The great thing or the worst thing (depending on your point of view…) with watching wildlife is the sheer unpredictability of it.\u00a0 There’s always something to watch though, and if you watch for long enough it just gets even less predictable…<\/p>\n
I collected Neil and Julia from Newbiggin and we headed towards Druridge Bay<\/a> for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters<\/a>.\u00a0 Anybody who reads our blog regularly will know that Northumberland is a great place to look for Otters<\/strong><\/em>, but it usually involves some effort and patience.\u00a0 45mins into the afternoon and Black-headed<\/strong><\/em> and Common Gulls<\/strong><\/em> rose in a ‘dread’ then started circling.\u00a0 The only logical place to look was directly under them…and there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched it for nearly an hour, until it eventually caught a huge Eel<\/strong><\/em> and vanished into the reeds.\u00a0 During that hour there was a mass exodus of Wigeon, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> from one reedbed…and a Fox<\/strong><\/em> peered out from the reeds before coming out into the open.<\/p>\n The rest of the afternoon was a study of fascinating wildlife; Dippers<\/strong><\/em> were fighting with the victor eventually bursting into song, although not before it had been seen off itself by a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em>, Hawthorns<\/strong><\/em> were dripping with Goldcrest<\/strong><\/em>, a Hebe<\/strong><\/em> bush was a mass of Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell<\/strong><\/em> and Red Admiral Butterflies<\/strong><\/em> and Buff-tailed Bumblebees<\/strong><\/em>, a second Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> flew by before perching obligingly on a fence post, Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> were stalking patiently in shallow water, a Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> perched high in a tree, a Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> fixed us with a withering stare and the afternooon headed towards sunset.\u00a0 In beautiful orange light from the setting sun, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Turnstone, Redshank<\/strong><\/em> and Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> roosted as Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> busied themselves along the water’s edge, Snipe<\/strong><\/em> probed in the mud next to a reedbed and a Water Rail<\/strong><\/em> emerged from the gloom of the reeds into the gloom of dusk before slipping back out of sight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The great thing or the worst thing (depending on your point of view…) with watching wildlife is the sheer unpredictability of it.\u00a0 There’s always something to watch though, and if you watch for long enough it just gets even less predictable… I collected Neil and Julia from Newbiggin and we headed towards Druridge Bay for […]<\/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":[271,242,741,277,556,373,172,257,288,345,170,135,175,283,120,123,243,360,171,837,210,739,336,847,269,464,169,359,237,181],"class_list":["post-3121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-buff-tailed-bumblebee","tag-common-gull","tag-common-redshank","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-dunlin","tag-eel","tag-gadwall","tag-goldcrest","tag-golden-plover","tag-grey-heron","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-peacock-butterfly","tag-red-admiral","tag-red-fox","tag-shoveler","tag-small-tortoiseshell","tag-teal","tag-turnstone","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121","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=3121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3123,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions\/3123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}