{"id":4337,"date":"2018-06-14T18:40:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T17:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4337"},"modified":"2018-06-14T18:40:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T17:40:56","slug":"lovely-afternoon-murky-evening-druridge-bay-bespoke-birdwatching-13-06-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/lovely-afternoon-murky-evening-druridge-bay-bespoke-birdwatching-13-06-18","title":{"rendered":"Lovely afternoon, murky evening; Druridge Bay Bespoke Birdwatching 13\/06\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was Mike and Maggie’s 5th day out with NEWT and we were heading to Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Days out with returning clients are always a pleasure; catching up with what’s been going on since we last met and sharing notes on our local wildlife is much more an afternoon with old friends, and in this case doubly nice as Mike’s a photographer and uses Nikon gear \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 I’d just had 3 days leading a photography holiday and getting a good look at a Sigma 150-600mm lens on a Nikon body, and Mike arrived with a Nikon 200-500mm lens on the same body that I use for wildlife photography so I’ve enjoyed some hands-on experience of the lenses that I’m (still) trying to decide between, as well as getting first-hand opinions on the lenses from photographers using them \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 First stop was for an obligingly still subject, and Mike and Maggie both had Bee Orchids<\/strong><\/em> in front of their cameras.\u00a0 Our riparian woodland walk brought flycatching Grey Wagtails<\/strong><\/em>, Great Spotted Woodpeckers<\/strong><\/em> calling from the trees and a family party of Blackcaps<\/strong><\/em> with both adults feeding recently fledged young.\u00a0 A Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> was soaring over the trees as we headed on to our picnic spot and the first very light spots of rain started to fall…<\/p>\n

As we had our picnic, overlooking the North Sea with Gannets<\/strong><\/em> and Fulmars<\/strong><\/em> soaring over it and Grey Seals<\/strong><\/em> bottling just offshore the rain started to intensify and the breeze was strengthening.\u00a0 Heading on we watched at least 19 Avocets<\/strong><\/em>, as Shelduck<\/strong><\/em> babies seemed intent on doing their own thing and wandering away from the protective aggression of their parents.\u00a0 Then the Grey Herons began to arrive and were lining up on the bank and watching the ducklings.\u00a0 Each time a heron<\/strong><\/em> flew it was mobbed by Avocets<\/strong><\/em> and Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> until eventually they all flew off together and disappeared behind a reedbed.\u00a0 Still the rain and the breeze intensified until finally we decided that trying to see anything in the gloom of dusk was a losing battle, although not as much of a battle as it would have been if we’d been out today and wrestling with Storm Hector…<\/p>\n

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

Yesterday was Mike and Maggie’s 5th day out with NEWT and we were heading to Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland… Days out with returning clients are always a pleasure; catching up with what’s been going on since we last met and sharing notes on our local wildlife is much more an afternoon with old friends, […]<\/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":[40,554,461,148,122,185,25,283,835,256,123,189,161],"class_list":["post-4337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-avocet","tag-bee-orchid","tag-blackcap","tag-common-buzzard","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-great-spotted-woodpecker","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-seal","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-lapwing","tag-shelduck","tag-starling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337","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=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4339,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions\/4339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}