{"id":3691,"date":"2017-01-24T19:47:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T18:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3691"},"modified":"2017-01-24T19:47:05","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T18:47:05","slug":"swirling-otter-mini-safari-150117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/swirling-otter-mini-safari-150117","title":{"rendered":"Swirling; Otter mini-Safari 15\/01\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our first trip of 2017 was an Otter mini-Safari<\/a> and I collected Fiona and Phil from Church Point in what didn’t really feel like January weather.\u00a0 Our other participants for the afternoon had cancelled at the last minute, so the three of us set off for an afternoon around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland…<\/p>\n

Roosting Redshank<\/strong><\/em>, diving Dabchicks<\/strong><\/em> and gorgeous Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> were along the first stretch of water we checked, but most impressive of all was a Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> – fresh from a fishing trip and standing on a rock with it’s wings spread in heraldic pose it was quite stunning in the sunlight.\u00a0 As the afternoon wore on, and dusk started to settle in, there was a stunning bright jewel in the darkening gloom; a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em>, with it’s jaw-dropping coat of turquoise and orange, was suddenly on a rock in front of us.\u00a0 None of us had seen it arrive, and it soon departed, then returned and perched even closer \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 While this was going on a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> stalked patiently in a gap between reedbeds, a female Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> perched in a bare tree watching the wildfowl, all of the assembled Mallards, Gadwall, Teal<\/strong><\/em> and Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> were nervously eyeing one section of reedbed as a flock of Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> took flight and a small flock of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> flew through on their way to roost as the yapping calls of Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> cut through the evening air and discussion centred on which are the best pubs in Newcastle and Gateshead.\u00a0 If there’s one thing I enjoy as much as watching wildlife, it’s the people that I get to meet on our tours \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our first trip of 2017 was an Otter mini-Safari and I collected Fiona and Phil from Church Point in what didn’t really feel like January weather.\u00a0 Our other participants for the afternoon had cancelled at the last minute, so the three of us set off for an afternoon around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland… Roosting […]<\/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":[372,817,168,283,120,123,360,171,129,131,161,169,182,181],"class_list":["post-3691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-cormorant","tag-dabchick","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-heron","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691","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=3691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3693,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691\/revisions\/3693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}