I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked to describe my favourite wildlife experience…and how many times I’ve said that I don’t think it’s possible to narrow it down to just one choice.\u00a0 There are a few though, that would make a great ‘top five’ (or ‘top ten”)…<\/p>\n
I collected David and Sue from their holiday accommodation and we headed north along the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 The plan for the afternoon was to search some of our regular Otter<\/strong> <\/em>sites, and have a good look at the other wildlife that was around.\u00a0 There’s really only one weather condition that I’m not keen on for wildlife-watching, and unfortunately we got it yesterday afternoon.\u00a0 A stiff wind is not ideal for finding wildlife; insects<\/strong> <\/em>are likely to stay deep in vegetation and mammals <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>birds<\/strong><\/em> are more likely to find somewhere sheltered and have a nap than subject themselves to the ravages of the wind.\u00a0 One bird that seemed to be everywhere we went was Kestrel<\/strong><\/em>; we must have seen seven or eight of these small falcons hovering in the breeze during the afternoon.<\/p>\n As we watched Wigeon, Teal, Mallard <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> a rarely seen denizen of our reedbeds put in a brief appearance.\u00a0 In just a few seconds the Water Rail<\/strong> <\/em>ran out of one reedbed, quickly crossed a patch of open mud and vanished into the depths of another reedbed.\u00a0 Wader passage was still evident, with Black-tailed <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Bar-tailed Godwit, Ruff, Lapwing, Curlew <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Dunlin.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>One bizarrely comical moment was caused by a Starling<\/strong> <\/em>flying into the middle of the wader flock to bathe.\u00a0 We can only guess at what the roosting waders thought it was, but it caused a ripple of alarm that could be traced through the flock as it flew in.<\/p>\n Then, drifting on the breeze, a high-pitched yapping marked the beginning of one of my favourite wildlife experiences.\u00a0 First a flock of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong> <\/em>came in low and splashed down on the water.\u00a0 Soon after a flock of Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> arrived, then more Pink-feet<\/strong><\/em>, a large flock of Canada Geese<\/strong><\/em> and four very endearing, but obviously escaped, Bar-headed Geese<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 More geese followed, and then a flock of Pink-feet<\/strong><\/em>, heralded by those yapping calls, could be seen as tiny specks high against the clouds overhead.\u00a0 These birds were surely just arriving from far-flung parts, to join the wintering goose flocks around Druridge Bay.\u00a0 Suddenly birds took to the air; Dunlin<\/strong> <\/em>first, then Lapwing<\/strong><\/em>, followed by ducks<\/strong> <\/em>and then geese. <\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>Too much panic, surely, for an Otter<\/strong><\/em>?\u00a0 What the birds had seen, and we eventually spotted as it drifted high against the clouds above us, was a Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Making it’s way steadily north west, it eventually drifted out of sight and the birds settled back down.<\/p>\n As dusk approached , the breeze finally relented and, with the backdrop of a stunning sunset, both Noctule<\/strong> <\/em>and pipistrelle<\/strong> <\/em>bats flew by.\u00a0 The cause of a sudden panic amongst the assembled ducks<\/strong> <\/em>was caused remained unseen, and as the light faded to the point where it was time to head back, we could still hear the geese – over a mile away from where we were.\u00a0 The dark of the night brought one last wildlife experience though, as a Badger<\/strong> <\/em>trotted along the road just in front of the car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked to describe my favourite wildlife experience…and how many times I’ve said that I don’t think it’s possible to narrow it down to just one choice.\u00a0 There are a few though, that would make a great ‘top five’ (or ‘top ten”)… I collected David and Sue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141,139],"tags":[286,502,147,242,560,172,288,190,128,123,171,397,178,60,129,292,241,169,237,181],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-badger","tag-bar-headed-goose","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-canada-goose","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mute-swan","tag-noctule-bat","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-pipistrelle","tag-ruff","tag-teal","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","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=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2084,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}