One of the best bits of being outside and searching for wildlife is the how everything around you ties together to create an experience; the landscape, the wildlife and the weather all come together to produce whatever they may…<\/p>\n
I collected Paul and Jeanette from their holiday accommodation in Warkworth and we started out down the coast towards Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 Originally the plan had been Harwood <\/a>and then the coast, but weather conditions suggested it would be better to reverse that.\u00a0 Then there was a sudden change from the poor conditions and it was looking like a glorious morning after all so we reverted to Plan A.\u00a0 The Northumbrian weather responded by throwing everything it could at us; sunshine, azure blue skies, fluffy white clouds, torrential rain and brutal biting winds all came, went and came again \ud83d\ude42 There was no sign of any Goshawk<\/strong> <\/em>activity in the good spells but you could hardly blame them \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Eventually we retreated back down to the coastal plain…and had the same sequence of changeable weather all over again!\u00a0 Feeding stations were a hive of bird activity, with Chaffinches, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit <\/strong><\/em>and a very bright male<\/strong> Siskin<\/strong><\/em> all entertaining us, but Red Squirrels<\/strong><\/em> weren’t to be seen.\u00a0 Some of our coastal ponds have been producing regular Otter<\/strong> <\/em>sightings over the last few months…but the most notable thing was that the howling gale was generating waves that you could have surfed on!\u00a0 Tree Sparrows <\/strong><\/em>and<\/strong> Goldfinche<\/strong><\/em>s were clinging on to branches as the wind buffeted them and, as Curlew, Lapwing <\/strong><\/em>and a nice mini-murmuration of<\/strong> Starlings<\/strong> <\/em>were tossed about on the breeze, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye; Mallard, Wigeon, Teal, Shelduck <\/strong><\/em>and Slavonian, Red-necked, Great Crested<\/em> and <\/strong>Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> struggled in the waves.<\/p>\n Our final destination for the day was one of our favourite Badger<\/strong> <\/em>setts.\u00a0 There was rustling in the scrub on the valley sides, but no stripy black-and-white head appeared, at least not before it was too dark to see.\u00a0 What did come along though was a Red Fox<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Unusually obliging, this one trotted along just above the sett before stopping and fixing us with a stare.\u00a0 It didn’t bolt, as foxes<\/strong><\/em> so often do, but watched us, and some passing dog walkers, before continuing with its exploration of the hillside.\u00a0 Often underrated, undervalued, frequently despised…but a thoroughly engaging animal if you take time to watch the almost feline grace of this wild canine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the best bits of being outside and searching for wildlife is the how everything around you ties together to create an experience; the landscape, the wildlife and the weather all come together to produce whatever they may… I collected Paul and Jeanette from their holiday accommodation in Warkworth and we started out down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,184,5],"tags":[286,102,101,172,168,103,164,488,45,123,360,121,171,837,847,833,609,189,89,177,161,169,125,182,181],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-harwood","category-northumberland","tag-badger","tag-chaffinch","tag-coal-tit","tag-curlew","tag-goldeneye","tag-goldfinch","tag-goshawk","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-great-tit","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-red-fox","tag-red-squirrel","tag-red-necked-grebe","tag-shelduck","tag-siskin","tag-slavonian-grebe","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","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=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}