{"id":2841,"date":"2015-04-14T12:10:57","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T11:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2015-04-14T12:10:57","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T11:10:57","slug":"tired-and-emotional-bespoke-otter-safari-10-11042015-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/tired-and-emotional-bespoke-otter-safari-10-11042015-part-2","title":{"rendered":"Tired and emotional; Bespoke Otter Safari 10-11\/04\/2015 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

…I was mulling over the options for last light when the buzzing from my pocket told me I’d received a text message.\u00a0 Not from Sarah, but from Stephen “Hi Martin.\u00a0 If you’re stuck for Otters<\/strong><\/em>…”<\/p>\n

A quick dash along the track back to the car, a quick car journey down the coast, and we were soon staring intently at a duck<\/strong><\/em>-covered pond.\u00a0 A little bit of panic amongst the ducks<\/strong><\/em>, but no sign of an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We always want our clients to see the wildlife that they desire, but in this case Georgia was so excited at the prospect of seeing an Otter, <\/strong><\/em>and we’d put in so much effort in pretty unpleasant weather conditions, that I was willing one to appear…even though I know that’s not how wildlife sightings tend to work.\u00a0 With falling light levels I tend to put my binoculars down and just scan with my eyes, so that’s what I did, not just because that’s my usual approach but also because I was chilled to the bone from earlier in the afternoon, shivering and barely able to hold my binoculars steady…and a brief dark shape rolling at the surface in the middle distance was just what I was looking for.\u00a0 Switch to binoculars while giving directions to everyone else in the hide…and the Otter<\/strong><\/em> popped up into view \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 A second animal appeared briefly a couple of times but this one was obligingly hunting back and forth along the edge of a reedbed.\u00a0 I don’t think I’ve ever seen a client so overwhelmed by wildlife, so much so that I could have cried.\u00a0 The Otter<\/strong><\/em> created a problem all of it’s own…there was no way we were going to get Georgia to leave the hide while it was still showing, and last food orders at The Swan were rapidly approaching.\u00a0 The girls knew what they were planning to eat though so a quick ‘phone call to Sarah, who was on her way to the pub, sorted the issue of getting their order in on time.\u00a0 Eventually it was so dark that Otter<\/strong><\/em>, reedbed and water’s edge merged into one and we headed back to The Swan.<\/p>\n

I’d arranged to take the girls back to Newcastle to catch their train on Sunday morning, but a text from Alan changed our timings slightly and soon I was standing on the dunes at Cambois with Fran, Georgia and Sarah…watching a small group of Bottlenose Dolphins<\/strong><\/em> through the mist, rain and, yes, once again, bone-chilling wind \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…I was mulling over the options for last light when the buzzing from my pocket told me I’d received a text message.\u00a0 Not from Sarah, but from Stephen “Hi Martin.\u00a0 If you’re stuck for Otters…” A quick dash along the track back to the car, a quick car journey down the coast, and we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,21,139],"tags":[330,837],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-bottlenose-dolphin","tag-otter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","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=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2849,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/2849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}