There are a few species that really epitomise winter wildlife-watching, and they include my favourite bird, one of my favourite mammals, and another bird that never fails to excite…<\/p>\n
I collected Andy from Whitley Bay (it’s great to have him back from Mull for a few months over the winter!) and we had an interesting chat about plankton sampling and microscopy as we drove up the coast to collect Genine from Newbiggin.\u00a0 Genine’s last trip with NEWT was a breathtaking pelagic in early September<\/a>, and now we were out in search of Otters<\/a> and any other birds and wildlife that we could find around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.\u00a0 I suggested that we started with a quick search for Waxwings<\/strong><\/em>, just a few minutes down the road.\u00a0 As we approached where they’d been seen the previous day, a flock flushed from a rowan tree where they were gorging themselves on berries.\u00a0 We watched them land in the bare branches of a tall tree nearby and counted at least 120 birds, with another 60 flying around and landing in trees just along the road.\u00a0 In the cold and damp, we started our search for Otters<\/strong><\/em>, and were soon watching one as it fed on small fish.\u00a0 With hardly a breath of wind, the water was flat calm and we tracked the Otter<\/strong><\/em>‘s movement by the trail of bubbles it left each time it submerged before, after around half an hour, it left the water and vanished up the bank and behind a fallen tree.\u00a0 Curlew, Lapwing, Common Redshank<\/strong><\/em> and Oystercatcher<\/strong><\/em> were probing the mud along the water’s edge and a flash of electric blue heralded the arrival of a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em>, which played a game of hide and seek with us as Goldfinch<\/strong><\/em> and Bullfinch<\/strong><\/em> perched in the tops of trees, the disembodied weak winter song of a Robin<\/strong><\/em> came from the depths of a hawthorn and two Sparrowhawks<\/strong><\/em> tussled in mid-air overhead before one gave up the fight and flew well away.\u00a0 Long-tailed Duck, Common Scoter, Common Eider, Goldeneye, Wigeon, Mallard, Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> and Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> were a nice haul of wildfowl as Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> warily watched the spot where the Otter<\/strong><\/em> had vanished and Long-tailed Tits<\/strong><\/em> called unseen from nearby bushes.<\/p>\n The approach of dusk brought thousands of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> in a swirling murmuration before they dropped into the reedbeds for the night as the high-pitched yapping of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> and the discordant honking of Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> betrayed the presence of skein after skein arriving from feeding areas to the south of us.\u00a0 Squealing Water Rails<\/strong><\/em> remained hidden and, as the last rays of daylight filtered through from the western horizon, Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em> arrived.\u00a0 Big, ghostly and quiet on their approach, as they hit the water they began whooping and their haunting voices accompanied our walk back to the car in the dark.<\/p>\n Proper wintry cold, almost continuous drizzle, stunning wildlife and lovely clients – just a great way to spend a day in mid-November \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We’ll be running Otter Safaris<\/a>, Druridge Bay Safaris<\/a> and Lindisfarne Safaris<\/a> right through the winter, so get in touch, wrap up warm and come and join us for a day searching for Northumberland’s fantastic wildlife!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are a few species that really epitomise winter wildlife-watching, and they include my favourite bird, one of my favourite mammals, and another bird that never fails to excite… I collected Andy from Whitley Bay (it’s great to have him back from Mull for a few months over the winter!) and we had an interesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[570,27,556,67,172,168,103,256,190,120,123,360,68,121,171,837,210,129,116,603,131,161,182,237,130,181],"class_list":["post-3675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-bohemian-waxwing","tag-bullfinch","tag-common-redshank","tag-common-scoter","tag-curlew","tag-goldeneye","tag-goldfinch","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-long-tailed-duck","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-robin","tag-snow-bunting","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-tufted-duck","tag-water-rail","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3675","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=3675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3677,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3675\/revisions\/3677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}