{"id":2089,"date":"2013-09-24T10:50:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T09:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2089"},"modified":"2013-09-24T10:50:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T09:50:56","slug":"birdwatching-in-an-iconic-landscape-lindisfarne-2309201","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/birdwatching-in-an-iconic-landscape-lindisfarne-2309201","title":{"rendered":"Birdwatching in an iconic landscape; Lindisfarne 23\/09\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

After two long hard days offshore (8hr pelagic on Saturday – blog post coming soon! – and 14hr offshore on Sunday for a North East Cetacean Project <\/a>transect survey) today brought some light relief from the rolling swell of the North Sea<\/a> as I headed north to Seahouses to collect Phil and Ann (who had won a morning out with NEWT in a competition on Visit Northumberland<\/a>) and Rachael and Alex, who by happy coincidence were all staying at St Cuthbert’s House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In weather that was glorious, even by the high standards set during this year, we headed north towards Holy Island<\/a>.\u00a0 In the north of Northumberland, with a falling tide, it was looking like a good waders and wildfowl morning.\u00a0 Mudflats were dotted with a mosaic of Mallard, Shelduck, Curlew, Dunlin, Lapwing, Redshank<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>, Oystercatcher\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>and Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> and, as we drove along the coastal road towards Holy Island, we had the treat of watching a Sparrowhawk<\/strong> <\/em>as it flew just ahead of us, only inches above the road.\u00a0 Ringed Plover <\/strong><\/em>and more <\/strong>Dunlin, Curlew <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Redshank<\/strong><\/em> were feeding in the mud of Holy Island harbour, Pied Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> were, well, wagging their tails along the pebbly edge of the harbour, a flock of House Sparrows<\/strong><\/em> was engaged in stripping the seeds from grasses just above the tideline and House Martins <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Swallows<\/strong><\/em> were sallying back and forth in search of insects in the warm autumn sunshine.\u00a0 Flocks of waders in flight are a spectacle to rival any other and as we watched, and listened to, a group of Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> that were hauled out on the sandbanks between the island and the mainland, the amorphous twisting turning shapes in the air high overhead resolved into flocks of Golden Plover <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Bar-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The final part of the plan for the morning was a short session of seawatching.\u00a0 Sandwich <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Common Terns<\/strong> <\/em>were diving close to the shore, Gannets<\/strong><\/em> were a bit further out and the sea was dotted with the dark shapes of Eiders<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Turnstones<\/strong> <\/em>were perched on the top of rocky outcrops, a Harbour Porpoise<\/strong> <\/em>proved elusive as it surfaced to breathe and an Arctic Skua<\/strong><\/em> raced south before everyone could get on to it.\u00a0 Obligingly it came back north, settled on the sea for a little while and then continued steadily north before breaking off into a aerobatic attack on a Sandwich Tern<\/strong><\/em> with another skua<\/strong> <\/em>joining in as the tern<\/strong> <\/em>twisted and turned in an attempt to evade the pirates of the sea as they attempted to rob it of it’s recent catch.<\/p>\n

Lots of birds, lots of interesting wildlife behaviour to watch, and four clients who were all great fun to spend the morning with – if I ever suggest that I’m going to return to teaching, just point me in the direction of this blog post \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After two long hard days offshore (8hr pelagic on Saturday – blog post coming soon! – and 14hr offshore on Sunday for a North East Cetacean Project transect survey) today brought some light relief from the rolling swell of the North Sea as I headed north to Seahouses to collect Phil and Ann (who had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,119,5,141],"tags":[362,147,148,229,372,172,288,149,185,175,283,835,232,160,128,334,123,536,129,188,358,224,223,189,131,217,359],"class_list":["post-2089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-holy-island","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-arctic-skua","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-tern","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-golden-plover","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-seal","tag-house-martin","tag-house-sparrow","tag-kestrel","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-pied-wagtail","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redshank","tag-ringed-plover","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-shelduck","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-swallow","tag-turnstone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089","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=2089"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}