Returning clients have become a bit of a theme for NEWT in the last couple of years, and it’s always lovely to meet up and hear what our clients have been doing, and seeing, since they were last out with us.<\/p>\n
Mike and Maggie were visiting Northumberland again, and their day out with me this year was to be a bespoke birdwatching and photography experience in the North Pennines<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As soon as we were on the higher ground, Curlew, Golden Plover, Lapwing <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> were all found with chicks, Redshank<\/strong> <\/em>were calling noisily from nearby rushy fields and Skylark<\/strong> <\/em>and Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em> were singing overhead.\u00a0 More Red Grouse <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> became targets for Mike’s camera and a Ring Ouzel<\/strong> <\/em>feeding in a grassy field flew up onto a dry stone wall, next to another ouzel<\/strong><\/em>, as a third flew across the road behind us.\u00a0 As we dropped from the high ridge between Weardale and Upper Teesdale, an unexpected bonus bird was sitting in the middle of the road.\u00a0 The unmistakeable ‘built like a breeze block’ figure of a Woodcock<\/strong> <\/em>was just sitting there.\u00a0 As we watched, it called, and two Woodcock<\/strong> <\/em>chicks came out of the long grass to join it \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Creeping along on short legs and big feet, the adult bobbed up and down, like a Jack Snipe <\/strong><\/em>on steroids, as it led it’s young across into the dense cover of the grass on the opposite side of the road.<\/p>\n Our post-lunch walk produced Golden Plover, Ringed Plover, Grey Wagtail, Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em>, a single Spring Gentian<\/strong><\/em> and a female Ring Ouzel<\/strong><\/em>, gathering food by a\u00a0 fast flowing stream.\u00a0 The journey back towards Allendale was enlivened by the impressive wingspan and mad staring yellow eyes of a Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> as it quartered the high moorland.\u00a0 There was one species on our target list for the day that was still missing though, and we’d already checked almost all of our usual sites.\u00a0 Then, as we crossed back into Northumberland, I slowed the car almost to a standstill and mentioned that the next field on the left, in between the clumps of rush closest to the road, was a regular spot for Black Grouse…<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Returning clients have become a bit of a theme for NEWT in the last couple of years, and it’s always lovely to meet up and hear what our clients have been doing, and seeing, since they were last out with us. Mike and Maggie were visiting Northumberland again, and their day out with me this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[54,175,256,207,208,263,224,456,191,295,71],"class_list":["post-1983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-golden-plover","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-red-grouse","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-ringed-plover","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-skylark","tag-spring-gentian","tag-woodcock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983","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=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1984,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}