{"id":2905,"date":"2015-05-28T11:27:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T10:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2905"},"modified":"2015-05-28T11:27:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T10:27:27","slug":"dodging-the-showers-otter-mini-safari-27052015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/dodging-the-showers-otter-mini-safari-27052015","title":{"rendered":"Dodging the showers; Otter mini-Safari 27\/05\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

A weather forecast that ‘promises’ heavy rain for the entire duration of an evening with clients isn’t what we would hope for, but you can’t always trust the forecast…<\/p>\n

As I arrived at Church Point, followed soon after by Lesley and Andrew, the rain was falling steadily and the sky looked ever so slightly ominous.\u00a0 Gordon and Mandy arrived a few minutes later and we set 0ff on an evening exploration of Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland in search of Otters<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Our first site revealed a skittish Mallard<\/strong><\/em>, although we couldn’t see what was spooking it, Little Egret, Common Terns<\/strong><\/em> and very close views of a Mink<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 The weather had improved by this point, although there were still some ominous dark clouds away to the west as we headed north along Druridge Bay.\u00a0 A Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> broke off from hunting and perched obligingly on a fence post for several minutes, before launching a persistent attack on a male Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> that was quartering the reeds.\u00a0 Tufted Ducks<\/strong><\/em> were looking very alert, as were a pair of Great Crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em>, although we couldn’t be certain whether this was because of the harrier<\/strong><\/em> or another threat that we couldn’t see.\u00a0 A Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> pair with nine fluffy cygnets seeemd unconcerned and, as dusk approached, we positioned ourselves overlooking a spot where I was reasonably confident we’d find an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 With hardly a breath of wind, and an overcast sky, viewing conditions were near perfect; very still water and a pale surface against which anything moving, particularly anything dark, would stand out…<\/p>\n

After a few minutes Mandy spotted something swimming along and diving, just visible above the tops of the reeds in front of us, and we were soon all watching an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 After a few minutes of feeding it changed direction and headed quickly straight across the pool and out of sight into the reeds.\u00a0 Then the dark clouds arrived overhead, accompanied by a strong breeze and heavy rain…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weather forecast that ‘promises’ heavy rain for the entire duration of an evening with clients isn’t what we would hope for, but you can’t always trust the forecast… As I arrived at Church Point, followed soon after by Lesley and Andrew, the rain was falling steadily and the sky looked ever so slightly ominous.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21,139],"tags":[97,229,488,283,243,171,397,727,178,837,182],"class_list":["post-2905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-barn-owl","tag-common-tern","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mink","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905","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=2905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2907,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2905\/revisions\/2907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}