{"id":4089,"date":"2017-09-21T10:08:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T09:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4089"},"modified":"2017-09-21T10:08:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T09:08:30","slug":"darkness-descending-druridge-bay-mini-safari-200917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/darkness-descending-druridge-bay-mini-safari-200917","title":{"rendered":"Darkness descending; Druridge Bay mini-Safari 20\/09\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Ian and Julie from Hauxley and before we’d set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay<\/a> things got off to a great start with Goldcrests<\/strong><\/em> and a Yellow-browed Warbler<\/strong><\/em> in the car park \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Next up were two young Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em>, trotting along the edge of a field before stopping to watch us, and a Little Owl <\/strong><\/em>sitting on the end of the gutter of a cottage.\u00a0 Waders occupied our attentions for the next hour and a large roosting flock of very vocal Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> were accompanied by plenty of Dunlin<\/strong><\/em>, a couple of Common Redshank<\/strong><\/em> and single Ruff, Curlew<\/strong><\/em> and Greenshank<\/strong><\/em>, as well as an elusive Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> camouflaged in among reed stubble as Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> squabbled over a prime feeding spot while practically glowing in late afternoon sunlight.\u00a0 A Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> flew by, carrying a Short-tailed Vole<\/strong><\/em>, before vanishing into a barn then reappearing only to be pestered by Jackdaws, Rooks<\/strong><\/em> and Carrion Crows<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 With light levels falling, Starlings<\/strong><\/em> passed by in impressive flocks, but they’d decided to forego a prolonged murmurating display in favour of heading straight to roost in the reedbeds\u00a0 out of the cold and wind.\u00a0 With ducks in eclipse plumage it isn’t the best time of year to enjoy watching them but we could still identify Shoveler, Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> and Pintail<\/strong><\/em> in the fading light as Little<\/strong><\/em> and Great Crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em> alternated between sleeping and diving and Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> sat motionless as a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> flew over with heavy wingbeats.\u00a0 As the light faded to the point where it was a struggle to see, the squealing of a Water Rail<\/strong><\/em> was followed soon after by a brief view of this strange little denizen of the reedbeds as it half-ran, half-flew across a gap in the reeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Ian and Julie from Hauxley and before we’d set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay things got off to a great start with Goldcrests and a Yellow-browed Warbler in the car park \ud83d\ude42 Next up were two young Roe Deer, trotting along the edge of a field before stopping to […]<\/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":[97,272,373,172,288,170,135,488,332,283,382,128,123,243,360,72,171,179,420,358,66,383,241,899,269,161,169,182,237,181,403],"class_list":["post-4089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-barn-owl","tag-carrion-crow","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-gadwall","tag-goldcrest","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-greenshank","tag-grey-heron","tag-jackdaw","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-little-owl","tag-mallard","tag-pintail","tag-pochard","tag-redshank","tag-roe-deer","tag-rook","tag-ruff","tag-short-tailed-field-vole","tag-shoveler","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon","tag-yellow-browed-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089","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=4089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4091,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions\/4091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}