{"id":2076,"date":"2013-09-11T12:54:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T11:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2076"},"modified":"2013-09-11T13:20:55","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T12:20:55","slug":"stumbling-across-a-twitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/stumbling-across-a-twitch","title":{"rendered":"Stumbling across a twitch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late August\/early September is an exciting time on the Northumberland coast; wader passage is still ongoing, wintering wildfowl are arriving and you just never know what could turn up&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I collected Andy and Lia from Alnwick and we set off for a day birdwatching on the Northumberland coast from Bamburgh to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=2\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 <em><strong>Knot, Turnstone, Oystercatcher, Curlew, Sanderling<\/strong><\/em> and some very elusive <em><strong>Purple Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> started the day for us, as <em><strong>Linnets<\/strong> <\/em>fluttered around in the long grass, <em><strong>Meadow <\/strong><\/em>and<strong><\/strong><em><strong> Rock Pipits<\/strong><\/em> were around the tideline, <em><strong>Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>were soaring majestically by and <em><strong>Eider <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Common Scoter<\/strong><\/em> were bobbing around just beyond the surf and a mixed flock of <em><strong>Common <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> were flushed by walkers before settling back on the rocks close to the breaking surf.\u00a0 Offshore a small flock of birds grabbed my attention, and through the telescope resolved into one of Northumberland&#8217;s winter specialities; seven <em><strong>Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em> steadily heading north were our first of the autumn.<\/p>\n<p>Further south, waders were still the main focus of our day;\u00a0 <em><strong>Dunlin, Redshank, Greenshank, Snipe, Whimbrel, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Ruff<\/strong><\/em> were all pottering about in the water&#8217;s edge.\u00a0 When we arrived at East Chevington to look for the <em><strong>Spotted Crake<\/strong><\/em>, there were a few local birders already there.\u00a0 With an astonishing amount of luck, we&#8217;d arrived just as a <em><strong>White-rumped Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> was being watched \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Not the easiest of birds to identify, but as it wandered around a flock of sleeping <em><strong>Teal<\/strong> <\/em>with <em><strong>Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Snipe<\/strong> <\/em>alongside for comparison it stood out quite well.<\/p>\n<p>Another cracking day&#8217;s birdwatching, with a proper rarity to add a touch of the unusual \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late August\/early September is an exciting time on the Northumberland coast; wader passage is still ongoing, wintering wildfowl are arriving and you just never know what could turn up&#8230; I collected Andy and Lia from Alnwick and we set off for a day birdwatching on the Northumberland coast from Bamburgh to Druridge Bay.\u00a0 Knot, Turnstone, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3,9,5,141],"tags":[147,242,67,229,172,288,149,185,332,334,140,207,210,108,176,358,142,223,204,586,169,359,231,587],"class_list":["post-2076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bamburgh-castle","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-scoter","tag-common-tern","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-greenshank","tag-knot","tag-linnet","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pale-bellied-brent-goose","tag-purple-sandpiper","tag-redshank","tag-rock-pipit","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-snipe","tag-spotted-crake","tag-teal","tag-turnstone","tag-whimbrel","tag-white-rumped-sandpiper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076","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=2076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2076\/revisions\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}