The Northumberland coast in the late autumn is a birdwatching destination that I’ll never tire of.\u00a0 Even in weather that could best be described as inclement, there’s a wealth of wildlife to enjoy.<\/p>\n
I collected Mike and Janet from the Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel<\/a> and we headed north for a day birdwatching around Lindisfarne<\/a> and the North Northumberland coast.\u00a0 Starting with a walk around Holy Island village, a harsh chuckling call betrayed the presence of a Fieldfare<\/strong><\/em> in a small tree. Two others joined it, before they all departed noisily.\u00a0 Then more chuckling Fieldfare<\/strong><\/em>, and the high seee calls of Redwing<\/strong><\/em>, carried through the air from high overhead and we could make out, in the mist, a mixed flock of these thrushes<\/strong><\/em> arriving high from the north east and bypassing the island on their way across to the mainland.\u00a0 A Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> raced by, hedge-hopping and swerving out of sight behind The Heugh, as thousands of Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em> flew out onto the exposed mud of the wildfowl refuge area and Shag, Eider<\/strong><\/em> and Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> dived just offshore.\u00a0 A couple of very obliging Rock Pipits<\/strong><\/em> showed the subtle, dusky beauty that can only be appreciated with close views and Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Redshank, Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> and Grey Plover<\/strong><\/em> were reaping the rich bounty of the mud, as Dark-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em> settled in the newly exposed mud of the harbour, and the high whistling calls of drake Teal<\/strong><\/em> carried across to us from the Rocket Field, a Little Auk<\/strong><\/em> flew along the main street through the village.\u00a0 Crossing back to the mainland, a Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> was stalking through the shallows along the roadside and Curlew<\/strong><\/em> and Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> were so close we could have almost reached out of the car and touched them.\u00a0 As the falling tide exposed sandbars, Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> were moaning eerily and splashing about in shallow water.\u00a0 Suddenly, there were thousands of Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> and Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> in the air.\u00a0 They settled but then flushed again so I started a methodical check of every rock that I could see on the mud.\u00a0 Then I found what I was looking for – a rock that was just too vertical…and the view through our ‘scope revealed the impressive muscular menace of a female Peregrine<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 She shuffled around and took off, only to settle on another rock closer to us.\u00a0 Our attention was drawn to a charm of Goldfinches<\/strong><\/em> feeding nearby, and the Peregrine<\/strong><\/em> departed while we weren’t looking.<\/p>\n As the weather moved through in waves of varying grot, we watched a group of three Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> grazing in a roadside field, and then headed a bit further down the coast.\u00a0 Dusk was approaching rapidly as we watched more waders<\/strong><\/em> feeding busily as the tide rose, Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> flew over like giant bats and thousands of Black-headed<\/strong><\/em> and Common Gulls<\/strong><\/em> arrived to roost.\u00a0 Wave after wave of mist and drizzle, wave after wave of birds, wave after wave of\u00a0 waves \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Northumberland coast in the late autumn is a birdwatching destination that I’ll never tire of.\u00a0 Even in weather that could best be described as inclement, there’s a wealth of wildlife to enjoy. I collected Mike and Janet from the Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel and we headed north for a day birdwatching around Lindisfarne and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,119,105,141],"tags":[147,172,173,288,149,23,175,103,400,835,123,196,243,210,108,55,188,358,22,142,66,377,131,169,181],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-holy-island","category-north-sea","category-northumberland-coast","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-curlew","tag-dark-bellied-brent-goose","tag-dunlin","tag-eider","tag-fieldfare","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldfinch","tag-grey-plover","tag-grey-seal","tag-lapwing","tag-little-auk","tag-little-egret","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pale-bellied-brent-goose","tag-peregrine","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redshank","tag-redwing","tag-rock-pipit","tag-roe-deer","tag-shag","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709","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=2709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2709\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}