{"id":3131,"date":"2015-10-21T12:27:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T11:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3131"},"modified":"2015-10-21T12:27:34","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T11:27:34","slug":"swanning-around-otter-mini-safari-20102015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/swanning-around-otter-mini-safari-20102015","title":{"rendered":"Swanning around; Otter mini-Safari 20\/10\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve spent a lot of time watching Otters<\/strong><\/em>, and probably just as much time watching the behaviour of other wildlife whenever our favourite sinuous stealthy predator is on the prowl.\u00a0 You could be forgiven for thinking that we’d know exactly how birds would behave…<\/p>\n

I collected Rebecca and Russell from Church Point and we set off for a few hours exploring Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland on an Otter mini-Safari<\/a>.\u00a0 The chilly afternoon air was bathed in beautiful light, as Wigeon, Mallard, Gadwall, Teal<\/strong><\/em> and Shoveler<\/strong><\/em> dabbled and Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> dived.\u00a0 Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> skittishly took flight, Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> and Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> stood motionless, Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> squabbled and probed, a small murmuration of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> soon dropped into the warmth and security of the reeds and a Water Rail<\/strong><\/em> came out into the open to bathe.\u00a0 As the light faded I was scanning the shadows at the base of a reedbed and passed by a family of Mute Swans.\u00a0 There was sudden swirl of brown next to them, and my first thought was Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> – after all the swans<\/strong><\/em> didn’t seem concerned, but there was a niggling doubt in my mind…and then the Otter<\/strong><\/em> resurfaced \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 For nearly 30 minutes it fed, often in amongst the swans<\/strong><\/em>, and rarely more than a few metres away from them.\u00a0 I’ve seen swans<\/strong><\/em> hissing and growling at Otters<\/strong><\/em>, I’ve seen them angrily charge towards a feeding Otter<\/strong><\/em> when they’d got small cygnets, but this was the first time I’d seen them almost completely ignore one that was so close that it was swimming, and feeding, between them!\u00a0 The Otter<\/strong><\/em> vanished into the reeds, and we headed back to the car with pipistrelle bats<\/strong><\/em> hawking around the trees in the half-light of dusk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve spent a lot of time watching Otters, and probably just as much time watching the behaviour of other wildlife whenever our favourite sinuous stealthy predator is on the prowl.\u00a0 You could be forgiven for thinking that we’d know exactly how birds would behave… I collected Rebecca and Russell from Church Point and we set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[373,372,170,283,123,243,171,178,837,292,269,169,237,181],"class_list":["post-3131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-gadwall","tag-grey-heron","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-pipistrelle","tag-shoveler","tag-teal","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131","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=3131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3133,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}