{"id":1957,"date":"2013-06-10T17:40:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T16:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1957"},"modified":"2013-06-10T17:40:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T16:40:24","slug":"heading-for-the-hills-birdwatching-in-the-cheviot-valleys-06-06-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/heading-for-the-hills-birdwatching-in-the-cheviot-valleys-06-06-2013","title":{"rendered":"Heading for the hills; Birdwatching in the Cheviot Valleys 06\/06\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday brought a trip that I&#8217;d been looking forward to for some time; I first met Chris many years ago, while I was Field Trips Officer for the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club, so it was going to be a day out with a client who knew me several careers ago.<\/p>\n<p>We met up at Church Point and headed inland towards the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=1\" target=\"_blank\">Cheviot Valleys<\/a>, a location that features some stunning landscapes; steep-sided valleys, towering hills, mysterious sun-dappled woodland, heather moorland and all that goes with it.\u00a0 As we approached the start of the higher ground, I suggested we check a damp area of an arable field.\u00a0 It&#8217;s often good for wading birds and this was no exception; two broods of <em><strong>Lapwing<\/strong> <\/em>chicks, as well as <em><strong>Oystercatchers<\/strong> <\/em>and <em><strong>Redshank<\/strong><\/em>, were pottering around the edge of the now small puddle.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the best thing about our forays into the Cheviots is the chance to stretch your legs, get some fresh air&#8230;and see hardly anyone else while you&#8217;re there \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The time passes quickly and the cackling of <em><strong>Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em>, simple song of <em><strong>Spotted Flycatcher<\/strong><\/em>, silvery descending cadence of <em><strong>Willow Warbler, <\/strong><\/em>plaintive mewing of<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Common Buzzards\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>and the eponymous songs of <em><strong>Cuckoo<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Chiffchaff <\/strong><\/em> all accompanied parts of our walk.\u00a0<em><strong> Grey Wagtails, Dippers <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Common Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> were all occupying that particular ecological niche that they&#8217;re all so suited for, a <em><strong>Redstart<\/strong> <\/em>delivered his distinctive song from a hidden perch, <em><strong>Curlews<\/strong> <\/em>gave their haunting cries from high on the hillsides, <em><strong>Tree Pipits<\/strong><\/em> sang from treetops and a <em><strong>Kestrel<\/strong> <\/em>was hanging in the air over the ridge at the top of a steep valley.\u00a0 Away from civilisation, surrounded by wildlife, it was the relaxed enjoyable trip that I always knew it would be \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday brought a trip that I&#8217;d been looking forward to for some time; I first met Chris many years ago, while I was Field Trips Officer for the Northumberland and Tyneside Bird Club, so it was going to be a day out with a client who knew me several careers ago. We met up at [&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":[268,148,214,172,257,279,256,128,123,210,208,358,259,285,258,213],"class_list":["post-1957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-northumberland","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-green-tiger-beetle","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-oystercatcher","tag-red-grouse","tag-redshank","tag-redstart","tag-spotted-flycatcher","tag-tree-pipit","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957","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=1957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1957\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}