{"id":4191,"date":"2017-12-31T11:16:22","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T10:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4191"},"modified":"2017-12-31T11:16:22","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T10:16:22","slug":"swirling-otter-mini-safari-30-12-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/swirling-otter-mini-safari-30-12-17","title":{"rendered":"Swirling; Otter mini-Safari 30\/12\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s mini-Safari was rearranged from Friday, when the ice on the roads would have made it a foolhardy exercise to head out.\u00a0 I collected Jo, Chris, Lauren and Dilly from Church Point and we headed off for a few hours exploring Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland…<\/p>\n

At the start of the afternoon there was no breeze, and the water was almost mirror-flat, with the swirls of diving Goldeneye, Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Cormorant<\/strong><\/em> patterning the surface.\u00a0 Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> that weren’t feeding sat on fallen trees, shoulders hunched and looking thoroughly miserable as a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> flew from one side of the river to the other and perched briefly before flying away upstream.\u00a0 As light rain pattered on the calm water a Great Black-backed Gull<\/strong><\/em> flew by, always an impressive bird in the right light, and then the clouds parted and blue sky and warm(ish) sunshine marked the start of the sky clearing.\u00a0 Out on to the coast and a dense flock of Golden Plover<\/strong><\/em> were swirling on the rising breeze as Pink-footed Geese<\/strong><\/em> rose from a distant field and speckled the sky and a charm of Goldfinches<\/strong><\/em> flew over the car before disappearing into rank vegetation next to the road.\u00a0 Long-tailed Tits<\/strong><\/em> were moving between trees and a Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> flew so low across the road ahead of us that it only narrowly avoided the car.\u00a0 Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em>, including one scruffy looking youngster, were feeding alongside a group of displaying Red-breasted Mergansers<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 At least 10 drakes were vying for the affection of just one female, but she was having none of it and any of the drakes who ventured too close, no matter how impressive his head-bobbing and mohawk-waving, was driven away.\u00a0 As the Moon<\/strong><\/em> rose in the east, providing an impressive sight through the telescope, all of the ducks were getting agitated; Goldeneye, Gadwall, Teal, Wigeon<\/strong><\/em> and Mallard<\/strong><\/em> all moved purposefully away from one edge of the reeds, then more Mallard<\/strong><\/em> appeared from the reeds and flew across the pool and suddenly the distribution of birds on the water, which had been quite even when we first arrived, was very polarised.\u00a0 Whatever was in the reeds wasn’t revealing itself though, and in a now stiffening cold breeze who could blame it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s mini-Safari was rearranged from Friday, when the ice on the roads would have made it a foolhardy exercise to head out.\u00a0 I collected Jo, Chris, Lauren and Dilly from Church Point and we headed off for a few hours exploring Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland… At the start of the afternoon there was no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,139],"tags":[372,170,175,168,103,375,283,360,121,171,178,129,188,131,169,181],"class_list":["post-4191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-cormorant","tag-gadwall","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldeneye","tag-goldfinch","tag-great-black-backed-gull","tag-grey-heron","tag-little-grebe","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191","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=4191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4193,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions\/4193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}