Drizzle and murk aren’t the usual conditions we enjoy in Northumberland, but Wednesday wasn’t looking promising as I drove up the A1 to collect Corin, Claire, Jean, Gene and Lily.<\/p>\n
The drizzle continued steadily as we watched over a beautful stretch of the River Aln.\u00a0 Blackbirds<\/strong> <\/em>and Chiffchaffs<\/strong> <\/em>were singing, fish<\/strong> <\/em>were rising at surface of the river and a Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> flapped away downstream.\u00a0 We headed on, watching a buzzard<\/strong> <\/em>carrying prey over the road ahead of us, to a site where we hoped to find an Otter.<\/strong><\/em>Initially all was serene, Shelducks<\/strong> <\/em>were watching over their ducklings, Tufted Ducks, Gadwall <\/strong><\/em>and a Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> were feeding quietly and a female Mallard<\/strong> <\/em>was watching over her one remaining duckling<\/strong> <\/em>(unsurprising given the frequent Otter<\/strong> <\/em>activity in that pool).\u00a0 Then there was a change; The Shelducks<\/strong> <\/em>flew off, abandoning their brood (who all headed away from the edge of the pool and formed a dense cluster), the Mallard<\/strong> <\/em>abandoned her duckling<\/strong><\/em>, which swam up and down plaintively calling and the four Tufted Ducks<\/strong> <\/em>all turned to stare straight at the same stretch of reedbed.\u00a0 Then they moved further away, forming a tight mixed flock in the centre of the pool with Mute Swans, Gadwall, Mallards and Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 The drama continued as the lone Mallard<\/strong> duckling<\/strong> <\/em>swam close to a swan<\/strong> <\/em>nest and was attacked by both adult swans<\/strong><\/em>, diving repeatedly as they struck at it with their beaks.\u00a0 The swans, ducks <\/strong><\/em>andgeese<\/strong><\/em> dispersed, still watching the reedbed warily, the Shelducks<\/strong> <\/em>flew back in, taking the brood under their wing for the night, the lone Mallard<\/strong> duckling<\/strong> <\/em>contined swimming back and forth, calling for it’s parent and a Roebuck<\/strong> <\/em>bounded through a reedbed.\u00a0 Suddenly the air was alive with Swallows, Sand Martins <\/strong><\/em>andHouse Martins<\/strong><\/em>, indicating one thing…the evening hatch had started. \u00a0 Zzzzzzzzzzzz, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, zzzzzzzzzzzz; the incessant mechanical droning of hundreds, if not thousands, of flying insects,<\/strong><\/em>taking to the air in the warm humidity.\u00a0 It was getting too dark to see any detail, but as the Mallard duckling<\/strong> <\/em>swam in front of us, it’s mother returned.\u00a0 Who doesn’t love a story with a happy ending \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drizzle and murk aren’t the usual conditions we enjoy in Northumberland, but Wednesday wasn’t looking promising as I drove up the A1 to collect Corin, Claire, Jean, Gene and Lily. The drizzle continued steadily as we watched over a beautful stretch of the River Aln.\u00a0 Blackbirds and Chiffchaffs were singing, fish were rising at surface […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,141],"tags":[133,148,170,283,190,232,171,627,218,189,217,182],"class_list":["post-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-blackbird","tag-common-buzzard","tag-gadwall","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-goose","tag-house-martin","tag-mallard","tag-roebuck","tag-sand-martin","tag-shelduck","tag-swallow","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381","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=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2383,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2381\/revisions\/2383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}