{"id":2423,"date":"2014-06-13T12:12:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T11:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2423"},"modified":"2014-06-13T12:12:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T11:12:03","slug":"six-of-the-best-cheviot-valleys-and-druridge-bay-09062014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/six-of-the-best-cheviot-valleys-and-druridge-bay-09062014","title":{"rendered":"Six of the best; Cheviot Valleys and Druridge Bay 09\/06\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday’s trip was a birdwatching tour of two of Northumberland’s excellent locations; the Cheviot Valleys<\/a> in the morning, and Druridge Bay<\/a> in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

I collected John, Graham, Andy, Sue, Sue and Lesley from their cottage in Shilbottle and we set off inland towards the imposing landscape of the Cheviot massif.\u00a0 As we got out of the car and donned waterproofs we had the first rain shower of the day, but it quickly passed and the path began gaining in altitude as Oystercatchers<\/strong> <\/em>perched on fence posts, swallows<\/strong> <\/em>and martins<\/strong> <\/em>hawked back and forth through air buzzing with insects<\/strong> <\/em>in the warm, humid conditions and Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> and Chaffinches<\/strong> <\/em>competed with their congeners in a singing contest.\u00a0 The plaintive cries of Curlew<\/strong> <\/em>echoed around the steep valley sides, the high calls of Siskin<\/strong> <\/em>and the buzzy rattle of Lesser <\/strong> Redpoll<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 came from overhead and one of the archetypal valley birds put in an appearance as we found a succession of adult and juvenile Dippers<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 A lone Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> hovered high over the moors in search of prey and a Peregrine<\/strong> <\/em>repeatedly rose above the skyline before dropping back down in a prolonged attack on an unfortunate, and unseen, victim.<\/p>\n

Lunch overlooking the sea was accompanied by Fulmars<\/strong> <\/em>gliding gracefully back and forth on stiff wings, before we switched our attention to waders<\/strong><\/em>, wildfowl<\/strong> <\/em>and waterbirds<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> and Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> were stalking menacingly along shallow pool edges, at least 50 Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em> were roosting, and a small group of Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> looked diminutive alongside Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em> (which aren’t all that big themselves!).\u00a0 Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> were singing their rather repetitive song, Sedge<\/strong><\/em> and Reed Warblers<\/strong><\/em> flew by before vanishing into the depths of the reedbeds and we enjoyed the sight of delicate and dainty, yet incredibly feisty, Avocets<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Great Crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em> were feeding their stripy offspring, Arctic, Common<\/strong><\/em> and Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> perched obligingly, allowing easy comparison, and the afternoon brought an unexpected surprise in the shape of no less than six Spoonbills<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 They did little more exciting than occasionally wake up and preen for a short while before nodding off again, but the sight of six of these impressive birds together wrapped up the day nicely \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday’s trip was a birdwatching tour of two of Northumberland’s excellent locations; the Cheviot Valleys in the morning, and Druridge Bay in the afternoon. I collected John, Graham, Andy, Sue, Sue and Lesley from their cottage in Shilbottle and we set off inland towards the imposing landscape of the Cheviot massif.\u00a0 As we got out […]<\/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],"tags":[230,40,451,271,242,102,148,229,172,257,122,488,283,232,134,243,93,210,55,127,267,218,223,227,89,398,213],"class_list":["post-2423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-druridge","category-northumberland","tag-arctic-tern","tag-avocet","tag-barn-swallow","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-chaffinch","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-tern","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-fulmar","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-house-martin","tag-lesser-redpoll","tag-little-egret","tag-little-gull","tag-oystercatcher","tag-peregrine","tag-reed-bunting","tag-reed-warbler","tag-sand-martin","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-sedge-warbler","tag-siskin","tag-spoonbill","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423","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=2423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2425,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423\/revisions\/2425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}