{"id":2401,"date":"2014-06-02T17:59:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T16:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2401"},"modified":"2014-06-02T17:59:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T16:59:34","slug":"zzzzzzzzzz-badger-mini-safari-31052014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/zzzzzzzzzz-badger-mini-safari-31052014","title":{"rendered":"Zzzzzzzzzz; Badger mini-safari 31\/05\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

After dropping John, David and Sheila back in Alnwick after their bespoke photography trip<\/a> to the Farne Islands<\/a>, I met up with Sarah to have something to eat and then I was on my way to Alnmouth to collect Zoe, Richard, Ella, Luke and Charlie.\u00a0 This was their second trip with NEWT, following an evening mini-safari<\/a> in late May last year.<\/p>\n

One of the species from last year’s trip put in an impressive appearance again, as we watched a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> hunting along one edge of a pool, while an Avocet<\/strong> <\/em>fed at the other side, Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> seemed to be everywhere we looked and a small group of Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> looked tiny alongside nearby Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Soon, light levels had faded to the point where it was time to head off in search of our main quarry for the evening.\u00a0 Positioning ourselves in a spot that looks over an area where Badgers<\/strong> <\/em>are regularly seen, we sat quietly.\u00a0 Almost immediately myself and Ella noticed something black-and-white moving in the vegetation opposite us.. That turned out to be a false alarm though as it revealed itself to be a Magpie<\/strong> <\/em>\ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Things were quiet, although distantly I could hear the alarm calls of Blackbirds, Robins <\/strong><\/em>andWrens<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Then another gentle sound just on the edge of hearing; ZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzz.\u00a0 It was warm and humid so it wouldn’t be a great surprise to encounter lots of insects…although these Z’s were coming from Luke and Charlie!\u00a0 That’s how relaxing it is to just sit and watch for wildlife…<\/p>\n

Out of the corner of my eye I caught some movement away along the track.. Had I imagined it?\u00a0 Maybe it was a dog walker having an evening stroll?\u00a0 No more movement…and then a Red Fox<\/strong><\/em> trotted across the clearing in front of us.\u00a0 A second fox<\/strong> <\/em>followed soon after, and then a Badger<\/strong><\/em>, big and ghostly pale, as an attempt was made to wake the boys without making too much noise \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Another fox<\/strong><\/em>, this time a cub, sat watching us for a few minutes, and Luke spotted that there was a Badger<\/strong> <\/em>in the undergrowth just beyond it.\u00a0 More fox<\/strong> <\/em>sightings followed, and then a final Badger,<\/strong> <\/em>as the light reached a point where even the sharpest of eyes would struggle to penetrate the gloom.\u00a0 The drive back to Alnmouth had one last good mammal for us, as a Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em> loped along the road a few metres ahead of the car \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After dropping John, David and Sheila back in Alnwick after their bespoke photography trip to the Farne Islands, I met up with Sarah to have something to eat and then I was on my way to Alnmouth to collect Zoe, Richard, Ella, Luke and Charlie.\u00a0 This was their second trip with NEWT, following an evening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287,3,9,5,114],"tags":[40,286,97,271,133,57,93,47,847,127,116,421],"class_list":["post-2401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badger-wildlife","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-red-fox","tag-avocet","tag-badger","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-blackbird","tag-brown-hare","tag-little-gull","tag-magpie","tag-red-fox","tag-reed-bunting","tag-robin","tag-wren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401","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=2401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}