{"id":3699,"date":"2017-02-04T09:49:47","date_gmt":"2017-02-04T08:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3699"},"modified":"2017-02-04T09:49:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-04T08:49:47","slug":"planning-bespoke-otter-safari-030217","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/planning-bespoke-otter-safari-030217","title":{"rendered":"Planning; Bespoke Otter Safari 03\/02\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

In glorious sunshine I arrived in Longframlington to collect Lisa and Lucy ahead of a day searching for Otters<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, Red Squirrels<\/strong><\/em> and Kingfishers<\/strong><\/em> around Druridge Bay<\/a> and the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 I was greeted by Ridley, Lisa’s cockerpoo, and it was quickly decided that he would be joining us on the trip \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Our first Otter<\/strong><\/em> site had an obvious area of water that the Mallard, Teal, Gadwall, Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> and Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> were all avoiding, and Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> left in a bit of a hurry, but no sign of the sinuous predator we were searching for.\u00a0 A change to our usual picnic spot brought a brief glimpse of a female Merlin<\/strong><\/em> as she chased Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> and Wigeon<\/strong><\/em>, and then a Bittern<\/strong><\/em> flew between reedbeds.\u00a0 Red Squirrels<\/strong><\/em> were next on our planned route for the day and I had 20mins dog-sitting while Lisa and Lucy checked the edge of the trees that I suggested.\u00a0 Sure enough, they returned with photographs of Red Squirrel<\/strong><\/em> and we were on our way to the next Otter<\/strong><\/em> site \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Through binoculars I could see dark shapes twisting and turning at the water’s surface and, with the additional magnification of our telescope, those shapes resolved into two Otter<\/strong><\/em> cubs in a play-fight \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We went along to where they were, but by that time they were out of the water and running around on boulders and through the dense undergrowth before quickly vanishing.<\/p>\n

We headed to our final Otter<\/strong><\/em> site to finish the day, and the weather was starting to deteriorate.\u00a0 As the breeze whistled in our ears, the temperature dropped so our breath was condensing into lingering clouds, a cold damp mist took hold over the water and Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em> and Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> were displaying, Starling<\/strong><\/em> arrived to roost, foregoing the elegant ballet of the murmuration in favour of quickly finding shelter, the eerie cries of Curlew<\/strong><\/em> echoed across the pool and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> formed a tight panicked flock as a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> flew low over the reeds, a Bittern<\/strong><\/em> flew by in the gloom and Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> scattered as an Otter<\/strong><\/em> swam across in front of us, tucked in to the reed edge and sheltered from the breeze \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In glorious sunshine I arrived in Longframlington to collect Lisa and Lucy ahead of a day searching for Otters, Red Squirrels and Kingfishers around Druridge Bay and the Northumberland coast.\u00a0 I was greeted by Ridley, Lisa’s cockerpoo, and it was quickly decided that he would be joining us on the trip \ud83d\ude42 Our first Otter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,141,21,19],"tags":[167,170,283,382,128,123,360,171,56,178,837,833,188,131,161,169,182,130,181],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-northumberland-coast","category-otter","category-red-squirrel","tag-bittern","tag-gadwall","tag-grey-heron","tag-jackdaw","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-merlin","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-red-squirrel","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699","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=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3701,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/3701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}