{"id":4163,"date":"2017-11-07T20:13:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T19:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4163"},"modified":"2017-11-07T20:13:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T19:13:04","slug":"a-stream-of-starlings-otter-safari-071117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/a-stream-of-starlings-otter-safari-071117","title":{"rendered":"A stream of Starlings; Otter Safari 07\/11\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Karen and Angie, and Nick and Mel, from Newbiggin and we headed off in search of Otters<\/a> around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland.<\/p>\n

I quickly changed our plan due to high levels of disturbance at our first site, and as soon we were at our alternative start point there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched it for over an hour, with a noisy flock of Long-tailed Tits<\/strong><\/em> in the trees nearby, before it did that typical Otter<\/strong><\/em> thing of slipping beneath the surface and vanishing.\u00a0 As we sat having lunch on the clifftop just south of Cresswell village a Fieldfare<\/strong><\/em> came low in-off after what must have been an arduous sea crossing against a WNW wind.\u00a0 Flocks of Redwing<\/strong><\/em> and Fieldfare<\/strong><\/em> speckled the sky and, as Oystercatcher, Redshank, Curlew, Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwing<\/strong><\/em> came to roost, and Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> dropped into a nearby field, yapping noisily as they descended, a Lesser Black-backed Gull<\/strong><\/em> was struggling with a large, dead flatfish.\u00a0 The struggle ended abruptly as a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> chased the gull<\/strong><\/em> away and tried to swallow the fish itself before leaving it to a Great Black-backed Gull<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> shone brightly white in the gloom of the late afternoon, before a break in the cloud away on the western horizon delivered a sublime sunset that bathed Mallard, Gadwall, Wigeon, Teal, Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, Slavonian Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Whooper Swan<\/strong><\/em> in jaw-dropping orange light.<\/p>\n

As flock after flock after flock of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> streamed into a reedbed roost, still arriving when it was almost too dark for us to see, and two Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> bounded along through deep vegetation, the day had one last surprise in store as a Long-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> perched on a fence post in the dunes before attracting the attention of the local Carrion Crows<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Karen and Angie, and Nick and Mel, from Newbiggin and we headed off in search of Otters around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. I quickly changed our plan due to high levels of disturbance at our first site, and as soon we were at our alternative start point there was an Otter \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 […]<\/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":[272,556,172,288,23,170,168,375,283,123,499,243,174,121,171,837,210,129,188,22,66,177,131,161,169,130,181],"class_list":["post-4163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-carrion-crow","tag-common-redshank","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-fieldfare","tag-gadwall","tag-goldeneye","tag-great-black-backed-gull","tag-grey-heron","tag-lapwing","tag-lesser-black-backed-gull","tag-little-egret","tag-long-eared-owl","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redwing","tag-roe-deer","tag-slavonian-grebe","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163","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=4163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4165,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions\/4165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}