <\/em>were lazing in the afternoon sunshine, Swifts, Swallows <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>martins<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>hawked insects and a Meadow Pipit<\/strong><\/em> was song-flighting…then Ann spotted an Otter<\/strong><\/em>!\u00a0 Crossing the water towards a reedbed, the gaze of a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> and a pair of Mallards<\/strong> <\/em>were firmly fixed on it too.\u00a0 Twisting, turning, diving, feeding, it made it’s way to the edge of the reeds and continued feeding there.\u00a0 Then it headed away from the edge and back towards us, before switching direction again and sliding beneath the surface.\u00a0 A few minutes later it climbed out of the water and we could see it making it’s way through the grass.\u00a0 Then it was back down at the water’s edge and being obligingly showy.\u00a0 What came next was one of our highlights of the year so far as the Otter<\/strong> <\/em>dived back into the water…followed by two more…and then a fourth \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Then, as often happens with Otters<\/strong><\/em>, they simply vanished from sight…<\/p>\n

The afternoon continued with Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> feeding just a few metres away from us, a pair of Marsh Harriers<\/strong><\/em>, two Brown Hares<\/strong><\/em> boxing, a Great Crested Grebe<\/strong><\/em> being the epitome of avian elegance, eight Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> sitting on consecutive fence posts and an impressive mixed flock of hirundines<\/strong> <\/em>as the wind direction shifted and a heavy shower passed over us from the north west, producing an intense rainbow out over Druridge Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Single-species trips can be some of the most stressful experiences for NEWT, although possibly not quite so stressful for our clients \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Some species that our clients want to see can be very straightforward, like Grey Seals or Puffins (at least if you come at the right time of year!), others can be more difficult, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141,21,18],"tags":[271,57,488,283,232,93,171,397,207,837,218,223,217,233],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-otter","category-wildlife","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-brown-hare","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-house-martin","tag-little-gull","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-otter","tag-sand-martin","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-swallow","tag-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","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=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1954,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/1954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}