{"id":3271,"date":"2016-04-09T11:24:39","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T10:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3271"},"modified":"2016-04-09T11:24:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T10:24:39","slug":"patience-otter-safari-070416","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/patience-otter-safari-070416","title":{"rendered":"Patience; Otter Safari 07\/04\/16"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Gwyn for a day searching for Otters<\/strong><\/em> around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland and we headed towards the coast…<\/p>\n

Our first site didn’t produce any Otter<\/strong><\/em> sightings, and there was nothing happening amongst the assembled Curlew, Redshank, Cormorant, Little Egret, Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> and Mallard<\/strong><\/em> to suggest that they were worried about any unseen predator lurking nearby.\u00a0 That took us up to lunchtime, and overlooking the North Sea we watched Swallows<\/strong><\/em> and Sand Martins<\/strong><\/em> battling into the wind.\u00a0 After lunch our next site was a hive of activity with Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Mallard, Gadwall, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose<\/strong><\/em> and Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Then there was suddenly an obvious gap in amongst the waterfowl, which became a much bigger gap as Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> scattered in an impressive radial pattern that had an Otter<\/strong><\/em> cub at its centre \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We tracked its progress for a few minutes until we couldn’t see it any more – although the flock of Black-headed<\/strong><\/em> and Common Gulls<\/strong><\/em> circling above it still could \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I was confident it would reappear so we sat and waited.\u00a0 Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> flew by and the arrival of a heavy rain shower brought a dense flock of Sand Martins<\/strong><\/em> and Swallows<\/strong><\/em> plundering the clouds of midges that had been present throughout the afternoon.\u00a0 Then the gulls<\/strong><\/em> were suddenly up in the air again, along with a couple of very vocal Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em>…directly above two Otter<\/strong><\/em> cubs \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 They fished alongside one another, and the highlight of the afternoon was when one came into shallow water and consumed an Eel<\/strong><\/em> that it seemed to be having a bit of a struggle with.\u00a0 With Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> and Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> (now both a regular feature of the Northumberland coast) during the day too, it was a procession of spectacular wildlife in ever-changing, and occasionally dramatic, light – ideal for Gwyn’s camera.<\/p>\n

Otters, raptors<\/strong><\/em> and a client with a passion for wildlife and photography (and a fellow Nikon user too!) – a great start to April!\u00a0 We’ve got Otter Safaris <\/a>regularly throughout the year so give us a call on 01670 827465 to book your place now.\u00a0 We can tailor our tours to suit anyone from families with young children all the way to experienced wildlife watchers and serious nature photographers \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Gwyn for a day searching for Otters around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland and we headed towards the coast… Our first site didn’t produce any Otter sightings, and there was nothing happening amongst the assembled Curlew, Redshank, Cormorant, Little Egret, Oystercatcher and Mallard to suggest that they were worried about any unseen predator […]<\/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":[271,560,148,277,372,172,345,170,168,488,283,190,243,171,397,837,188,218,223,217,169,182,181],"class_list":["post-3271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-buzzard","tag-common-gull","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-eel","tag-gadwall","tag-goldeneye","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-goose","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-otter","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-sand-martin","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-swallow","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271","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=3271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3273,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions\/3273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}