{"id":2081,"date":"2013-09-18T15:16:30","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T14:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2081"},"modified":"2013-09-18T15:16:30","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T14:16:30","slug":"stoatally-different-and-otterly-captivating-druridge-bay-mini-safari-11092013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/stoatally-different-and-otterly-captivating-druridge-bay-mini-safari-11092013","title":{"rendered":"Stoatally different and otterly captivating; Druridge Bay mini-Safari 11\/09\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I collected Tim and Elizabeth from Church Point and we set out for an evening mini-safari around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=2\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 What now seems to have been several weeks of passage <em><strong>Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Ruff<\/strong><\/em> was still evident, <em><strong>Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> were being uncharacteristically obliging and <em><strong>Teal, Mallard, Wigeon <\/strong><\/em>and<strong> <\/strong><em><strong>Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> were all dabbling around in good numbers.\u00a0 Two sinuous predators were the stars of the afternoon though&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>First, as I was scanning the water around a group of roosting <em><strong>Cormorants<\/strong><\/em>, was the big one; the elusive, enigmatic terror of the water.\u00a0 The familiar twisting sinuous shape of an <em><strong><\/strong><\/em>broke the surface just beyond the birds.\u00a0 Diving, swimming, pausing at the surface to consume it&#8217;s catch, the <em><strong>Otter<\/strong> <\/em>made it&#8217;s way across the pond before vanishing into a reed-lined bay.<\/p>\n<p>Then came what is rapidly becoming my favourite <em><strong>mustelid<\/strong><\/em>; bouncing around like a jack-in-the-box, twisting, turning, executing somersaults worthy of an Olympic gymnast until it seemed to be just a blur, the <em><strong>Stoat<\/strong> <\/em>was entrancing.\u00a0 The more I see of these little predators, the more I like.\u00a0 Stunningly beautiful (particularly in white winter ermine), inquisitive and possessing apparently boundless energy, any view of a <em><strong>Stoat<\/strong> <\/em>for more than a split second is captivating \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I collected Tim and Elizabeth from Church Point and we set out for an evening mini-safari around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 What now seems to have been several weeks of passage Black-tailed Godwits and Ruff was still evident, Common Snipe were being uncharacteristically obliging and Teal, Mallard, Wigeon and Gadwall were all dabbling around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,139],"tags":[242,373,372,170,171,837,241,183,169,181],"class_list":["post-2081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-gadwall","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-ruff","tag-stoat","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081","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=2081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}