{"id":2477,"date":"2014-07-08T15:35:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T14:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2014-07-08T15:35:48","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T14:35:48","slug":"marshland-magic-druridge-bay-04072014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/marshland-magic-druridge-bay-04072014","title":{"rendered":"Marshland magic; Druridge Bay 04\/07\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love all of the different locations that we visit on our tours, but a day around NEWT’s local patch of Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland is always special.\u00a0 Maybe because it’s so close to home, maybe because of the incredible industrial heritage that has gradually been transformed into fantastic wildlife habitat or maybe just because it’s really, really good \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I collected Sue from Church Point and we headed north up the coast.\u00a0 A brood of Goosanders<\/strong><\/em> were perched on mid-stream rocks as Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> flitted back and forth across our field of view, tails wagging vigorously each time they settled before flycatching again just above the water.\u00a0 An insistent squawking made us turn our heads – and there was a brood of Blackbird<\/strong><\/em> fledglings, just a few metres away, watching us with curiosity as their parents brought food.\u00a0 Great Crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em>, Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> and Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> all had young in attendance too and, as is often the case once we reach July, a lot of our attention was taken by wading birds.\u00a0 30+ Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em> were sleeping as a Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> bobbed around their feet, a group of unusually obliging Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> fed out in the open water, black-bellied Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> searched purposefully around the godwits<\/strong><\/em>, Redshank<\/strong><\/em> stalked along the pool edge and into the longer vegetation and three Wood Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> added a touch of ‘scarce’ to the afternoon.\u00a0 Two Spoonbills<\/strong><\/em> spent most of the time, as Spoonbills<\/strong><\/em> do, sleeping until a helicopter passing over roused them from their slumber and they did a fly-around before settling back to their previous spot and immediately returning to sleep close to a Little Egret<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Juvenile Marsh Harriers<\/strong><\/em> were making short flights over reedbeds, Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> were still singing their simple song with enthusiasm and a pair of Avocets<\/strong><\/em> with four chicks launched repeated furious assaults on any other birds that came too close; Shelduck<\/strong><\/em>, Little Ringed Plover<\/strong><\/em>, Sandwich Tern<\/strong><\/em>, Black-headed Gull<\/strong><\/em> and even the ‘so cute they surely couldn’t do any harm’ Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em> all came in for a hard time as the young Avocets<\/strong><\/em> pottered about in the shallows.<\/p>\n

A great day with a lovely client (we don’t have any other type!) and even the added bonus of bumping into my favourite double act, Gavin and Syd \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love all of the different locations that we visit on our tours, but a day around NEWT’s local patch of Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland is always special.\u00a0 Maybe because it’s so close to home, maybe because of the incredible industrial heritage that has gradually been transformed into fantastic wildlife habitat or maybe just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,29,5,139],"tags":[40,242,133,214,373,288,170,378,488,256,243,93,397,358,189,398,182],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-natural-history","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-avocet","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-blackbird","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-common-snipe","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-goosander","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-little-egret","tag-little-gull","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-redshank","tag-shelduck","tag-spoonbill","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","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=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2479,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions\/2479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}