{"id":2659,"date":"2014-10-15T17:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T16:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2014-10-15T17:17:40","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T16:17:40","slug":"the-chase-kielder-safari-14102014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/the-chase-kielder-safari-14102014","title":{"rendered":"The Chase; Kielder Safari 14\/10\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve always tended to stick to the coast during the autumn and winter, but our Dark Skies<\/a> experiences are attracting a lot of interest, particularly with clients who’d like to combine a wildlife tour with stargazing.\u00a0 Of course, the stargazing is rather weather dependent…<\/p>\n

I collected Lorraine, Steve, Debbie and Gary from their holiday cottage in Longframlington and we headed west, along the Coquet Valley, nestled between the Cheviot Hills and Simonside and across into Kielder<\/a>.\u00a0 The border forests aren’t blessed with quantity of wildife at this time of the year, but there’s no doubting the quality \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Red Squirrels<\/strong><\/em> were the main target species for the trip, which Lorraine had booked as a wedding anniversary surprise for Debbie and Gary, and they didn’t disappoint, with two animals engaged in a furious chase around the trees as they struggled for dominance over a feeder.\u00a0 One quickly prevailed and began hoarding nuts, coming so close that you could almost reach out and touch it.\u00a0 Ravens<\/strong><\/em> were soaring over the road, and the one bird that was present in good numbers, as expected, was Chaffinch<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We crossed over the border into Scotland, enjoying close views of Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> as they held position in the breeze above a ridge, a Kestrel<\/strong><\/em> perched on a telegraph pole and Stonechats<\/strong><\/em> in roadside vegetation.\u00a0 A covey of Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> burst from the heather, then another, and then the source of their distress drifted by – a ringtail Hen Harrier<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The harrier<\/strong><\/em> quartered back and forth over the moor for a few minutes before dropping out of sight and we made our way onward over the desolate moorland road.<\/p>\n

As daylight faded and roosting Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> squabbled noisily, a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> was grazing quietly by the water’s edge.\u00a0 It came right down to the water to drink and then we could hear the splashing of ducks<\/strong><\/em> frantically trying to take off from the reeds.\u00a0 Had the deer<\/strong><\/em> disturbed them? No, by the edge of the reeds an Otter<\/strong><\/em> made its way menacingly along from where the ducks had flushed…and then got out of the water, spooking the deer<\/strong><\/em> and chasing it a few metres up the bank \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 It would have had to be an optimistic Otter<\/strong><\/em> to try and predate a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em>, so they may well have just startled each other.<\/p>\n

We made our way back across Northumberland, hoping for a break in the weather and a starry sky but it wasn’t to be and the first drops of rain peppered the windscreen as we reached Longframlington.\u00a0 Then I just had a short journey home to a delicious birthday dinner \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve always tended to stick to the coast during the autumn and winter, but our Dark Skies experiences are attracting a lot of interest, particularly with clients who’d like to combine a wildlife tour with stargazing.\u00a0 Of course, the stargazing is rather weather dependent… I collected Lorraine, Steve, Debbie and Gary from their holiday cottage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,5],"tags":[102,148,372,839,128,171,837,457,208,833,66,215,182],"class_list":["post-2659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-kielder","category-northumberland","tag-chaffinch","tag-common-buzzard","tag-cormorant","tag-hen-harrier","tag-kestrel","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-raven","tag-red-grouse","tag-red-squirrel","tag-roe-deer","tag-stonechat","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","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=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2661,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}