{"id":2689,"date":"2014-11-13T10:36:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T09:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2689"},"modified":"2014-11-13T11:00:04","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T10:00:04","slug":"from-the-sublime-to-the-gloomy-bespoke-birdwatching-04112014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/from-the-sublime-to-the-gloomy-bespoke-birdwatching-04112014","title":{"rendered":"From the sublime to the gloomy; Bespoke Birdwatching 04\/11\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first of two bespoke birdwatching days for Alan and Sandra began when I collected them from Weldon Bridge and we headed across to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/tours.php?id=2\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay<\/a> and the southeast Northumberland coast.<\/p>\n<p>A ghosty pale <em><strong>Mediterranean Gull<\/strong><\/em> was a good start to the morning,   <em><strong>Redshank,   Turnstone, Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Purple Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> were roosting just above the breaking surf and <em><strong>Eiders<\/strong><\/em> were rafting just offshore.\u00a0 <em><strong>Atlantic Salmon<\/strong><\/em> heading upstream on the River Coquet provided lunchtime entertainment, then the afternoon brought beautifully sublime light conditions that illuminated <em><strong>Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> as they twisted and turned while <em><strong>Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> slept, fed and bickered with each other in the muddy margins, a <em><strong>Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> stalked patiently along the edges of the reeds and a <em><strong>Spotted Redshank<\/strong><\/em> stood out like a shining beacon as the sun sank below a thick bank of cloud on the western horizon and it turned cold and gloomy.\u00a0 <em><strong>Starlings<\/strong><\/em> came to roost, although with little appetite for a full-blown murmuration, and <em><strong>Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> arrived from surrounding fields, yapping noisily as they dropped from the air towards the water.\u00a0 When it was too dark to see anything and we headed back to the car, the yapping of the late arrivals still cut through the gloom overhead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first of two bespoke birdwatching days for Alan and Sandra began when I collected them from Weldon Bridge and we headed across to Druridge Bay and the southeast Northumberland coast. A ghosty pale Mediterranean Gull was a good start to the morning, Redshank, Turnstone, Oystercatcher and Purple Sandpiper were roosting just above the breaking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,139],"tags":[418,221,373,175,123,675,193,210,129,358,357,161,359],"class_list":["post-2689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-atlantic-salmon","tag-common-eider","tag-common-snipe","tag-golden-plover","tag-lapwing","tag-litte-egret","tag-mediterranean-gull","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-redshank","tag-spotted-redshank","tag-starling","tag-turnstone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689","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=2689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2699,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions\/2699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}