“If you usually travel through Northumberland to get to Scotland, what is it about Northumberland that made you choose to stay here on this holiday?”\u00a0 I asked the question as a bit of market research; after all, knowing why people visit Northumberland helps with developing a better experience for them.\u00a0 The answer was slightly unexpected though “This otter safari”…<\/p>\n
I arrived at Church Point shortly before Philip and Pauline, who were back for their second trip with NEWT following a Druridge Bay safari in 2012<\/a>.\u00a0 We quickly met up with Albert and Elisabeth and began our search for Otters<\/strong> <\/em>in the pools of Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 With no obvious panic amongst the assembled wildfowl, I decided that we should try elsewhere.\u00a0 Initially all seemed calm and, as an entertaining discussion about mustelids<\/strong> <\/em>developed (with all four participants on the trip having previously seen one species that is still very high on my wish list…), I kept checking the ducks<\/strong> <\/em>and geese<\/strong> <\/em>along the water’s edge.\u00a0 Then, a change; two pairs of Canada Geese<\/strong><\/em> were suddenly very alert.\u00a0 Necks held straight up, all staring intently along the river bank.\u00a0 That was a good sign.\u00a0 Then a better one, as a brood of Mallard<\/strong> <\/em>ducklings scattered in a semi-circle from the bankside vegetation.\u00a0 Something had spooked them, but what was it?\u00a0 For the next five minutes I kept my binoculars trained on the spot that the Mallards<\/strong> <\/em>had scattered from.\u00a0 First there was no indication of what had scared them, but it had to be something…then persistence paid off.\u00a0 What appeared to be a log floating on the water hadn’t been there the last time I looked, and it rolled at the surface, dived and popped back up \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Using the shapes of the trees on the bank as landmarks, everyone was soon watching the Otter<\/strong> <\/em>as it dived repeatedly in the same spot.\u00a0 It was so fixated on feeding in a very small area that I was able to train the telescope on it and everyone managed to watch it through ‘scope as well as binoculars.\u00a0 It vanished for a few minutes, before the geese<\/strong> <\/em>alerted us to it’s presence a little way downstream.\u00a0 As daylight faded the surface of the river became a featureless, unwelcoming darkness as bats flitted back and forth around the tree canopy and we headed back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “If you usually travel through Northumberland to get to Scotland, what is it about Northumberland that made you choose to stay here on this holiday?”\u00a0 I asked the question as a bit of market research; after all, knowing why people visit Northumberland helps with developing a better experience for them.\u00a0 The answer was slightly unexpected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,21,139],"tags":[560,171,837],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-canada-goose","tag-mallard","tag-otter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","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=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2359,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions\/2359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}