{"id":4175,"date":"2017-11-19T19:22:02","date_gmt":"2017-11-19T18:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4175"},"modified":"2017-11-19T19:22:02","modified_gmt":"2017-11-19T18:22:02","slug":"hide-and-seek-otters-and-stargazing-mini-safari-18-11-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/hide-and-seek-otters-and-stargazing-mini-safari-18-11-17","title":{"rendered":"Hide and Seek; Otters and Stargazing mini-Safari 18\/11\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

I arrived at Church Point to collect Sarah and Nessa, Alison and Mike, and Pat ahead of an afternoon searching for Otters<\/a> around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a> with a planned extension<\/a> to take in the first hour or so of darkness if the sky was clear…<\/p>\n

Little Egrets<\/strong><\/em> stood out shining white against the darker water, Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> were motionless as they concentrated on the water beneath their feet and the loud flapping of a Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> drying it’s wings carried over the water as a busy, noisy, tribe of Long-tailed Tits<\/strong><\/em> hurriedly crossed the gap between bushes.\u00a0 Wigeon, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, Shoveler, Goldeneye, Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Slavonian Grebe<\/strong><\/em> all seemed calm and relaxed, but one drake Mallard<\/strong><\/em> lifted his head and stared intently at a reedbed, scanning side to side along one area of reeds….and out came an Otter<\/strong><\/em> with two cubs \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched them for a few minutes as they got out of the water, perched on top of rocks and then they vanished for a while before reappearing right next to a Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> that fixed them with the look of contempt that swans<\/strong><\/em> are so good at.\u00a0 Starlings<\/strong><\/em> were gathering prior to roost and a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> caused a ripple of panic that tightened the swirling murmuration into a small dark amorphous shape-shifting patch against the dying embers of daylight in the west.\u00a0 By the time the Otters<\/strong><\/em> finally vanished there were already three Barn Owls<\/strong><\/em> quartering over the reeds and rough grassland nearby and bright yellowy-white Capella<\/strong><\/em> was visible against the darkening twilight sky.\u00a0 With hardly a cloud in any direction, and with the temperature dropping rapidly we had excellent views of Auriga, Cassiopeia, Cygnus<\/strong><\/em>,\u00a0the Pleiades, <\/strong><\/em>an impressive satellite flare and then the Andromeda galaxy<\/strong><\/em> through the ‘scope \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I arrived at Church Point to collect Sarah and Nessa, Alison and Mike, and Pat ahead of an afternoon searching for Otters around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland with a planned extension to take in the first hour or so of darkness if the sky was clear… Little Egrets stood out shining white against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[661,707,97,925,671,372,170,168,923,243,360,121,171,564,178,837,269,177,131,161,182,181],"class_list":["post-4175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-andromeda-galaxy","tag-auriga","tag-barn-owl","tag-capella","tag-cassiopeia","tag-cormorant","tag-gadwall","tag-goldeneye","tag-iridium-flare","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-murmuration","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-shoveler","tag-slavonian-grebe","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175","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=4175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4177,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175\/revisions\/4177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}