{"id":2871,"date":"2015-04-29T12:47:01","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T11:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2871"},"modified":"2015-04-29T12:47:01","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T11:47:01","slug":"raptor-day-kielder-safari-23042015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/kielder\/raptor-day-kielder-safari-23042015","title":{"rendered":"Raptor Day; Kielder Safari 23\/04\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of very impressive wildlife in and around Kielder<\/a>, particularly if you extend your visit across the border into Scotland, and we always hope for bright clear weather with a bit of warmth and a breeze…<\/p>\n

I collected Brian from Bellingham and we headed up the valley in just the sort of weather conditions that I was hoping for \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Our day followed the typical pattern of one of our Kielder Safaris; some time in Kielder, some time over the border into the hills and moors of southwest Scotland, some more time back in Kielder.\u00a0 With the descending silvery cadence of Willow Warbler<\/strong><\/em> dripping from what seemed like every tree, the swee-wee-wee-wee-wee of Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> around the water’s edge and Siskin, Chaffinch<\/strong><\/em> and Goldcrest <\/strong><\/em>all singing enthusiastically, the aural backdrop to the day was a canvas on which the raptors<\/strong><\/em> danced.\u00a0 Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> soared and mewed as Wild Goats<\/strong><\/em> trotted along a narrow valley with Hen Harriers<\/strong><\/em>, ringtail females and ghostly pale males, patrolling the fells above, Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> soared just over a small plantation and then, the big three;\u00a0 Osprey<\/strong><\/em>, the stunning ‘fish eagle’ hovering over the water before plunging, unsuccessfully, in search of fish, Goshawk<\/strong><\/em>, the ‘phantom of the forest’ rising from a nesting plantation that we’ve been watching for a few years now before soaring up on a thermal to take station high over his mate and their nest and, the most surprising find of the day, dwarfing the Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> it was sharing a thermal with, a Golden Eagle<\/strong><\/em> casting it’s majestic shadow over the hills.\u00a0 One day it may be a common sight, but it still won’t lose the magic of a chance encounter \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot of very impressive wildlife in and around Kielder, particularly if you extend your visit across the border into Scotland, and we always hope for bright clear weather with a bit of warmth and a breeze… I collected Brian from Bellingham and we headed up the valley in just the sort of weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[102,148,214,135,721,164,839,202,89,131,495,213],"class_list":["post-2871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kielder","tag-chaffinch","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-goldcrest","tag-golden-eagle","tag-goshawk","tag-hen-harrier","tag-osprey","tag-siskin","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-wild-goat","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871","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=2871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}