{"id":2677,"date":"2014-10-28T10:17:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T09:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2014-10-28T10:17:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T09:17:56","slug":"under-a-darkening-sky-northumberland-coast-27102014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/under-a-darkening-sky-northumberland-coast-27102014","title":{"rendered":"Under a darkening sky; Northumberland Coast 27\/10\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a safari day on the Northumberland coast, with a plan to enjoy the birdwatching around our regular Otter<\/strong><\/em><\/a> sites and then a stargazing<\/a> session in Druridge Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I collected John and Pam from home in Cullercoats and we drove up the coast.\u00a0 As we ate our picnic lunch in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle, we could see Gannets<\/strong><\/em> diving offshore, beyond the rafts of Common Eider<\/strong><\/em> that were surfing the gentle swell.\u00a0 Kestrels<\/strong><\/em> were seen throughout the afternoon and a real ‘from the car’ bonus came in the shape of three Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As so often happens as we approach the winter, wildfowl<\/strong><\/em> dominated the birdwatching.\u00a0 As well as the Eiders<\/strong><\/em>, with males resplendent in their breeding finery, Teal, Mallard<\/strong><\/em> and Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> looked at their best.\u00a0 As a Grey Wagtail<\/strong><\/em> perched on a mid-stream rock, and fish<\/strong><\/em> swirled and leapt from the water, a male Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> perched on a branch overhanging the river, flocks of geese<\/strong><\/em> peppered the sky wherever we were, and a flock of Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> began to flush as the search and rescue helicopter passed noisily overhead.\u00a0 Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em> looked as stunning as ever, flocks of Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> and Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> swirled in the stiff breeze\u00a0 and, as dusk approached, Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> began arriving to roost.\u00a0 Flock after flock of Pink-feet<\/strong><\/em> appeared out of the gloom, announcing their imminent arrival with their yapping calls, eventually in near darkness when they were just a black speckling against the dark grey brooding clouds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a safari day on the Northumberland coast, with a plan to enjoy the birdwatching around our regular Otter sites and then a stargazing session in Druridge Bay. I collected John and Pam from home in Cullercoats and we drove up the coast.\u00a0 As we ate our picnic lunch in the shadow of Bamburgh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,659,9,5,141],"tags":[221,185,175,168,256,190,120,123,171,129,169,130],"class_list":["post-2677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-dark-skies","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-northumberland-coast","tag-common-eider","tag-gannet","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-mallard","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-teal","tag-whooper-swan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677","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=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2679,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions\/2679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}