Sometimes it can be late in a trip before we find our target species., then there are the times when it’s almost embarrassingly quick and easy…<\/p>\n
I collected Phil and Glynis from Amble and we headed down the coast for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters<\/a> around Druridge Bay<\/a>.\u00a0 I’d found an Otter<\/strong><\/em> at dusk on Tuesday so I knew where we’d be finishing the tour.\u00a0 On a hunch I thought that might be a good place to have the first hour of the tour too…and when we arrived there was a lot of panic among the Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> and a small group of Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em>, with a single Common Gull<\/strong><\/em>, were circling above one spot.\u00a0 I concentrated on the water below the gulls<\/strong><\/em>, and there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em>!\u00a0 We watched it for around 40 minutes before it vanished into the reeds leaving us with Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Tufted Duck, Gadwall<\/strong><\/em> and Shoveler<\/strong><\/em> to watch.\u00a0 Next stop was Druridge Pools for an elusive Barred Warbler<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 There was a small crowd there already searching for it and, after an obliging Garden Warbler<\/strong><\/em> fooled a few people, it eventually came out into the open as a Redwing<\/strong><\/em>, surely one of the most beautiful thrushes we have, was sitting on a bare branch on the other side of a field.\u00a0 Next up was another scarce migrant, possibly the most delightful little wader to have ever graced the world’s avifauna.\u00a0 The Red-necked Phalarope<\/strong><\/em> was twirling in the shallow water, darting at small insects on the surface as the evocative cries of Curlew<\/strong><\/em> drifted across the marsh.\u00a0 A flock of 14 Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em> passed by, seemingly unhappy with the lead swan’s choice of direction before they eventually settled on heading south where they were spotted by Sarah \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Hedgerows were filled with the calls of Tree Sparrow<\/strong><\/em> and Goldcrest<\/strong><\/em>, and at least three Chiffchaffs<\/strong><\/em> darted in and out of the canopy, leading us a merry dance as we checked to see if there was anything exciting traveling with them, as Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> and Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> stalked small fish.<\/p>\n Our picnic stop produced a nice roosting flock of Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew<\/strong><\/em> and Turnstone<\/strong><\/em> accompanied on the edge of the rocks and breaking surf by a Kingfisher<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 As dusk descended a Brown Hare<\/strong><\/em> crossed the track in front of us, a juvenile Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> drifted by, causing Starlings<\/strong><\/em> to lift in rippling waves from their reedbed roost, Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> seemed to glow in the dying embers of daylight, a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> ghosted over the reeds before plunging into rough grass and reappearing a few minutes later and then, when it was just about too dark to see, Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> flew from their daytime roost towards feeding areas, wingbeats thrumming in the still air of a chilly autumn evening \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes it can be late in a trip before we find our target species., then there are the times when it’s almost embarrassingly quick and easy… I collected Phil and Glynis from Amble and we headed down the coast for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters around Druridge Bay.\u00a0 I’d found an Otter at […]<\/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":[97,917,271,57,268,277,172,170,617,135,283,120,123,243,171,397,178,837,210,179,576,358,22,269,169,125,182,359,130,181],"class_list":["post-4103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-barn-owl","tag-barred-warbler","tag-black-headed-gull","tag-brown-hare","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-gull","tag-curlew","tag-gadwall","tag-garden-warbler","tag-goldcrest","tag-grey-heron","tag-kingfisher","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pintail","tag-red-necked-phalarope","tag-redshank","tag-redwing","tag-shoveler","tag-teal","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-tufted-duck","tag-turnstone","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103","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=4103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4109,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103\/revisions\/4109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}