{"id":4770,"date":"2019-04-25T16:06:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T15:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4770"},"modified":"2019-04-25T16:06:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T15:06:29","slug":"misty-murky-druridge-bay-safari-24-04-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/misty-murky-druridge-bay-safari-24-04-19","title":{"rendered":"Misty, murky :-) Druridge Bay Safari 24\/04\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I collected Patrick and Susan from Newbiggin for an afternoon and evening exploring NEWT’s local patch, Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>, there were some impressive waves breaking in the bay…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A flock of Black-headed Gulls<\/em><\/strong> were pestering a Grey Heron<\/em><\/strong> that flew off, voicing its disapproval, and then they turned their attentions to a female Red-breasted Merganser<\/em><\/strong> who had to surface and dive in quick succession to avoid their attentions as a Curlew<\/em><\/strong> probed the mud along the water’s edge, Cormorants<\/em><\/strong> sat sentinel-like on dead trees mid-river and a handsome Grey Wagtail<\/em><\/strong> had taken an unusual perch on a folding chair \ud83d\ude09 Robin, Chaffinch<\/em><\/strong>, Blackcap, Chiffchaff<\/em><\/strong> and Blackbird<\/em><\/strong> were all singing and a song-flighting Whitethroat<\/em><\/strong> settled in a spot where we could see him through the branches as a charm of Goldfinches<\/em><\/strong> landed in a small tree nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last year we’ve had a really nice Dipper<\/em><\/strong> nest site that can be watched without disturbance and a Dipper<\/em><\/strong> with a beakful of food soon appeared and flew up to the nest. It returned to a mid-stream rock and spent a little while preening before sticking it’s head into the water and looking around for food. A second bird brought food to the nest and then the first bird was remarkably obliging and fed underwater almost directly below us so we could see it as it darted around and probed in the river bed as Great Spotted Woodpeckers<\/em><\/strong> and Long-tailed Tits<\/em><\/strong> called nearby and the trilling of a Nuthatch<\/em><\/strong> cut through the trees around some open grass where two Song Thrushes<\/em><\/strong> were gathering food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our picnic spot overlooking the huge crashing waves of the North Sea produced lines of Gannets<\/em><\/strong> offshore, Eider<\/em><\/strong> riding the swell just beyond the breaking surf and a Kestrel<\/em><\/strong> hovering on the wind nearby and demonstrating it’s scanning technique very obligingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dusk came sooner than expected in increasingly heavy mist and as a flock of Oystercatchers, Lapwing, Redshank, Avocet<\/em><\/strong> and Curlew<\/em><\/strong> repeatedly flushed, Grey Herons<\/em><\/strong> disputed feeding spots and Water Rails<\/em><\/strong> squealed from the reeds the hectic warbling of Sedge Warblers<\/em><\/strong> and the reeling of Grasshopper Warblers<\/em><\/strong> cut through the gloom as we headed back to the car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I collected Patrick and Susan from Newbiggin for an afternoon and evening exploring NEWT’s local patch, Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland, there were some impressive waves breaking in the bay… A flock of Black-headed Gulls were pestering a Grey Heron that flew off, voicing its disapproval, and then they turned their attentions to a […]<\/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":[40,133,102,268,556,372,172,257,149,185,168,103,228,488,974,283,256,128,123,121,171,210,116,227,145,169,237],"class_list":["post-4770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-avocet","tag-blackbird","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-redshank","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-eider","tag-gannet","tag-goldeneye","tag-goldfinch","tag-grasshopper-warbler","tag-great-crested-grebe","tag-gret-spotted-woodpecker","tag-grey-heron","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-kestrel","tag-lapwing","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-mallard","tag-oystercatcher","tag-robin","tag-sedge-warbler","tag-song-thrush","tag-teal","tag-water-rail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770","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=4770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4771,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4770\/revisions\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}