mid-April can be a strange time inland.\u00a0 Some summer visitors will have arrived, but you can never be quite sure which ones…<\/p>\n
I collected Richard and Florence from West Acre House<\/a> and we headed westwards towards the central massif of Northumberland.\u00a0 An unexpected, and very pleasant, surprise was bumping into Dean from Cheviot View<\/a> who was enjoying a walk in the glorious sunshine.\u00a0 Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose<\/strong><\/em> and Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> were all pottering around on old gravel pits as Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler<\/strong><\/em> and Blackcap<\/strong><\/em> all sang and fed, a Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em> loped through the trees and we headed deeper into the valleys as lunchtime approached, encountering Pheasant<\/strong><\/em> after Pheasant<\/strong><\/em>, and Red-legged Partridge<\/strong><\/em> after Red-legged Partridge<\/strong><\/em>, as well as Mistle Thrush<\/strong><\/em> and Song Thrush<\/strong><\/em> obligingly feeding next to each other and offering an opportunity for comparison as a Dipper<\/strong><\/em> bobbed up and down on a mid-stream rock before flying up to it’s concealed nest.\u00a0 Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> cackled, the trilling buzz of Lesser Redpoll<\/strong><\/em> punctuated the air overhead, the eerie cries of Curlew<\/strong><\/em> echoed around the valley, the swee-wee-wee-wee-wee of a nervous Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> pierced the excited bubbling of the stream and Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> soared lazily on the warm breeze as the shocking yellow of a Grey Wagtail<\/strong><\/em> added a splash of colour to the dappled light of the valley bottom.\u00a0 Swallow<\/strong><\/em> and Sand Martin<\/strong><\/em> harvested the bountiful insects overhead and, as we walked back down the valley towards the car, I could hear a simple song from the steeper ground above us.\u00a0 Focusing my attention on the direction that the sound was coming from brought not one, not two, but three Ring Ouzels<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Certainly felt like the spring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" mid-April can be a strange time inland.\u00a0 Some summer visitors will have arrived, but you can never be quite sure which ones… I collected Richard and Florence from West Acre House and we headed westwards towards the central massif of Northumberland.\u00a0 An unexpected, and very pleasant, surprise was bumping into Dean from Cheviot View who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[461,57,560,268,148,172,257,168,488,256,190,134,146,210,504,208,759,263,218,145,217,182,213],"class_list":["post-3281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheviot-valleys","tag-blackcap","tag-brown-hare","tag-canada-goose","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-buzzard","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-goldeneye","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-lesser-redpoll","tag-mistle-thrush","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pheasant","tag-red-grouse","tag-red-legged-partridge","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-sand-martin","tag-song-thrush","tag-swallow","tag-tufted-duck","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281","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=3281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3283,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions\/3283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}