{"id":2341,"date":"2014-04-25T19:02:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T18:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2341"},"modified":"2014-04-25T19:02:30","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T18:02:30","slug":"kettling-kielder-safari-23042014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/kettling-kielder-safari-23042014","title":{"rendered":"Kettling; Kielder Safari 23\/04\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The alarm went off at 06:00 on Wednesday, and my heart sank as I looked out of the window…heavy mist, not ideal for any of our tours, but particularly not good for a day in Kielder<\/a>.\u00a0 I drove to Kingston Park to collect Steph and we headed west in much more promising conditions; low cloud in some valleys, but some sunshine too.\u00a0 We collected Paul and Trish from Wark, and then Ivan from Tower Knowe and headed into the forest.\u00a0 It was a bit cool and misty for any raptors to be up and about, but two Common Crossbill<\/strong> <\/em>flew by and the air around us was filled with the descending silvery cadence of Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> as Woodpigeons, Stock Doves <\/strong><\/em>and Carrion Crows<\/em><\/strong> caused a brief quickening of the heart rate as they flew between plantations.<\/p>\n

A walk to the Bakethin reserve produced lots of Siskin<\/strong><\/em>, and Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Teal, Oystercatcher, Cormorant <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> were around the water’s edge.\u00a0 As we got back to the car park, which provided good views of Treecreepers<\/strong><\/em>, Paul spotted a raptor high overhead, and binoculars resolved it into the impressive shape of an Osprey<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Over the border into Scotland we were soon encountering Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em>, lots of them, and a remarkable number of Skylarks <\/strong><\/em>and <\/strong>Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We reached our picnic spot and, as soup, sandwiches and carrot cake were consumed, raptors began to appear above the skyline.\u00a0 First Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em>, then a female Hen Harrier<\/strong><\/em>, followed soon after by a skydancing grey male \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Then more Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em>, and more Common Buzzards<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em> At one point we had between four and six birds behind us, while higher up the valley at least ten were kettling in one thermal along with a Peregrine<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Absolute heaven for any birdwatcher who enjoys raptors…and who doesn’t?\u00a0 Along the stream Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> were pretending to be Dippers<\/strong><\/em>, but we did eventually find the genuine article, which obligingly bobbed up and down on a rock before diving into the fast flowing water, and Wheatears<\/strong> <\/em>were perched on old stone walls.\u00a0 On the hillsides high above the valley bottom, Wild Goats<\/strong><\/em> were grazing as we enjoyed close views of Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> both perched and flying, and Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> were found as we crossed the moors back towards England.<\/p>\n

We finished the trip with an uncountable number of Chaffinches<\/strong> <\/em>and a real Northumberland speciality as a Red Squirrel<\/strong><\/em> ran around on the ground before deciding to hang upside down on a peanut cage, and it was time to reverse the route and drop everyone off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The alarm went off at 06:00 on Wednesday, and my heart sank as I looked out of the window…heavy mist, not ideal for any of our tours, but particularly not good for a day in Kielder.\u00a0 I drove to Kingston Park to collect Steph and we headed west in much more promising conditions; low cloud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,5],"tags":[272,102,148,165,214,372,257,168,839,123,207,202,210,55,208,833,127,89,191,496,169,338,182,495,213,158],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-kielder","category-northumberland","tag-carrion-crow","tag-chaffinch","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-crossbill","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-cormorant","tag-dipper","tag-goldeneye","tag-hen-harrier","tag-lapwing","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-osprey","tag-oystercatcher","tag-peregrine","tag-red-grouse","tag-red-squirrel","tag-reed-bunting","tag-siskin","tag-skylark","tag-stock-dove","tag-teal","tag-treecreeper","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wild-goat","tag-willow-warbler","tag-woodpigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341","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=2341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2343,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2341\/revisions\/2343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}