{"id":2621,"date":"2014-08-25T16:31:26","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2621"},"modified":"2014-08-25T16:31:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T15:31:26","slug":"the-magic-of-dusk-otter-safari-20082014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/the-magic-of-dusk-otter-safari-20082014","title":{"rendered":"The magic of dusk; Otter Safari 20\/08\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

After four consecutive successful Otter Safaris<\/a> since mid-July, I was fairly sure that dusk would be the best time to search for them, and the afternoon could be spent enjoying some excellent birdwatching with the added possibility of stumbling across an Otter<\/strong><\/em> in broad daylight…<\/p>\n

I arrived in Craster to collect Dave and Naomi and we headed south towards Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 We started with Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> bobbing up and down on mid-stream rocks, as Salmon<\/strong><\/em> hungrily seized flies from the water’s surface, and then moved on to large roosting flocks of Sandwich Tern, Black-headed Gull, Curlew, Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> with two Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> standing sentinel-like on an elevated bank above the roost.\u00a0 Knot, Dunlin, Ruff, Wood Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> and Black-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em> added to the wader haul for the afternoon and real surprise came in the shape of a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> over Cresswell Pond.\u00a0 Ghostly white Mediterranean Gulls<\/strong><\/em> drifted over Newbiggin and, as dusk approached, Naomi started spotting mammals.\u00a0 First a Roebuck<\/strong><\/em>, prancing, leaping and sparring with tall plant stems like a boxer with a punchbag.\u00a0 Then, the big one; an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Swimming towards us, we followed it’s dives by the trail of bubbles on the water’s surface, before\u00a0 it eventually disappeared below the edge of the reedbed that we were looking over, with just the tell-tale ‘ring of bright water’ as it surfaced.\u00a0 After a few minutes without any sign, the Otter<\/strong><\/em>, or a second one, reappeared.\u00a0 As we each gave directions to where the Otter<\/strong><\/em> was, it quickly became apparent that we weren’t all watching the same animal.\u00a0 Then there were two together to our left, and a third away to our right \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 At least three Otters<\/strong><\/em>, including the smallest cub that I’ve ever seen, and we eventually left, when the light levels had fallen so low that binoculars were all but a hindrance.\u00a0 As we walked back to the car a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> passed by, carrying prey, as skeins of Canada<\/strong><\/em> and Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> flew noisily south.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After four consecutive successful Otter Safaris since mid-July, I was fairly sure that dusk would be the best time to search for them, and the afternoon could be spent enjoying some excellent birdwatching with the added possibility of stumbling across an Otter in broad daylight… I arrived in Craster to collect Dave and Naomi and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5],"tags":[40,97,271,242,57,560,214,373,172,288,332,256,190,120,334,123,243,193,210,358,66,241,412,223,558],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","tag-avocet","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-brown-hare","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-greenshank","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kingfisher","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-oystercatcher","tag-redshank","tag-roe-deer","tag-ruff","tag-salmon","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-wood-sandpiper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621","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=2621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2623,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}