A brilliantly sunny Bank Holiday Monday is the only time you’re likely to encounter anything even remotely approaching crowds of people in Northumberland, but it does happen occasionally.<\/p>\n
I collected Marcus, Alison, Norman (Grandad) and Isobel from their holiday cottage in the shadow of the Wandylaw wind farm, and we set off for a day wildlife-watching.\u00a0 With it being such a sunny morning, I thought it would be worth starting with one of our trickier animals; if it’s too cold they won’t be out and about, if it’s too warm they’ll already have slithered off somewhere cooler, and if they feel the ground vibrate as you approach they’ll beat a hasty retreat.\u00a0 We know just the spot to see them when everything falls into place though; a warm, bare, stony patch of earth surrounded by tall grass.\u00a0 At first we couldn’t see any sign, but I crept through the vegetation for a closer look.\u00a0 Two Adders<\/strong> <\/em>weren’t keen on this, and quickly slithered away into the long grass.\u00a0 The third one was much more obliging though, and I motioned for Isobel to come a bit closer.\u00a0 Incredibly, the snake remained coiled, and settled, for a few minutes.\u00a0 It eventually lifted it’s head to fix us with a baleful reptilian glare for another minute before following it’s companions into the vegetation and out of sight.<\/p>\n In the bright sunshine Kestrels<\/strong> <\/em>hovered over roadside fields, Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> sang their silvery descending cadence, Chiffchaffs<\/strong> <\/em>endlessly repeated their name, Chaffinches<\/strong> <\/em>were proclaiming their territories (and Isobel had done a very impressive colouring of a Chaffinch<\/strong> <\/em>picture), the scratchy rattle of Whitethroat<\/strong> <\/em>song buzzed through the warm air, flotillas of goslings<\/strong> <\/em>patrolled the water with their parents in close attendance and darting damselflies<\/strong> <\/em>added a streak of azure to the lush green of the grass.\u00a0 Down on the coast, dainty Avocets<\/strong> <\/em>swept the water edge for morsels, Grey Plovers<\/strong><\/em> (probably my favourite wader, certainly when they’re in their summer finery) chased back and forth, Common <\/strong><\/em>andSandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> roosted together, Fulmars<\/strong> <\/em>rode the updraft of the warm breeze along the clifftops, Eiders<\/strong> <\/em>were resplendent in the sunshine, and ‘wooly bear<\/strong><\/em>‘ caterpillars and cuckoo spit<\/strong><\/em>were just the thing for a six year old to enjoy \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Most entertaining though, judging by the giggling, was a Rook<\/strong> <\/em>that was rummaging through a bag of rubbish and found what it seemed to consider a suitable food item.\u00a0 That item was a (full) dog-poo bag…\u00a0 So disgusting that I almost titled the blog after it \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A brilliantly sunny Bank Holiday Monday is the only time you’re likely to encounter anything even remotely approaching crowds of people in Northumberland, but it does happen occasionally. I collected Marcus, Alison, Norman (Grandad) and Isobel from their holiday cottage in the shadow of the Wandylaw wind farm, and we set off for a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,9,5,141],"tags":[371,40,102,268,229,625,621,149,122,400,190,128,223,234,213,623],"class_list":["post-2373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-adder","tag-avocet","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-tern","tag-cuckoo-spit","tag-damselfly","tag-eider","tag-fulmar","tag-grey-plover","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kestrel","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-whitethroat","tag-willow-warbler","tag-wooly-bear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373","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=2373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2375,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373\/revisions\/2375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}