{"id":3799,"date":"2017-05-16T09:48:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T08:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3799"},"modified":"2017-05-16T09:48:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T08:48:50","slug":"chorus-of-the-valleys-bespoke-cheviot-valleys-safari-120517","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/cheviot-valleys\/chorus-of-the-valleys-bespoke-cheviot-valleys-safari-120517","title":{"rendered":"Chorus of the valleys; Bespoke Cheviot Valleys Safari 12\/05\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected John and Kate from Church Point at 06:00 and we headed westwards towards the Cheviot<\/a> massif…<\/p>\n

Stepping out of the car in a cold breeze, the density of bird song was like a wall of sound.\u00a0 Willow Warbler, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Robin, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff<\/strong><\/em> and Blackcap<\/strong><\/em> were all belting out their best tunes, while Oystercatcher, Greylag Goose<\/strong><\/em> and Canada Goose<\/strong><\/em> provided an accompaniment that was akin to a 3 year old banging a pan with a spoon.\u00a0 The complex songs of Sedge Warbler<\/strong><\/em> and Skylark<\/strong><\/em> added to the aural backdrop and the buzzing trill of Lesser<\/strong> Redpoll<\/strong><\/em> overhead added an occasional background note.\u00a0 Brown Hares<\/strong><\/em> were running along tractor tyre tracks through long crops and a young Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> seeemd more puzzled than scared by the car.\u00a0 Common Pheasant<\/strong><\/em> and Red-legged Partridge<\/strong><\/em> were a reminder of the main managed purpose of the valleys, while on the higher slopes Red Grouse<\/strong><\/em> were chuckling, Curlew<\/strong><\/em> were displaying and a Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> was singing from the top of an isolated hawthorn as the valley bottom delivered the riparian triumvirate of Dipper, Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> and Grey Wagtail<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 House Martins<\/strong><\/em> were gathering mud to add to their nests, Swallows<\/strong><\/em> were hawking insects as the air warmed slightly, Treecreeper<\/strong><\/em> and Tree Pipit<\/strong><\/em> were both, unsurprisingly, in trees, a Green Woodpecker<\/strong><\/em> was yaffling but didn’t show itself and a Cuckoo<\/strong><\/em> was singing persistently from a vantage point high in a bare tree.\u00a0 As far as we could tell, he was singing constantly for at least 3 hours then, as we had lunch, a second Cuckoo<\/strong><\/em> flew over the hillside, pursued by a crowd of Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em>, and the singer flew from his perch to chase the interloper away down the valley.<\/p>\n

I’m an evening person, but really enjoy early starts for our inland locations \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected John and Kate from Church Point at 06:00 and we headed westwards towards the Cheviot massif… Stepping out of the car in a cold breeze, the density of bird song was like a wall of sound.\u00a0 Willow Warbler, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Robin, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff and Blackcap were all belting out their best tunes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[451,133,461,57,560,102,268,891,214,373,264,172,257,209,256,190,232,134,207,210,208,759,116,66,227,191,145,258,338,213],"class_list":["post-3799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheviot-valleys","tag-barn-swallow","tag-blackbird","tag-blackcap","tag-brown-hare","tag-canada-goose","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-pheasant","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-common-snipe","tag-cuckoo","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-green-woodpecker","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-greylag-goose","tag-house-martin","tag-lesser-redpoll","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-oystercatcher","tag-red-grouse","tag-red-legged-partridge","tag-robin","tag-roe-deer","tag-sedge-warbler","tag-skylark","tag-song-thrush","tag-tree-pipit","tag-treecreeper","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799","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=3799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3801,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3799\/revisions\/3801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}