{"id":2633,"date":"2014-09-10T16:42:39","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T15:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2014-09-10T17:01:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T16:01:42","slug":"angel-of-death-bespoke-coastal-safari-26082014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/angel-of-death-bespoke-coastal-safari-26082014","title":{"rendered":"Angel of Death; Bespoke Coastal Safari 26\/08\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll never tire of watching wildlife.\u00a0 Whether it&#8217;s the birds around the feeding station in our garden, whales and dolphins far from land, grouse on the high moors or hoverflies around wildflowers, I&#8217;m fascinated by it all.\u00a0 There are some species though that are so ethereal and attention-grabbing that I&#8217;ve often seen clients literally transfixed watching them.<\/p>\n<p>I collected Steve and Sue from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theswanchoppington.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Swan<\/a> and we set off north to begin our exploration of the Northumberland coast and its wildlife.\u00a0 Waders dominated, as they have done for a few weeks now; <em><strong>Ringed Plover, Curlew, Lapwing, Common Snipe, Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> are all birds of the high moorland in the spring, and the coastal strip for most of the rest of the year.\u00a0 These annual visitors were alongside <em><strong>Ruff<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Black-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em>, which don&#8217;t breed in Northumberland (but probably could!) and the ever expanding (northwards, not outwards) <em><strong>Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em>. <em><strong>Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> seemed to be everywhere that we looked, and <em><strong>Goosanders<\/strong><\/em> were lazing on a midstream rock as <em><strong>Salmon<\/strong><\/em> gorged themselves on the plethora of flies forming a thick film on the river&#8217;s surface.\u00a0 Skeins of <em><strong>Canada<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> were heading to roost as dusk approached and we searched without success for an <em><strong>Otter<\/strong><\/em>, but a nocturnal bird, putting in an appearance in bright early evening sunlight, was the equal of any television documentary.\u00a0 Sue spotted it first, as it hovered noiselessly over a small reedbed listening for the tell-tale rustle of a small mammal.\u00a0 It pounced, then rose carrying a mouse and flew back to its hungry brood.\u00a0 This has been a good year for our <em><strong>Barn Owls<\/strong><\/em>, with many pairs having second broods.\u00a0 Soon it was out again, quartering, hovering and plunging before lifting again with prey.\u00a0 Eventually we watched as it perched on a fence post.\u00a0 Beautiful and deadly in one pale ghostly form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll never tire of watching wildlife.\u00a0 Whether it&#8217;s the birds around the feeding station in our garden, whales and dolphins far from land, grouse on the high moors or hoverflies around wildflowers, I&#8217;m fascinated by it all.\u00a0 There are some species though that are so ethereal and attention-grabbing that I&#8217;ve often seen clients literally transfixed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,5,141],"tags":[97,242,373,172,288,175,378,283,123,243,210,224,241],"class_list":["post-2633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-golden-plover","tag-goosander","tag-grey-heron","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-oystercatcher","tag-ringed-plover","tag-ruff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633","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=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}