{"id":4149,"date":"2017-10-27T12:01:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T11:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4149"},"modified":"2017-10-27T12:01:37","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T11:01:37","slug":"ducks-in-the-dark-druridge-bay-bespoke-241017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/ducks-in-the-dark-druridge-bay-bespoke-241017","title":{"rendered":"Ducks in the dark; Druridge Bay Bespoke 24\/10\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Nicola and Bill from Lesbury and we headed down the coast for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay<\/a>…<\/p>\n

We’ve reached that time of the year where wildfowl numbers are starting to really grow, and Greylag, Canada<\/strong><\/em> and Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> were all heard and seen.\u00a0 Whooper Swans<\/strong><\/em> remained aloof and apart from Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> and a Long-tailed Duck<\/strong><\/em> was proving elusive alongside Pintail, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Wigeon, Shoveler, Mallard, Teal<\/strong><\/em> and Gadwall<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 A wander down on to the beach produced Sanderling<\/strong><\/em>, racing against the edge of the incoming tide on clockwork legs, the eerie cries of Curlew<\/strong><\/em> haunted marshy fields and Common Redshank<\/strong><\/em> were picking and probing in shallow water.\u00a0 Black-tailed Godwit<\/strong><\/em> were wading in deeper water and a Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em> was tucked in among clumps of rush as a juvenile Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> caused chaos as it drifted over.\u00a0 Handsome male Stonechats<\/strong><\/em> were adorning fence posts and a Spoonbill<\/strong><\/em> was rushing through the shallows, sweeping it’s bill from side to side without pause.<\/p>\n

With dusk approaching Starlings<\/strong><\/em> dropped into a reedbed and their murmuring and chuntering went on until it was almost too dark to see.\u00a0 A Water Rail<\/strong><\/em> was typically unobliging as it flew between reedbeds and we ended the trip with a ghostly pale Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> quartering the reeds in front of us and the harsh calls of Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> and Mallard<\/strong><\/em> alongside the explosive whistling of drake Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> in the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Nicola and Bill from Lesbury and we headed down the coast for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay… We’ve reached that time of the year where wildfowl numbers are starting to really grow, and Greylag, Canada and Pink-footed Geese were all heard and seen.\u00a0 Whooper Swans remained aloof and apart from Mute […]<\/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":[97,242,560,556,373,172,170,168,190,68,171,397,178,129,179,80,398,161,215,169,182,237,130,181],"class_list":["post-4149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-canada-goose","tag-common-redshank","tag-common-snipe","tag-curlew","tag-gadwall","tag-goldeneye","tag-greylag-goose","tag-long-tailed-duck","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-mute-swan","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-pintail","tag-sanderling","tag-spoonbill","tag-starling","tag-stonechat","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-water-rail","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149","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=4149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4153,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4149\/revisions\/4153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}