{"id":3630,"date":"2016-09-12T08:13:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T07:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2016-09-12T08:13:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T07:13:34","slug":"passing-storms-druridge-bay-080916","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/passing-storms-druridge-bay-080916","title":{"rendered":"Passing storms; Druridge Bay 08\/09\/16"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a wildlife guide I’ve become ever so slightly obsessed with the weather, and weather forecasts…<\/p>\n

I arrived at Church Point to collect Steve and Christine ahead of a day around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland, and looking inland there seemed to be a lot of low, dense, cloud.\u00a0 The forecast suggested showers late morning, and a brighter afternoon, so we headed north along the coast with the intention of spending the first hour or so out in the open, before seeking the shelter of the various Druridge Bay hides once the poor weather arrived.\u00a0 A Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> flew by, whistling, adding a touch of sparkling iridescence to the gloom as the first few raindrops began to add a dimpled pattern to the water’s surface.\u00a0 Suddenly it was dark, really dark, and the rain intensified as we drove to our next location.\u00a0 Then the heavens opened while Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Curlew, Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> and Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> just got on with whatever they were doing.\u00a0 House Martins<\/strong><\/em> and Swallows<\/strong><\/em> strung out in lines along telephone wires must have been seeing the long journey south as an even more attractive prospect \ud83d\ude42 More Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> followed, as did even heavier rainfall, and then the weather started to break – passing through an extraordinary transition where we had bright sunshine, heavy rain and an incredibly intense rainbow low above the horizon as a juvenile Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> quartered the nearby reedbeds.\u00a0 Lunch time overlooking the North Sea produced a beach with plenty of Ringed Plover<\/strong><\/em> scuttling around and then, for\u00a0 the afternoon, glorious sunshine brought out Painted Lady<\/strong><\/em> butterflies and dragonflies<\/strong><\/em> that weren’t going to hang around to be identified!\u00a0 Two more juvenile Marsh Harriers<\/strong><\/em> obligingly settled amongst clumps of rush before one of them engaged in a fruitless pursuit of an adult Moorhen<\/strong><\/em>, during which it flushed lots of Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Our final juvenile Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> delivered probably the most impressive spectacle of the day as it disturbed Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> and Curlew<\/strong><\/em>, forming a dense nervous cloud of birds as it passed by, and at least 17 Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 We finished the day with a walk through some mixed woodland in vastly improved weather, although the trees were now bending in the rapidly strengthening breeze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a wildlife guide I’ve become ever so slightly obsessed with the weather, and weather forecasts… I arrived at Church Point to collect Steve and Christine ahead of a day around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, and looking inland there seemed to be a lot of low, dense, cloud.\u00a0 The forecast suggested showers late morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,139],"tags":[373,372,172,283,232,120,123,243,171,397,198,804,224,217,169,181],"class_list":["post-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-grey-heron","tag-house-martin","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-moorhen","tag-painted-lady","tag-ringed-plover","tag-swallow","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630","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=3630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3632,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}