{"id":2629,"date":"2014-08-25T17:30:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T16:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2629"},"modified":"2014-08-25T17:30:39","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T16:30:39","slug":"sealed-bespoke-north-northumberland-coast-safari-22082014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/sealed-bespoke-north-northumberland-coast-safari-22082014","title":{"rendered":"Sealed; Bespoke North Northumberland Coast Safari 22\/08\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

After some poor sea conditions recently, things looked more promising for Friday’s trip; a seal cruise around the Farne Islands<\/a>, followed by a few hours of birdwatching along the North Northumberland coast.\u00a0 A change is as good as a rest, and the North Northumberland coast is quite a change from the sand dunes and coastal pools of Druridge Bay<\/a> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I collected Anne-Marie, Dave, Melanie and Mike from the Queen’s Head in Berwick<\/a> and we drove to Seahouses for our sailing on Glad Tidings V, which thankfully was fairly smooth, and featured plenty of wildlife.\u00a0 Gannets<\/strong><\/em> were soaring by, Kittiwakes<\/strong><\/em> were still on their cliff-edge nest sites in good numbers as Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> arced over them, Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> were hauled out on rocks and bobbing around in the water, two Common Guillemots<\/strong><\/em> were still sitting on the rocks, Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> and Shags<\/strong><\/em> were drying their wings in the stiff breeze, Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> called as they flew back to the islands and, unexpectedly, five Puffins<\/strong><\/em> were seen with beakfuls of fish.\u00a0 Photographing Puffins<\/strong><\/em> in flight can be a challenge on land, with lots of birds to choose from, and a bird appearing unexpectedly at sea is an even harder proposition but Anne-Marie and Melanie responded with lightning fast reflexes to capture these late breeding birds.<\/p>\n

Back on dry land we had our lunch in the impressive shadow of Bamburgh Castle, as Eiders<\/strong><\/em> bobbed around just beyond the breaking surf, and then we explored the coast as the tide fell.\u00a0 Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> have become a frequent feature of our coastal trips, and two birds flew by at quite close range.\u00a0 Dozens of Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> could be seen ‘bottling’ at high tide and then, as the water receded, exposing patches of mud, we started encountering waders.\u00a0 Redshank, Ringed Plover, Curlew, Lapwing, Dunlin<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 and Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> were joined by Knot, Ruff<\/strong><\/em> and Greenshank<\/strong><\/em> as more Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em>, and a flock of Teal<\/strong><\/em>, flew by.<\/p>\n

Heading back to Berwick we could see poor weather to the north and to the east, and I got caught in some heavy rain as I drove south on the way home, but we’d had a day where the only water that landed on us was the spray from the bow of the boat \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After some poor sea conditions recently, things looked more promising for Friday’s trip; a seal cruise around the Farne Islands, followed by a few hours of birdwatching along the North Northumberland coast.\u00a0 A change is as good as a rest, and the North Northumberland coast is quite a change from the sand dunes and coastal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3,11,5,141],"tags":[540,372,172,288,149,122,185,332,835,301,334,123,243,210,225,358,224,241,223,377,169],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bamburgh-castle","category-birdwatching","category-farnes","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-common-guillemot","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-greenshank","tag-grey-seal","tag-kittiwake","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-oystercatcher","tag-puffin","tag-redshank","tag-ringed-plover","tag-ruff","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-shag","tag-teal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629","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=2629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2631,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions\/2631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}