{"id":1963,"date":"2013-06-13T15:14:30","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T14:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1963"},"modified":"2013-06-13T15:14:30","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T14:14:30","slug":"seabird-spectacular-10-13-june-2013-birdwatching-on-the-northumberland-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/seabird-spectacular-10-13-june-2013-birdwatching-on-the-northumberland-coast","title":{"rendered":"Seabird Spectacular 10-13 June 2013; birdwatching on the Northumberland coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arriving at The Swan<\/a> on Monday evening I met up with Ronnie and Liz at the start of our Seabird Spectacular holiday.\u00a0 Of all of our holidays<\/a>, this is the one that concentrates on the really outstanding wildlife available on the Northumberland coast in the summer.<\/p>\n

Tuesday<\/strong> started out very nice, although cloud cover was increasing and, by lunchtime, eventually it was overcast, misty and spotting with rain.\u00a0 We’d spent the morning around Druridge Bay<\/a>, with one of the highlights being a very obliging male Reed Bunting<\/strong><\/em> who sat just a few metres away from us and sang for over 20 minutes, Wall <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Green-veined White Butterflies <\/strong><\/em>flitted across the tracks ahead of us<\/strong>,<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Sedge <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Reed Warblers<\/strong><\/em> played hide-and-seek in the edge of the reeds and a male Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> quartered a reedbed, giving prolonged views at relatively close range.\u00a0 As we ate lunch, overlooking the North Sea, watching Eiders, Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Fulmars <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Gannets,<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>the southeasterly breeze was starting to build a noticeable swell…<\/p>\n

The inevitable happened and our planned sailing around Coquet Island was cancelled on safety grounds, so we continued around Druridge Bay.\u00a0 Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> and a <\/strong>Grey Seal<\/strong><\/em> were near the weir between Amble and Warkworth and we ended up watching five Otters<\/strong> <\/em>as they munched their way through a feast of Eels<\/strong> <\/em>\ud83d\ude42 A Great Northern Diver<\/strong><\/em> flew south between Coquet Island and the mainland and we could see clouds of Puffins<\/strong> <\/em>and a few ghostly white Roseate Terns<\/strong><\/em> from our clifftop vantage point.\u00a0 Swifts<\/strong> <\/em>were around in good numbers – a scythe-winged menace to flying insects – and at the end of the day we returned to The Swan and were joined for dinner by Sarah.<\/p>\n

After Tuesday’s cancelled boat trip it was a relief to see that the wind had died down by Wednesday<\/strong> morning, and our all-day birdwatching trip to the Farne Islands<\/a> went ahead as planned.\u00a0 There were lines of Puffins, Guillemots <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Razorbills<\/strong><\/em> streaming back towards the islands, Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>were effortlessly heading either to or from the Bass Rock, and the sights, sounds and smells of the seabird colony were just a few minutes away when we came across two Harbour Porpoises<\/strong><\/em>. Cormorants <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Shags<\/strong><\/em> perched sentinel-like\u00a0 on the Scarcar rocks and landing on Staple Island we watched Guillemots, Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Puffins, Razorbills, Shags <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Rock Pipits<\/strong><\/em> at close range before having our picnic lunch in superb weather conditions on this magical rock just a few miles offshore from the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 Transferring across to Inner Farne at 13:00, via a brief detour to look at the Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> lazing in the sunshine, we were greeted by Head Ranger David Steel and then enjoyed the very different experience of running the gauntlet of a succession of angry Arctic Terns<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Common <\/strong><\/em>and<\/strong> Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> were around too, and we watched Puffins<\/strong> <\/em>skilfully avoiding the attention of Black-headed <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Lesser Black-backed Gulls.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>A pair of Rock Pipits<\/strong><\/em> nesting beneath the boardwalk were carrying beakfuls of food and I had a Farnes ‘tick’ in the shape of a Swift<\/strong> <\/em>soaring over the lighthouse buildings.\u00a0 We tried to find a Roseate Tern<\/strong><\/em> in amongst the roost by the Inner Farne jetty, but without success.\u00a0 Back to The Swan for tea, reflection on a successful day and my Plan B…<\/p>\n

Today was planned to be a one-day extension to the holiday, visiting the North Pennines<\/a>, but we’ve moved that to tomorrow and the ladies have an extra afternoon out with me, to take the boat trip around Coquet Island \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arriving at The Swan on Monday evening I met up with Ronnie and Liz at the start of our Seabird Spectacular holiday.\u00a0 Of all of our holidays, this is the one that concentrates on the really outstanding wildlife available on the Northumberland coast in the summer. Tuesday started out very nice, although cloud cover was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,275,9,11,5,141],"tags":[230,271,229,372,345,149,122,185,151,342,835,186,240,143,301,499,837,127,267,274,223,227,377,233,575],"class_list":["post-1963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-coquet-island","category-druridge","category-farnes","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-arctic-tern","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-common-tern","tag-cormorant","tag-eel","tag-eider","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-great-northern-diver","tag-green-veined-white","tag-grey-seal","tag-guillemot","tag-harbour-porpoise","tag-herring-gull","tag-kittiwake","tag-lesser-black-backed-gull","tag-otter","tag-reed-bunting","tag-reed-warbler","tag-roseate-tern","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-sedge-warbler","tag-shag","tag-swift","tag-wall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963","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=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1964,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}