{"id":2859,"date":"2015-04-21T16:23:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T15:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2015-04-21T16:23:27","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T15:23:27","slug":"weasily-identifiable-lindisfarne-safari-20042015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/lindisfarne\/weasily-identifiable-lindisfarne-safari-20042015","title":{"rendered":"Weasily identifiable; Lindisfarne Safari 20\/04\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

April is when we start to spend more time visiting our inland areas, but the coast can still deliver real quality, and quantity, at this time of the year too.<\/p>\n

I collected Sue and Colin from Beadnell and we headed north to Holy Island<\/a>.\u00a0 Crossing the causeway we paused to watch Eider<\/strong><\/em> and Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> in the channel under the road.\u00a0 The mudflats produced Redshank, Oystercatcher, Curlew, Grey Plover<\/strong><\/em> and Bar-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em>, as well as a lot, and it really was a lot, of Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Close to 2000 were hauled out and soon began their eerie moaning.\u00a0 Black-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em> and Teal<\/strong><\/em> were sleeping by the edge of the Rocket Pool, a lone Brent Goose<\/strong><\/em> was kept company by a herd of sheep, Meadow Pipits, Goldfinches<\/strong><\/em> and Skylarks<\/strong><\/em> were hurrying back and forth, a Redwing<\/strong><\/em> was foraging on the ground close to the field edge, a Sedge Warbler<\/strong><\/em> was singing it’s repetitive song from the reeds by the Lough as a Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> put in a typically brief appearance and 12 Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> were grazing near the Straight Lonnen.\u00a0 Then we struck gold…walking slowly along the Hawthorns, a bird flushed from beside us.\u00a0 The views were only brief but the white breast band, and silvery wing flashes, identified the bird as a male Ring Ouzel<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We continued walking slowly along the lonnen, and the bird kept a few metres ahead of us.\u00a0 Then we lost track of it but stopped to watch two Blackbirds<\/strong><\/em> grubbing about in the undergrowth…and the ouzel<\/strong><\/em> called from a tree we’d already passed.\u00a0 We turned as it flew out of hiding…followed by another, then another, and another and finally, a fifth male Ring Ouzel<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Over on the mainland we had our picnic lunch as the eerie calls of Curlew<\/strong><\/em> floated through the heat haze across the mudflats and Sue spotted a Weasel<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 It was running in and out of the vegetation so I started pishing…and it popped up and began running in our direction, sitting up on its hindlegs and staring straight at us \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Eventually it got back on with whatever it was doing, and it put in repeat appearances for a few minutes.\u00a0 A Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em> gave tantalising close views before vanishing into the crops and we finished in the shadow of Bamburgh Castle with Sand Martins<\/strong><\/em> hawking insects over the beach, Eiders<\/strong><\/em> bobbing in the gentle swell, a pair of Common Scoter<\/strong><\/em> slightly further from the shore, more Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em>, plunge-diving Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> and lines of Gannets<\/strong><\/em> heading, mainly, north.\u00a0 Not a bad range of wildlife for seven hours in mid-April \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April is when we start to spend more time visiting our inland areas, but the coast can still deliver real quality, and quantity, at this time of the year too. I collected Sue and Colin from Beadnell and we headed north to Holy Island.\u00a0 Crossing the causeway we paused to watch Eider and Red-breasted Merganser […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[147,242,133,695,57,268,67,373,172,149,185,103,400,835,207,210,188,358,22,263,66,218,223,191,169,308,213],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lindisfarne","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-blackbird","tag-brent-goose","tag-brown-hare","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-scoter","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-goldfinch","tag-grey-plover","tag-grey-seal","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-oystercatcher","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redshank","tag-redwing","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-roe-deer","tag-sand-martin","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-skylark","tag-teal","tag-weasel","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","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=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2863,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/2863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}