{"id":2011,"date":"2013-07-17T13:41:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T12:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2017-06-20T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T14:43:21","slug":"a-whale-of-a-time-newts-north-sea-pelagic-120713-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/a-whale-of-a-time-newts-north-sea-pelagic-120713-part-2","title":{"rendered":"A Whale of a time; NEWT’s North Sea Pelagic 12\/07\/13 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a chance I wasn’t going to miss; I was on the PV St Oswald<\/em>, we were about to pass the SarahJFK<\/em> in the River Tyne at North Shields, Sarah was on board with 10 of our clients and a late withdrawal had left a space free \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The smoothest of\u00a0 ship-to-ship transfers – accomplished by two excellent skippers who I would trust with my life – took place, and I was heading back out into the North Sea<\/strong><\/a> for another 4hr sailing \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Heading back to the location of the last White-beaked Dolphin<\/strong><\/em> sighting I’d had during the survey, we were on the North Sea<\/strong> in quite remarkable conditions.\u00a0 So flat that it looked like glass, Gannets, Fulmars, Manx Shearwaters, Puffins, Guillemots <\/strong><\/em>and Razorbills<\/strong><\/em> were all reflected in the glassy surface.\u00a0 A small group of dolphins<\/strong> <\/em>surfaced, but only myself on the starboard side, and Jon on the back of the boat on the port side managed to see them as they were directly in front of us.\u00a0 We continued our search as a spectacular sunset started to develop and then, as we headed back through the area where the dolphins<\/strong> <\/em>had been, and it suddenly turned overcast, Ruth said “there’s something over there”.\u00a0 That something was a Minke Whale<\/strong><\/em>, and soon everyone on board had excellent views as it surfaced and fed \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Could it get any better?\u00a0 Of course it could…then there were 2 together!\u00a0 Away to the south, what was, probably, a 3rd Minke Whale<\/strong><\/em> surfaced and then the sort of magic that our summer evening North Sea pelagic trips seem to produce so often happened.\u00a0 The sun broke through the clouds and I could see some interesting photographic opportunities developing…as long as the whale<\/strong> <\/em>was going to be obliging \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Common<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Minke<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve got a few spaces remaining on some of this year’s North Sea pelagic trips<\/a> so give us a call on 01670 827465 to find out what’s available and to book your place.\u00a0 You’ll get to spend time on the North Sea and all of the sightings we make on our pelagic trips are contributing to a genuinely groundbreaking research project<\/a> that’s the only one providing vital information about the distribution and abundance of Northumberland’s whales, dolphins <\/strong><\/em>and porpoises<\/strong><\/em>, to the ongoing Marine Conservation Zones process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a chance I wasn’t going to miss; I was on the PV St Oswald, we were about to pass the SarahJFK in the River Tyne at North Shields, Sarah was on board with 10 of our clients and a late withdrawal had left a space free \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The smoothest of\u00a0 ship-to-ship transfers – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,561,105,5],"tags":[122,185,186,240,364,405,309,366,225,226,841],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-minke-whale-wildlife","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-guillemot","tag-harbour-porpoise","tag-manx-shearwater","tag-marine-conservation-zones","tag-minke-whale","tag-north-sea-pelagic","tag-puffin","tag-razorbill","tag-white-beaked-dolphin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","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=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3863,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/3863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}