{"id":4292,"date":"2018-04-26T17:18:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T16:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4292"},"modified":"2018-04-26T17:18:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T16:18:54","slug":"save-the-best-til-last-druridge-bay-safari-20-04-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/save-the-best-til-last-druridge-bay-safari-20-04-18","title":{"rendered":"Save the best ’til last; Druridge Bay Safari 20\/04\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

All of our Safari Days have developed over the last ten years, and even on our familiar, regular Druridge Bay Safaris<\/a> there’s always the possibility of changing the route slightly and visiting sites that we visit ourselves regularly but haven’t taken clients to yet…<\/p>\n

That’s how I found myself with Ian and Elaine & Becky and Helen along a stretch of river that was a new one for a NEWT safari.\u00a0 We were having an afternoon and evening searching for our favourite sinuous predator<\/a> around the NEWT local patch and in the warm afternoon sunshine Great Spotted Woodpeckers<\/strong><\/em> were drumming and Chiffchaff, Robin, Blackbird, Nuthatch, Blackcap, Chaffinch<\/strong><\/em> and Coal Tit<\/strong><\/em> were all singing.\u00a0 On a shallow coastal pool there were no fewer than 19 Avocets<\/strong><\/em> (genuinely rare up here when we moved to the north east 25 years ago…) and, while Sand Martins<\/strong><\/em> and Swallows<\/strong><\/em> fed on the rich hatch of flying insects, Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Teal, Gadwall, Great Crested Grebe<\/strong><\/em> and Shelduck<\/strong><\/em> dabbled and dived as a pair of Garganey<\/strong><\/em> remained unobtrusive until the drake started singing his raspy song.<\/p>\n

Our picnic spot, overlooking the North Sea produced a high-tide roost of Redshank, Oystercatcher, Turnstone, Dunlin<\/strong><\/em> and Purple Sandpiper<\/strong><\/em> as Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> soared by and Sandwich Terns<\/strong><\/em> were plunge-diving just offshore.\u00a0 The descending silvery cadence of Willow Warblers<\/strong><\/em> came from hawthorns alongside footpaths and the afternoon was feeling more Spring than Winter (at last!).<\/p>\n

A Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> glared balefully from a roadside tree, but remained obligingly perched in full view and we headed to our final location for dusk.\u00a0 A Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> drifted across one reedbed as a female Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> quartered another one and Water Rails<\/strong><\/em> squealed from a third as the Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> and Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> seemed to be the only birds in a fairly large area of water…<\/p>\n

The Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> emerged from the dunes and settled on a distant fence post and I set the ‘scope up so that everyone could have a look at it.\u00a0 I was scanning the foreground and I thought I saw a dark shape just a few feet behind a Greylag<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 I mentioned it but it seemed unlikely that it was an Otter<\/strong><\/em>, unless the goose<\/strong><\/em> hadn’t seen it and it hadn’t seen the goos<\/strong><\/em>e…which is what seems to have happened as an adult Otter<\/strong><\/em> appeared a few metres further along the reed edge\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 After a few minutes with no further sightings a Grey Heron<\/strong><\/em> and a Marsh Harrier<\/strong><\/em> both flushed from a reedbed further round the pool – and there was an Otter<\/strong><\/em> cub too \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched as it made it’s way along the edge and then out across the open water with dusk approaching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All of our Safari Days have developed over the last ten years, and even on our familiar, regular Druridge Bay Safaris there’s always the possibility of changing the route slightly and visiting sites that we visit ourselves regularly but haven’t taken clients to yet… That’s how I found myself with Ian and Elaine & Becky […]<\/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":[40,133,461,102,268,101,122,170,212,488,25,190,72,171,397,300,837,210,176,358,223,189,456,269,169,359,237,213],"class_list":["post-4292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-avocet","tag-blackbird","tag-blackcap","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-coal-tit","tag-fulmar","tag-gadwall","tag-garganey","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-great-spotted-woodpecker","tag-greylag-goose","tag-little-owl","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-nuthatch","tag-otter","tag-oystercatcher","tag-purple-sandpiper","tag-redshank","tag-sandwich-tern","tag-shelduck","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-shoveler","tag-teal","tag-turnstone","tag-water-rail","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292","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=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}