{"id":1981,"date":"2013-06-26T15:20:45","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T14:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2013-06-26T15:20:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T14:20:45","slug":"watching-the-wildlife-otter-safari-24062013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/watching-the-wildlife-otter-safari-24062013","title":{"rendered":"Watching the wildlife; Otter Safari 24\/06\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday morning, and the weather forecast of impending doom brought the not unexpected ‘phone call that saw clients transferring from Sunday’s to Monday’s Otter Safari<\/a>. \u00a0Monday afternoon, and the weather looked reasonable as I collected Ken and Rosemary from The Swan<\/a> and then we drove to the coast and collected Paul, and Lisa and Steve, from Church Point.<\/p>\n

I’d seen at least ten Otters<\/strong> <\/em>in the last month, so I was fairly confident that an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay<\/a>, southeast Northumberland and the Northumberland coast would have a higher-than-average chance of successfully locating our target species for the trip.\u00a0 What we found raising interest in the local Mallards<\/strong> <\/em>and Tufted Ducks<\/strong><\/em> in the mid-afternoon sunshine wasn’t an Otter<\/strong><\/em>, but the birds’ behaviour of slowly swimming along a reedbed, just a few metres from the shore, was a good indication of the predator they had spotted and we watched as a Red Fox<\/strong><\/em> slowly made it’s way along the edge of the pond followed by an ever-expanding entourage of ducks<\/strong> <\/em>\ud83d\ude42\u00a0 At least eight Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> provided some undeniably cute birdwatching interest and we continued our search.\u00a0 The next mammal to join the day list was Rabbit<\/strong><\/em>, under-rated and attractive, but still not an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Flocks of geese and ducks seemed to be responding to some hidden menace;\u00a0 getting out of the water, cackling as if startled, getting back in the water, getting out of the water…but still no sign of an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

As dusk approached, and a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> walked slowly along the edge of the pond, there was a change in the mood of the assembled ducks<\/strong><\/em>; suddenly alert, feeding stopped and heads were raised as high as their outstretched necks would allow.\u00a0 A pair of Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> were doing the same and Paul soon spotted the cause of their consternation as the head, then the sinuous body, and finally the tail, of an Otter<\/strong> <\/em>broke the surface \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Heading into a small bay in the reeds it soon slipped out of sight, only to reappear a few minutes later; twisting and turning as it fed close to the reeds.\u00a0 Common Pipistrelle<\/strong><\/em>, as we walked back to the car, and Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em>, as we drove back towards Newbiggin, were mammals #5 and #6 for the day and the trip was rounded off with a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em>, flying from a fence post as we passed by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday morning, and the weather forecast of impending doom brought the not unexpected ‘phone call that saw clients transferring from Sunday’s to Monday’s Otter Safari. \u00a0Monday afternoon, and the weather looked reasonable as I collected Ken and Rosemary from The Swan and then we drove to the coast and collected Paul, and Lisa and Steve, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141,21,139],"tags":[97,57,250,190,93,171,837,284,847,66,182],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-barn-owl","tag-brown-hare","tag-common-pipistrelle","tag-greylag-goose","tag-little-gull","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-rabbit","tag-red-fox","tag-roe-deer","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","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=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1982,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/1982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}