{"id":3167,"date":"2015-11-27T17:43:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T16:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3167"},"modified":"2015-11-27T17:45:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T16:45:08","slug":"targets-prestige-otter-safari-26112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/targets-prestige-otter-safari-26112015","title":{"rendered":"Targets; Prestige Otter safari 26\/11\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday was a trip I’d been looking forward to for a long time; Stephen and Helen had been out with us on a Kielder safari back in 2009<\/a>, and our targets for the latest trip were Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> and Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 A slight change of plan saw Stephen taking the trip with Ruth, rather than with her daughter, and we headed coastwards from Shilbottle.\u00a0 With two very active Otter<\/strong><\/em> sites just a day earlier, I decided that we’d switch Wednesday afternoon’s site to the morning, as that would leave us with a very reliable back-up site if needed…<\/p>\n

Goosander<\/strong><\/em> and Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> were feeding incessantly, and a Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> was drying it’s wings in that fantastic heraldic pose.\u00a0 I continued scanning and when Stephen said “Martin, on that triangular rock over there, there’s something Otter<\/strong><\/em> shaped…” I turned around to see that the Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> had gone…and had been replaced by three Otters<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 These were the two cubs from Wednesday afternoon again, and their mum!\u00a0 As Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> disputed prime feeding spots, Curlew<\/strong><\/em> and Redshank<\/strong><\/em> kept a wary eye on the Otters<\/strong><\/em> but continued probing the gooey mud just a few metres away from them.\u00a0 You almost couldn’t make it up, but our other target for the day turned up and perched on a stick just in front of us while we were watching the Otters<\/strong><\/em>!\u00a0 With a flash of electric blue the Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> was soon on it’s way again, as a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> cruised along the tree tops nearby.<\/p>\n

The afternoon brought thousands of yapping Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em>, as flocks of Starling<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> took to the air, then as dusk approached, a Dipper<\/strong><\/em> raced along a river below our feet and a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> ghosted by; a quality end to a quality day \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday was a trip I’d been looking forward to for a long time; Stephen and Helen had been out with us on a Kielder safari back in 2009, and our targets for the latest trip were Kingfisher and Otter.\u00a0 A slight change of plan saw Stephen taking the trip with Ruth, rather than with her […]<\/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":[97,172,257,378,120,123,243,837,129,188,358,161],"class_list":["post-3167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-barn-owl","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-goosander","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-otter","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redshank","tag-starling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167","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=3167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3175,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions\/3175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}