{"id":3087,"date":"2015-09-23T17:49:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T16:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2015-09-23T17:49:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T16:49:25","slug":"timing-northumberland-coast-17092015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/timing-northumberland-coast-17092015","title":{"rendered":"Timing; Northumberland Coast 17\/09\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seasonality in wildlife watching is an important consideration, but ‘micro-timing’ shouldn’t be overlooked.\u00a0 There’s a time of day when we rarely meet anyone else on our tours, and I don’t entirely understand why…<\/p>\n

Thursday was Day Five for Clare and Peter, and I collected them from The Swan<\/a> before heading north to start our day on the coast.\u00a0 The rising tide brought Turnstone, Redshank, Curlew, Purple Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> and Ringed Plover<\/strong><\/em> towards us as Common Eider<\/strong><\/em> drifted on the swell and innumerable Gannets<\/strong><\/em> circled above what must have been a huge shoal of fish.\u00a0 Bar-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em>, probing in the sand, were moved towards the pebbly shore by the inexorable tide until eventually they abandoned feeding and roosted on a rocky outcrop alongside Curlew<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 In the rising tidal reaches of a river, a Dipper<\/strong><\/em> entertained us by diving headlong into the water, a female Goosander<\/strong><\/em> sailed serenely into view before diving and re-emerging back under the riverside vegetation, Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> added a stunning splash of colour and a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> raced by.<\/p>\n

As dusk approached a Starling<\/strong><\/em> murmuration was passed by a Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> and a noisy roost of geese included Canada, Greylag, Pink-footed<\/strong><\/em> and – my favourite wildfowl escapees – Bar-headed Geese<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 A lone Ruff<\/strong><\/em> remained when the roosting Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> took flight, but was then joined by a Redshank<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Dusk is, by some considerable margin, my favourite time of the day – regardless of habitat type – and it was a great finish to a great week guiding Clare and Peter around Northumberland’s well known, and some less well known, birdwatching hotspots \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We hope they’ll be back soon to explore more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seasonality in wildlife watching is an important consideration, but ‘micro-timing’ shouldn’t be overlooked.\u00a0 There’s a time of day when we rarely meet anyone else on our tours, and I don’t entirely understand why… Thursday was Day Five for Clare and Peter, and I collected them from The Swan before heading north to start our day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,9,141],"tags":[502,147,560,172,257,149,185,256,190,120,397,210,129,176,358,161,359],"class_list":["post-3087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bamburgh-castle","category-druridge","category-northumberland-coast","tag-bar-headed-goose","tag-bar-tailed-godwit","tag-canada-goose","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kingfisher","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-purple-sandpiper","tag-redshank","tag-starling","tag-turnstone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087","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=3087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3089,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions\/3089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}