Losing yourself in the landscape and the wildlife that inhabits it is sometimes just what you need…<\/p>\n
I collected Sue from her holiday cottage in Swarland and we headed north towards Holy Island<\/a>.\u00a0 The weather had been a mixed bag as I drove across; mist, fog, clear blue skies, sunshine, more mist, more fog.\u00a0 This was Sue’s third day out with NEWT, after a successful Otter Safari<\/a> nearly a year ago (and an unsuccessful one in July last year).\u00a0 Yet again the weather played a pivotal role in the day’s proceedings, with visibility down to less than 100m at times.\u00a0 Holy Island was awash with Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Goldfinches<\/strong><\/em> and Wrens<\/strong><\/em> – all quite approachable as they fed in the mist – and two Chiffchaffs<\/strong><\/em> led us a merry dance before finally settling for a few seconds and letting us identify them..\u00a0 Our lunch stop brought a very obliging Merlin<\/strong><\/em> within reach of our binoculars, and then right in front of our eyes and over our heads chasing a Meadow Pipit<\/strong><\/em>, as the disembodied voices of Curlew, Wigeon, Shelduck<\/strong><\/em> and Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/strong><\/em> cut through the mist.\u00a0 A Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> ghosted along the dunes and into the mist and, with visibility hampered to such an extent, I’d got a plan for the last few hours of the afternoon…and as seven Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> dashed and darted in the shallows, we watched a young female Otter<\/strong><\/em> with two cubs as they fed just a few metres away from us.\u00a0 I love watching wildlife, whatever the weather, but the best bit of the day for me was when I dropped Sue back at Swarland and she said “that was just the day I needed”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Losing yourself in the landscape and the wildlife that inhabits it is sometimes just what you need… I collected Sue from her holiday cottage in Swarland and we headed north towards Holy Island.\u00a0 The weather had been a mixed bag as I drove across; mist, fog, clear blue skies, sunshine, more mist, more fog.\u00a0 This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[133,102,268,172,103,243,207,56,837,108,189,456,181,421],"class_list":["post-3145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lindisfarne","tag-blackbird","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-curlew","tag-goldfinch","tag-little-egret","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-merlin","tag-otter","tag-pale-bellied-brent-goose","tag-shelduck","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-wigeon","tag-wren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145","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=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}