{"id":3321,"date":"2016-06-01T12:42:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T11:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3321"},"modified":"2016-06-01T12:42:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T11:42:14","slug":"ill-believe-otters-exist-otter-safari-260516","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/ill-believe-otters-exist-otter-safari-260516","title":{"rendered":"“I’ll believe Otters exist…”; Otter Safari 26\/05\/16"},"content":{"rendered":"

“…when I actually see one”.\u00a0 A remarkable number of NEWT’s clients seem to have had holidays on Mull\/Shetland\/Orkney\/Skye searching for Otters (often on guided tours) without seeing one, and that revelation at the start of a tour always ramps the pressure up a bit…<\/p>\n

I arrived at Church Point in heavy mist and drizzle, and quickly met up with Sarah and Charlotte, Keith and Maggie, and Stephanie, and we set off for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters<\/a> around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 I juggled the sites we were visiting, to take account of the weather, but I knew where I thought we should be towards dusk.\u00a0 In the misty, drizzly gloom a Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> looked luminous.\u00a0 With warm, humid conditions the air was alive with the sussurating buzz of recently emerged insects.\u00a0 Black-headed<\/strong><\/em> and Little Gulls<\/strong><\/em>, and swarms of Swifts<\/strong><\/em>, were rampaging through the dense clouds of flies as a Pheasant<\/strong><\/em> sat motionless in the grass on the water’s edge.\u00a0 Gadwall, Goosander, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Canada Goose<\/strong><\/em> and Greylag Goose<\/strong><\/em> were all lazing on the water and Common Terns<\/strong><\/em> harried a Moorhen<\/strong><\/em> that had ventured just that little bit too close to their nest.\u00a0 Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> flew around calling and a dispute over a prime feeding spot broke out between two of these huge birds.<\/p>\n

We arrived at what I’d planned as our final location for the evening and I suggested that one particular part of the pool would be worth keeping a close eye on.\u00a0 Was that a dark shape beneath the gulls<\/strong><\/em>?\u00a0 I lifted my binoculars and scanned, then decided my eyes must have been playing tricks on me.\u00a0 As I set the ‘scope up, there was an “erm…” from Charlotte, who was looking at the same spot…and there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched it for over an hour as it made it’s way around the pool, feeding almost constantly and creating an interesting wildfowl exclusion zone!\u00a0 Here’s an Otter<\/strong><\/em> from last year, showing it’s fearsome dentition \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"Eurasian<\/p>\n

Eventually it vanished into the impenetrable depths of a reedbed and we headed back towards Newbiggin, encountering a Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> perched on a telegraph pole at the roadside \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“…when I actually see one”.\u00a0 A remarkable number of NEWT’s clients seem to have had holidays on Mull\/Shetland\/Orkney\/Skye searching for Otters (often on guided tours) without seeing one, and that revelation at the start of a tour always ramps the pressure up a bit… I arrived at Church Point in heavy mist and drizzle, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21,139],"tags":[271,560,229,170,378,283,190,243,72,171,178,837,504,233,182],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-tern","tag-gadwall","tag-goosander","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-goose","tag-little-egret","tag-little-owl","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-pheasant","tag-swift","tag-tufted-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","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=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3325,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions\/3325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}