{"id":3683,"date":"2016-12-04T13:51:12","date_gmt":"2016-12-04T12:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3683"},"modified":"2016-12-04T13:51:12","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T12:51:12","slug":"and-a-common-seal-in-a-dead-tree-otter-safari-021216","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/and-a-common-seal-in-a-dead-tree-otter-safari-021216","title":{"rendered":"“…and a Common Seal in a dead tree”; Otter Safari 02\/12\/16"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Fascinating ‘Life on Earth’ back in the 1970’s, through to the jaw-dropping ‘Planet Earth II<\/a>‘ that’s currently showing on the BBC (2 episodes to go, ‘Grasslands’ this evening and ‘Cities’ next Sunday!), I’ve always enjoyed David Attenborough’s programmes.\u00a0 Recent series have included a section at the end of each programme, detailing the planning and effort that went into capturing a particular sequence.\u00a0 Those sections are really important, as they make it clear just how wildlife doesn’t work to a script…<\/p>\n

I collected Emma and Kevin from Newbiggin and we set off for a day in search of Otters<\/strong><\/em> around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>.\u00a0 My interest was piqued fairly quickly, as Emma removed her camera from it’s bag with a Nikon 200-500mm lens attached – the same lens that I’m currently thinking about buying \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 It was a great opportunity to see the lens in action, and to see some of Emma’s stunning images from their safari in Tanzania, but would Northumberland’s wildlife perform for the camera?\u00a0 As Emma said “You can’t just rock up and expect wildlife to be there in front of you”…<\/p>\n

Arriving at our first site I caught a brief glimpse of something dark rolling at the surface and vanishing into the flat calm water.\u00a0 Otter<\/strong><\/em>? or Cormorant<\/strong><\/em>?\u00a0 A loud squawk from a Black-headed Gull<\/strong><\/em> caught my attention, and we turned to see two gulls<\/strong><\/em> circling over one patch of water.\u00a0 Look under them, look under them…and there’s an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Twisting, turning and diving, the adult Otter<\/strong><\/em> caught a fish and headed towards a fallen tree…and a small cub swam out to greet it!\u00a0 Kevin quickly spotted a second cub, and once the adult was out of the water, it was obvious that she’d got three cubs.\u00a0 The cubs were staying close to the bank as mum headed out into deeper water to catch fish and, each time she swam away from them they’d start calling to her.\u00a0 Swimming in the shallows, clambering over boulders and fallen trees, scattering terrified Goldeneye, Goosander, Little Grebe <\/strong><\/em>and Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> as a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> flashed by, and eventually disappearing, presumably for a nap after a busy couple of hours, this was a strong contender for ‘best Otter<\/strong><\/em> sighting for NEWT’ \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Another sighting late afternoon, at a different site (where we know there’s a female with three cubs), provided an interesting observation of Otter<\/strong><\/em> behaviour.\u00a0 This time the female was catching food and taking it out of sight, presumably to her cubs.\u00a0 While she was still hunting in front of us I noticed Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> and Teal<\/strong><\/em> scattering from another part of the pool…and there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em> cub.\u00a0 Eventually the female stopped feeding and headed towards the cub before escorting it back to where we suspected it’s siblings were hiding. passing right in front of us on the way \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

A mind-blowing Starling<\/strong><\/em> murmuration and Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> drinking at the water’s edge at dusk finished off a day of highlights so, with a certain amount of artistic licence, and to be sung to the tune of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’…<\/p>\n

20,000 Starling<\/strong><\/em> swirling, 9 Sanderling<\/strong><\/em> scurrying, 8 Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> yapping, 7 Shorelark<\/strong><\/em> shuffling, 6 Otters<\/strong><\/em> swimming, 5 Eiiiiddderr Ducks<\/strong><\/em>, 4 Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> fishing, 3 Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> hunting, 2 Lions <\/em><\/strong>dozing, and a Common Seal<\/strong><\/em> in a dead tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Fascinating ‘Life on Earth’ back in the 1970’s, through to the jaw-dropping ‘Planet Earth II‘ that’s currently showing on the BBC (2 episodes to go, ‘Grasslands’ this evening and ‘Cities’ next Sunday!), I’ve always enjoyed David Attenborough’s programmes.\u00a0 Recent series have included a section at the end of each programme, detailing the planning […]<\/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":[271,187,372,149,168,378,120,360,837,129,66,80,815,131,161,169],"class_list":["post-3683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-common-seal","tag-cormorant","tag-eider","tag-goldeneye","tag-goosander","tag-kingfisher","tag-little-grebe","tag-otter","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-roe-deer","tag-sanderling","tag-shorelark","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-teal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683","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=3683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3685,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}