{"id":4693,"date":"2018-11-17T16:33:32","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T15:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4693"},"modified":"2018-11-17T16:33:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T15:33:32","slug":"mesmerising-murmuration-druridge-bay-bespoke-birdwatching-15-11-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/mesmerising-murmuration-druridge-bay-bespoke-birdwatching-15-11-18","title":{"rendered":"Mesmerising murmuration; Druridge Bay Bespoke birdwatching 15\/11\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of our clients muse on the possibility of retiring and moving to Northumberland, and John had done just that and booked a bespoke day out with us to explore some of the lesser-known birdwatching sites around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/experiences\/tour\/12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>With an almost cloudless blue sky and a chill wind we set out and were soon watching <em><strong>Common Redshanks<\/strong><\/em> as they probed the mud along the waterline with <em><strong>Red-breasted Mergansers<\/strong><\/em> in the background, a <em><strong>Grey Wagtail<\/strong><\/em> flycatching from rocks amidst fast flowing water, and a <em><strong>Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> against the azure sky mobbed by a swarm of <em><strong>Jackdaws<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 <em><strong>Bullfinches<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Goldcrests<\/strong><\/em> called from hidden positions in hawthorn bushes and a <em><strong>Short-eared Owl<\/strong><\/em> quartering rough grassland plunged out of sight after prey repeatedly without ever appearing carrying anything.\u00a0 The plan for dusk was a visit to (hopefully) a <em><strong>Starling<\/strong><\/em> roost.\u00a0 With <em><strong>Water Rails<\/strong><\/em> squealing from reedbeds, and <em><strong>Wigeon, Teal, Mallard, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Mute Swan<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Whooper Swan<\/strong><\/em> on the water around roosting <em><strong>Lapwings, Golden Plovers<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Cormorants, Starlings<\/strong><\/em> started to arrive.\u00a0 Cloud after cloud of birds landed in a small section of reeds before leaving again in groups of a few hundred birds every few seconds.\u00a0 A sudden panic ran through the flock and as they bunched tightly, twisting and turning, a <em><strong>Sparrowhawk<\/strong><\/em> came through before settling on the ground before reappearing around the end of the reeds and flying past us carrying a <em><strong>Starling<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 With dusk descending to darkness the murmuring rustle of birds in the reedbeds faded to silence as we walked back to the car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of our clients muse on the possibility of retiring and moving to Northumberland, and John had done just that and booked a bespoke day out with us to explore some of the lesser-known birdwatching sites around Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland&#8230; With an almost cloudless blue sky and a chill wind we set [&hellip;]<\/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":[27,556,372,170,135,175,168,256,382,123,171,178,188,456,131,161,169,237,130,181],"class_list":["post-4693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-bullfinch","tag-common-redshank","tag-cormorant","tag-gadwall","tag-goldcrest","tag-golden-plover","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-jackdaw","tag-lapwing","tag-mallard","tag-mute-swan","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-short-eared-owl","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-water-rail","tag-whooper-swan","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693","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=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4695,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions\/4695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}