{"id":3466,"date":"2016-07-28T10:35:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T09:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2016-07-28T10:36:34","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T09:36:34","slug":"otter-safari-250716","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/otter-safari-250716","title":{"rendered":"Summer…; Otter Safari 25\/07\/16"},"content":{"rendered":"

July is a month when most of my time is spent at sea, either carrying out transect surveys or leading pelagic trips<\/a>, so an afternoon and evening looking for Otters<\/a> brings some welcome variation…<\/p>\n

I collected Susan and Mike from Seaton Burn and then Frank, Gabrielle, Boudewijn and Odette from The Swan<\/a> before heading to the coast.\u00a0 Boudewijn’s sharp eyes picked out tiny insects as we made our way along footpaths with dense vegetation alongside as Swallows<\/strong><\/em> and House Martins<\/strong><\/em> swooped low over the fields, picking off flying insects that had strayed just a bit too far from safety.\u00a0 Adult Swallows<\/strong><\/em> were feeding young in a nest just a few feet away from us and, out on the water, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> and Pochard<\/strong><\/em> were all decked out in the shabby chic of late summer and a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> caused alarm as it flew in, scattering Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> and Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em> from the edge of the pool.\u00a0 Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> dived, doing their best Otter<\/strong><\/em> impressions, Common Sandpipers<\/strong><\/em> bobbed nervously on the riverbank, a well-grown brood of Goosander<\/strong><\/em> were remarkably well camouflaged amongst piles of rocks and Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> were stalking tiny fish in the shallows.\u00a0 As the wind started to pick up and the first few drops of rain began to fall, Swifts<\/strong><\/em> scythed their way through clouds of insects overhead.\u00a0 Whimbrel was a nice addition to the wader list for the day along with Curlew<\/strong><\/em> and Redshank<\/strong><\/em> which are much more expected.\u00a0 Common<\/strong><\/em> and Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> called as they flew by and Eider<\/strong><\/em> were rafting on a flat sea as we had our picnic.\u00a0 Our final site for the day was where I was confident we’d find an Otter<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Starlings<\/strong><\/em> were murmurating, Reed Buntings<\/strong><\/em> and Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em> flicked through the vegetation just ahead of us, a roe Deer emerged from behind a reedbed to take a drink at the water’s edge…and then the sky turned dark rather quickly and the rain started hammering down \ud83d\ude41 That did produce one entertaining moment though, as a rather large Great Crested Grebe<\/strong><\/em> chick took shelter on its parent’s back just before we admitted defeat to the weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July is a month when most of my time is spent at sea, either carrying out transect surveys or leading pelagic trips, so an afternoon and evening looking for Otters brings some welcome variation… I collected Susan and Mike from Seaton Burn and then Frank, Gabrielle, Boudewijn and Odette from The Swan before heading to […]<\/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":[271,214,229,372,172,149,170,378,488,283,232,243,171,420,358,127,66,223,161,217,233,182,231],"class_list":["post-3466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-common-tern","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-eider","tag-gadwall","tag-goosander","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-house-martin","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-pochard","tag-redshank","tag-reed-bunting","tag-roe-deer","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-starling","tag-swallow","tag-swift","tag-tufted-duck","tag-whimbrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466","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=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}