{"id":3091,"date":"2015-10-01T07:52:45","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T06:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3091"},"modified":"2015-10-01T07:52:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T06:52:45","slug":"every-cloud-otter-safari-30092015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/every-cloud-otter-safari-30092015","title":{"rendered":"Every cloud…; Otter Safari 30\/09\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

The unpredictability of wildlife is part of the attraction.\u00a0 You never know what you’ll see, whether the species you’re searching for will put in an appearance or something completely unexpected will show up.\u00a0 I’d collected Judith and Robin from their holiday cottage in Embleton and we were in and around Druridge Bay for the afternoon.\u00a0 It started well with a spectacular splash of colour as Judith spotted a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> while Common Redshank, Spotted Redshank<\/strong><\/em> and Curlew<\/strong><\/em> probed the gooey estuarine mud.\u00a0 Gadwall, Mallard, Little Grebe, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Snipe, Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> and Greenshank<\/strong><\/em> all looked stunning in quite beautiful light and we settled into position overlooking one of our regular Otter<\/strong><\/em> spots, unaware of just how extraordinary the evening was going to be…<\/p>\n

Mirror-calm water, roosting Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> and Teal<\/strong><\/em>, an ever growing murmuration of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> and noisy Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> arriving to roost would be the ideal backdrop for an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Suddenly, unexpectedly, the murmuration plunged towards the reeds and birds funneled out of the swirling twisting mass down into the safety of the roost.\u00a0 Starlings<\/strong><\/em> continued to arrive; ones, twos and groups of up to 50 had missed the display so just headed straight into the reeds.\u00a0 Then the sussurating buzz stilled, and the birds left the reedbed en masse, joined in the air by Lapwings<\/strong><\/em>, as a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> flew low over their heads.\u00a0 As they dropped back to the reeds, the far corner of the pool was shrouded in mist and the chilly tendrils of a sea fret were creeping over the dunes.\u00a0 Soon the mist had enveloped everything around us, although it was barely reaching above head height.\u00a0 The pinks and yellows of a 360 degree sunset added another touch of extraordinary to proceedings as the gloom was split by a noise not dissimilar to a car engine starting.\u00a0 That was the Starlings<\/strong><\/em> again, leaving the reeds and suddenly bursting up out of the mist in front of us, a twisting writhing mass of birds trying to escape yet another fly-through by a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Again they returned to the reeds, as a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> flew by above the mist, silhouetted against the sunset, and skein after skein of yapping Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> arrived for the night, dropping from the deep blue sky into the mist above the water.\u00a0 After two unwelcome visits from the Sparrowhawk, the Starlings moved under cover of the mist into the reeds right in front of us,\u00a0 For nearly five minutes, birds were streaming into their new roost site, as the whistles of Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> pierced the gloom and Teal<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> departed for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unpredictability of wildlife is part of the attraction.\u00a0 You never know what you’ll see, whether the species you’re searching for will put in an appearance or something completely unexpected will show up.\u00a0 I’d collected Judith and Robin from their holiday cottage in Embleton and we were in and around Druridge Bay for the afternoon.\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],"tags":[97,556,373,288,170,332,283,190,120,123,243,360,171,564,837,129,131,357,161,169,181],"class_list":["post-3091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-barn-owl","tag-common-redshank","tag-common-snipe","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-greenshank","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-murmuration","tag-otter","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-spotted-redshank","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091","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=3091"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3091\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}