{"id":4389,"date":"2018-07-06T15:42:38","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T14:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4389"},"modified":"2018-07-06T15:42:38","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T14:42:38","slug":"the-sublimity-of-evening-bespoke-otter-safari-05-07-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/the-sublimity-of-evening-bespoke-otter-safari-05-07-18","title":{"rendered":"The sublimity of evening; Bespoke Otter Safari 05\/07\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been great in hot sunny weather so as I collected Mike and Moira, for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters<\/a> around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>, I was hoping for an increase in cloud cover…<\/p>\n

In the heat of the afternoon, Avocets<\/strong><\/em> were harassing Grey Herons<\/strong><\/em> and Shelduck<\/strong><\/em> ducklings were skittering about on the surface of coastal pools as a Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> ghosted through the reeds at the water’s edge and Lapwings<\/strong><\/em> squabbled nearby.\u00a0 A Little Owl<\/strong><\/em> glared down from it’s perch between chimney pots as cloud began to roll in and Canada<\/strong><\/em> and Greylag Geese<\/strong><\/em> were looking alert but there was no sign of the cause of their concern<\/p>\n

As daylight turned to dusk there was little sign of the Sun and that improved visibility substantially \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Swallows, Swifts, House Martins<\/strong><\/em> and Sand Martins<\/strong><\/em> were plundering the rich feast of flying insects and a spectacular dense flock of 39 Black-tailed Godwits<\/strong><\/em> twisted and turned in the air in front of us as the distinctive call of Whimbrel<\/strong><\/em> failed to betray their location.\u00a0 Water Rails<\/strong><\/em> were running nervously in and out of the reeds as another Roe Deer<\/strong><\/em> appeared, trotting through the shallow edge of the pool, and Tufted Ducks<\/strong><\/em> gathered their ducklings into tight groups as Cormorants<\/strong><\/em> took off, Mute Swans<\/strong><\/em> began staring at the reeds and a Little Grebe<\/strong><\/em> suddenly froze in position.\u00a0 Then an Otter<\/strong><\/em> appeared just in front of us \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 We watched it for 45 minutes, including a remarkable tableau of hunting Otter<\/strong><\/em> beneath murmuration of Starlings<\/strong><\/em> with a Barn Owl<\/strong><\/em> quartering the reeds just a few metres away from us, before it vanished into the gloom of dusk and a distant reedbed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never been great in hot sunny weather so as I collected Mike and Moira, for an afternoon and evening searching for Otters around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, I was hoping for an increase in cloud cover… In the heat of the afternoon, Avocets were harassing Grey Herons and Shelduck ducklings were skittering about […]<\/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":[40,97,242,560,372,283,190,232,123,360,72,178,837,66,218,189,161,217,233,237,231],"class_list":["post-4389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-otter","tag-avocet","tag-barn-owl","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-canada-goose","tag-cormorant","tag-grey-heron","tag-greylag-goose","tag-house-martin","tag-lapwing","tag-little-grebe","tag-little-owl","tag-mute-swan","tag-otter","tag-roe-deer","tag-sand-martin","tag-shelduck","tag-starling","tag-swallow","tag-swift","tag-water-rail","tag-whimbrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4389","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=4389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4391,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4389\/revisions\/4391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}