{"id":3207,"date":"2015-12-30T13:22:25","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T12:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3207"},"modified":"2015-12-30T13:22:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T12:22:25","slug":"feeding-time-otter-safari-29122015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/feeding-time-otter-safari-29122015","title":{"rendered":"Feeding time; Otter Safari 29\/12\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday saw returning clients, as Jayne and Andy joined us for an Otter Safari<\/a>.\u00a0 Their previous day with NEWT, back in September 2010, proved memorable as we found a White-winged Black Tern at Cresswell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under blue skies and sunshine, in stark contrast to recent days, we headed for Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 Arriving at our first site, it was immediately apparent that Little Grebe, Mallard, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> and Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> were all avoiding one area of the pond.\u00a0 As a noisy flock of Fieldfare<\/strong><\/em> moved through the trees above the reedbed on the opposite side of the water the birds began dispersing over the wider area of water and there was no further sign of possible Otter activity so we headed onwards.\u00a0 Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> were darting at small fish in the shallows, Curlew, Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> and Redshank<\/strong><\/em> were probing the mud as Goosander<\/strong><\/em> and Eider<\/strong><\/em> dived in search of prey.\u00a0 I focused my attention on a gap between two small groups of Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em>…and there was the tell tale dark shape, twisting and diving \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 A second Otter<\/strong><\/em> surfaced right alongside the first and as they came closer I could see that they were the two cubs that we’ve been watching for the last few weeks.\u00a0 We watched them as they came closer and closer, feeding constantly for over 90 minutes, regularly surfacing and diving synchronously.<\/p>\n

After lunch overlooking the North Sea, we headed to Cresswell where an impressive wader roost included Redshank, Oystercatcher, Turnstone, Dunlin, Knot, Curlew, Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> and the Long-billed Dowitcher<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Skein after skein of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> patterned the sky, Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> were displaying and drake Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> stood out from the gloom as the sky clouded over, a strengthening breeze began to exert a chilling grip and we headed back to Alnmouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday saw returning clients, as Jayne and Andy joined us for an Otter Safari.\u00a0 Their previous day with NEWT, back in September 2010, proved memorable as we found a White-winged Black Tern at Cresswell. Under blue skies and sunshine, in stark contrast to recent days, we headed for Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 Arriving at […]<\/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":[556,172,288,170,168,378,334,123,243,360,755,171,837,210,129,188,241,182,359,181],"class_list":["post-3207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-common-redshank","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-goldeneye","tag-goosander","tag-knot","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-long-billed-dowitcher","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-ruff","tag-tufted-duck","tag-turnstone","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207","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=3207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3207\/revisions\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}