I love the Northumberland coast, and my obsession with the North Sea and it’s wildlife is well documented, but I always look forward to the drive west – away from the sea and into forests and remote moorland…<\/p>\n
I collected Jeanette and Simon for their second trip with NEWT, following the Otter mini-Safari on Sunday, and we headed across through Alnwick, Rothbury, Thropton, Elsdon and Otterburn.\u00a0 As we approached the dam at the southern end of Kielder Water I could see a bird ahead of us flying towards the reservoir.\u00a0 It was flying directly away from us but it’s a fairly distinctive bird from any angle…and the Osprey<\/strong><\/em> hovered over the water, plunged, surfaced with a large fish and flew along the dam wall, pursued by an angry mob of Common Gulls<\/strong><\/em> as 6 Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> grazed just outside the cover of woodland beside the North Tyne \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 With occasional breaks in the cloud, and brief interludes of warm sunshine, it seemed a good time to find a suitable spot to sit and look over the forest…which worked just as planned with Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> and Goshawk<\/strong><\/em> all making it on to the day list as a flock of Redwing called overhead \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n The drive from forest to moorland produced excellent views of a Dipper<\/strong><\/em> as it submerged in a fast-flowing stream, and then the moors produced another excellent crop of birds.\u00a0 Ravens,<\/strong><\/em> big impressive and noisy flew overhead, pairs of Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> seemed to be everywhere we looked, Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> played hide-and-seek with us as they emerged from cover only to vanish again within a few seconds and three more raptors made it seven species for the day.\u00a0 Kestrel<\/strong><\/em> is still a regular bird on many of our tours but the other two were real scarcities; a pair of Merlin<\/strong><\/em> were calling noisily just behind us as a male Hen Harrier<\/strong><\/em> ghosted across the moor below us.\u00a0 Then he started skydancing \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 That would be a treat enough, but the bird that had prompted his display came into view…not the female harrier<\/strong><\/em> we’d expected, but a second male!\u00a0 The two tussled briefly in the air just above the heather before both drifting out of sight.\u00a0 Wild Goats<\/strong><\/em> were remarkably confiding close to the road as we headed back towards lower ground and trees.<\/p>\n Back down in the forest and a female Common Crossbill<\/strong><\/em> was a nice find as the high-pitched songs of Goldcrest<\/strong><\/em> and Treecreeper<\/strong><\/em> pierced the air, Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> displayed out on the water as a drake Mandarin<\/strong><\/em> sat quietly behind the bankside vegetation and Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> bobbed along the muddy edge.\u00a0 Another wildlife-filled day out with clients who were great company \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I love the Northumberland coast, and my obsession with the North Sea and it’s wildlife is well documented, but I always look forward to the drive west – away from the sea and into forests and remote moorland… I collected Jeanette and Simon for their second trip with NEWT, following the Otter mini-Safari on Sunday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[148,165,277,257,135,168,164,256,839,128,203,207,56,457,208,22,66,131,338,495],"class_list":["post-3267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kielder","category-otter","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-crossbill","tag-common-gull","tag-dipper","tag-goldcrest","tag-goldeneye","tag-goshawk","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-hen-harrier","tag-kestrel","tag-mandarin","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-merlin","tag-raven","tag-red-grouse","tag-redwing","tag-roe-deer","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-treecreeper","tag-wild-goat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267","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=3267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3269,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267\/revisions\/3269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}