{"id":2731,"date":"2015-02-02T09:21:51","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T08:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2015-02-02T09:21:51","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T08:21:51","slug":"in-the-teeth-of-a-wintry-gale-otter-mini-safari-01022015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/in-the-teeth-of-a-wintry-gale-otter-mini-safari-01022015","title":{"rendered":"In the teeth of a wintry gale; Otter mini-Safari 01\/02\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wake up and look at the alarm clock.\u00a0 It’s only 04:00, and the howling wind is tearing along the length of our road and beyond.\u00a0 I’m collecting James in 5 hours, for an Otter mini-Safari<\/a> on his birthday, so I drift back to sleep, hoping that it won’t be quite so breezy by the time we’re out in the open and tracking down the sinuous, elusive predator.<\/p>\n

I pull into the car park at The Swan<\/a> at 09:00, and the wind has died down a bit \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 As we head towards our first location for the morning James describes his obsession with Otters<\/strong><\/em>, and we discuss where to look and how to study each type of habitat that they occupy.\u00a0 Approaching the water’s edge, there’s a stunning drake Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> and a Cormorant<\/strong><\/em>…and less than 5 seconds later our first Otter<\/strong><\/em> of the morning \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Diving and rolling, it soon vanishes – only to reappear a few metres away as it gets out of the water carrying a substantial meal and then creeps out of sight.\u00a0 We can see another Otter<\/strong><\/em> distantly, and a patient approach allowed us to get within a few metres of that one too, as Goosander<\/strong><\/em> and Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> were also reaping nature’s rich bounty nearby.<\/p>\n

The Otter we managed to get clsoe to by stalking is one that we’ve been watching since mid-December, and here’s a picture of him in January.<\/p>\n

\"Eurasian<\/a><\/p>\n

As the morning wore on the wind started to pick up again, with Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> tossed on the breeze like leaves and a Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> battling against the wind.\u00a0 A Cormorant caused a brief ‘is that another Otter<\/strong><\/em>?’ moment and 4 hours had quickly passed so I returned James to The Swan then went home and started wondering whether a bike ride in that wind would be a good idea…<\/p>\n

We’ve got Otter Safaris<\/a> regularly throughout the year, so give us a call on 01670 827465 or email enquiries@newtltd.co.uk to join us in searching for this stunning predator \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wake up and look at the alarm clock.\u00a0 It’s only 04:00, and the howling wind is tearing along the length of our road and beyond.\u00a0 I’m collecting James in 5 hours, for an Otter mini-Safari on his birthday, so I drift back to sleep, hoping that it won’t be quite so breezy by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,21],"tags":[148,372,168,378,123,837,188],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-otter","tag-common-buzzard","tag-cormorant","tag-goldeneye","tag-goosander","tag-lapwing","tag-otter","tag-red-breasted-merganser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","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=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2735,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}