{"id":3861,"date":"2017-06-20T16:06:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T15:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3861"},"modified":"2017-06-20T16:06:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T15:06:38","slug":"summer-days-cheviot-valleys-bespoke-birdwatching-180617","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/cheviot-valleys\/summer-days-cheviot-valleys-bespoke-birdwatching-180617","title":{"rendered":"Summer days; Cheviot Valleys Bespoke birdwatching 18\/06\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

An early start on Sunday saw me collecting Jill and Steve for their 4th day out with NEWT (and Steve’s 5th trip with us as he was on this memorable pelagic<\/a>!)…<\/p>\n

Our destination was the Cheviot valleys, but we headed to Bothal first to search for the Ruddy Duck<\/strong><\/em> that had been there the day before.\u00a0 There was no sign of it, but consolation came in the form of a stunning summer-plumaged Slavonian Grebe<\/strong><\/em> before we continued on our way north west.\u00a0 Red-legged Partridge<\/strong><\/em> and Pheasant<\/strong><\/em> were wandering along the roads and sitting on the tops of walls and we were soon searching for Ring Ouzel<\/strong><\/em> and Whinchat<\/strong><\/em> – the two target species for the morning.\u00a0 Curlew<\/strong><\/em> called from the moors high above, Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em> were song-flighting and Pied Wagtails<\/strong><\/em> were picking insects from the grass as Chiffchaff<\/strong><\/em> and Willow Warbler<\/strong><\/em> were singing, Mistle Thrushes<\/strong><\/em> flew back and forth and Oystercatchers<\/strong><\/em> were probing the soil under short vegetation.\u00a0 Persistence is often the key and I finally spotted a Whinchat<\/strong><\/em> perched on a small bush, and then 2 Ring Ouzels<\/strong><\/em> foraging on a small rocky outcrop.<\/p>\n

Our picnic spot beside a fast flowing stream produced an obliging Common Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> and more Whinchats<\/strong><\/em> as the buzzing trill of Lesser Redpolls<\/strong><\/em> drew our attention to small dark specks travelling between plantations and the scratchy song of Common Whitethroat<\/strong><\/em> grumbled from nearby bracken.\u00a0 A Great Spotted Woodpecker<\/strong><\/em> sitting in the road was an unexpected encounter before we finished the day with an hour of woodland birding.\u00a0 In the hot afternoon sunshine the birds seemed to be keeping their heads down, other than a very obliging Spotted Flycatcher<\/strong><\/em> as Speckled Wood<\/strong><\/em> butterflies rested in the sun-dappled edges of the wood and a Giant Pied Hoverfly<\/strong><\/em> Volucella pellucens<\/em> made a couple of flyby inspections as we walked back to the car.<\/p>\n

Another really enjoyable day out with Jill and Steve, in very summery weather!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An early start on Sunday saw me collecting Jill and Steve for their 4th day out with NEWT (and Steve’s 5th trip with us as he was on this memorable pelagic!)… Our destination was the Cheviot valleys, but we headed to Bothal first to search for the Ruddy Duck that had been there the day […]<\/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":[268,214,593,172,903,25,134,146,210,504,536,759,263,901,177,402,285,262,213],"class_list":["post-3861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheviot-valleys","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-sandpiper","tag-common-whitethroat","tag-curlew","tag-great-pied-hoverfly","tag-great-spotted-woodpecker","tag-lesser-redpoll","tag-mistle-thrush","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pheasant","tag-pied-wagtail","tag-red-legged-partridge","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-ruddy-duck","tag-slavonian-grebe","tag-speckled-wood","tag-spotted-flycatcher","tag-whinchat","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861","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=3861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3865,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3861\/revisions\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}