{"id":2095,"date":"2013-10-02T08:16:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T07:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2013-10-02T08:16:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T07:16:24","slug":"stoats-sandpipers-starlings-and-sparrowhawks-druridge-bay-birdwatching-30092013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/stoats-sandpipers-starlings-and-sparrowhawks-druridge-bay-birdwatching-30092013","title":{"rendered":"Stoats, Sandpipers, Starlings and Sparrowhawks; Druridge Bay birdwatching 30\/09\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a brisk southeasterly wind rattling the Northumberland coast, I arrived in Alnmouth on Monday morning to collect John, Annie and Steve for a day of bespoke birdwatching.<\/p>\n

Starting with a seawatch, Gannets<\/strong> <\/em>were streaming south , occasionally pausing to circle and then plunge into the sea, and Common Scoter<\/strong><\/em> were dotted amongst the rafts of Eider<\/strong><\/em>, appearing for brief periods as they rode up and over the considerable swell.<\/p>\n

Heading south to Druridge Bay<\/a> produced the expected crop of passage waders; Redshank, Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Lapwing <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Ruff <\/strong><\/em>were expected and two Curlew Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> were a nice find.\u00a0 Teal, Mallard, Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Goosander <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Pintail<\/strong><\/em> provided wildfowl interest and skeins of Canada, Greylag <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em>, which we’d seen earlier in the afternoon as they fed in nearby fields, began to arrive at their overnight roosts.\u00a0 A Stoat<\/strong> <\/em>was all energy as it raced backwards and forwards, exploring every nook and cranny along the edge of the water and, as dusk approached, we watched one of the great wildlife spectacles as a murmuration of Starlings<\/strong> <\/em>swirled above a reedbed before dropping in to roost.\u00a0 The mass of birds attracted the attention of a Sparrowhawk,<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>and the female raptor made several low passes through the tops of the reeds above the roosting Starlings<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 They weren’t going to be tricked into flying out and becoming an easier target though, and the Sparrowhawk<\/strong> <\/em>soon settled on a fence post.\u00a0 Then a second Sparrowhawk<\/strong> <\/em>appeared, this time a male, and the two birds perched on adjacent fence posts, allowing an excellent comparison of their gender differences.\u00a0 As we headed off, in the fading light and bitterly cold wind, it looked like they would be going without their supper…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a brisk southeasterly wind rattling the Northumberland coast, I arrived in Alnmouth on Monday morning to collect John, Annie and Steve for a day of bespoke birdwatching. Starting with a seawatch, Gannets were streaming south , occasionally pausing to circle and then plunge into the sea, and Common Scoter were dotted amongst the rafts […]<\/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":[242,560,67,172,557,288,149,170,185,378,190,123,171,129,179,358,241,131,161,183,169,182,181],"class_list":["post-2095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-scoter","tag-curlew","tag-curlew-sandpiper","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-gadwall","tag-gannet","tag-goosander","tag-greylag-goose","tag-lapwing","tag-mallard","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-pintail","tag-redshank","tag-ruff","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-stoat","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095","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=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2096,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}