{"id":4296,"date":"2018-05-01T12:53:35","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T11:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2018-05-01T12:53:35","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T11:53:35","slug":"persistence-otter-safari-27-04-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/persistence-otter-safari-27-04-18","title":{"rendered":"Persistence :-) Otter Safari 27\/04\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

I collected Paul and Jenny from The Swan<\/a> and we set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland, searching for Otters<\/a>…<\/p>\n

So far, 2018 has been another one of those years where we should be adding our regular Little Owls<\/strong><\/em> to the payroll, and the tiny predator scowling at us from a bare tree was like a toddler trying to look fierce while not really being very tall and scary at all \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> soared over the North Sea, which was looking remarkably calm, as Eiders<\/strong><\/em> rafted just offshore and Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> dived languidly before resurfacing a short distance away.\u00a0 While Teal, Mallard, Gadwall, Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> and Tufted Duck<\/strong><\/em> all looked pristine in their breeding finery, two other ducks really stole the the mid-afternoon show; Garganey<\/strong><\/em> and Pintail<\/strong><\/em> are both incredibly attractive, and both unusual enough in Northumberland in late April to be elevated above other wildfowl \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 A Little Egret<\/strong><\/em> flew by and a Spoonbill<\/strong><\/em> was, very typically, asleep in the rushes as a White Wagtail<\/strong><\/em> stood out as pale and strikingly marked compared to Pied Wagtail<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 As the Sun sank towards the horizon in the north west a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> flew by, radiantly golden in the sunlight, and Starlings<\/strong><\/em> began to gather in small numbers compared to their winter murmurations.<\/p>\n

A lone Whooper Swan<\/strong><\/em> was with Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> as Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> grazed close to the edge of a pool and dusk descended.\u00a0 Cormorant, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye<\/strong><\/em> and Great Crested Grebe<\/strong><\/em> all left ripples as they dived, but their were ripples from one edge of a reedbed with no obvious cause.\u00a0 Then there were 2 Otters<\/strong><\/em> \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We lost sight of one of them quickly, but the other could be seen, keeping low in the water and trying to sneak up on Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> which were having none of it.\u00a0 As the light faded to a point where we couldn’t seen clearly anymore, the Otter<\/strong><\/em> was still swimming back and forth in it’s incessant search for food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I collected Paul and Jenny from The Swan and we set off for an afternoon and evening around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, searching for Otters… So far, 2018 has been another one of those years where we should be adding our regular Little Owls to the payroll, and the tiny predator scowling at us […]<\/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":[97,372,122,170,212,168,488,835,243,72,171,178,837,536,179,66,398,161,169,182,244,130],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-barn-owl","tag-cormorant","tag-fulmar","tag-gadwall","tag-garganey","tag-goldeneye","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-grey-seal","tag-little-egret","tag-little-owl","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-pied-wagtail","tag-pintail","tag-roe-deer","tag-spoonbill","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-white-wagtail","tag-whooper-swan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","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=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4298,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions\/4298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}