{"id":4280,"date":"2018-04-13T11:33:20","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4280"},"modified":"2018-04-13T11:33:20","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:33:20","slug":"mist-murk-mud-and-mergansers-otter-safari-12-04-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/mist-murk-mud-and-mergansers-otter-safari-12-04-18","title":{"rendered":"Mist, murk, mud and mergansers; Otter Safari 12\/04\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Stephen and Soraya from The Swan<\/a>, then Martyn and Colin, and Jo, from Church Point, ahead of an afternoon around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland searching for Otters<\/a>…<\/p>\n

On a stiff easterly breeze with drizzle, mist, murk and heavy rain showers, spirits could have been dampened but having a car filled with cheerful enthusiastic guests with a great interest in conservation was just the right thing to keep everyone going.\u00a0 Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> were arcing along the clifftops and a Kestrel<\/strong><\/em> impressed with it’s geostationary approach to hunting, facing directly into the wind and hanging near motionless.\u00a0 A Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> perched on a low horizontal branch, in the lee of the tree trunk where it would have had some respite from the cold, and occasional groups of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> rushed by like mini-murmurations taking a quick route to roost.\u00a0 A male Stonechat<\/strong><\/em> perched at the top of a clump of rushes before a sallying flycatching flight and then back into cover.\u00a0 As the deafening clamour of hundreds of Black-headed Gulls<\/strong><\/em> added a surreal touch of discordance to the sight of Great-crested Grebes<\/strong><\/em> drifting elegantly across the water, and Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> engaged in some less than enthusiastic display, Curlew, Lapwing, Dunlin, Redshank, Turnstone<\/strong><\/em> and 5 pairs of Avocet<\/strong><\/em> were all wading in the shallows as a group of Common Snipe<\/strong><\/em>, unusually out in the open, were flushed by a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> stalking along the edge of the reeds.\u00a0 The menacing dark shapes of Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> sank from view as they hunted the myriad small fish that were dimpling the water’s surface and a Great-crested Grebe<\/strong><\/em> very obligingly decided to start hunting just a few metes away from us.\u00a0 We might have expected all of the birds to be keeping their heads down in the wind and rain, but if there’s one species that you can rely on to provide a spectacle, it’s Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong><\/em>; shaggy crests waving in the breeze, the males were engaged in their comical ostentatious posturing.\u00a0 Necks outstretched and dipping with a theatrical bow that looks like they’re trying to upend themselves, they were completely unconcerned by either the weather, or that fact they they’re not anywhere near their breeding grounds yet \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Stephen and Soraya from The Swan, then Martyn and Colin, and Jo, from Church Point, ahead of an afternoon around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland searching for Otters… On a stiff easterly breeze with drizzle, mist, murk and heavy rain showers, spirits could have been dampened but having a car filled with cheerful […]<\/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":[40,373,372,172,288,122,168,488,283,128,123,72,188,161,215,359],"class_list":["post-4280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-avocet","tag-common-snipe","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-dunlin","tag-fulmar","tag-goldeneye","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-heron","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-little-owl","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-starling","tag-stonechat","tag-turnstone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280","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=4280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4282,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions\/4282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}