{"id":4776,"date":"2019-05-04T15:26:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T14:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2019-05-04T15:26:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T14:26:58","slug":"warbling-kielder-bespoke-birdwatching-03-05-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/kielder\/warbling-kielder-bespoke-birdwatching-03-05-19","title":{"rendered":"Warbling :-) Kielder Bespoke Birdwatching 03\/05\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I collected Nick and Mel (for their 3rd day out with NEWT) and John and Heather from Bellingham and we took a short drive up the North Tyne valley for a day out around <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Kielder (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/experiences\/tour\/14\" target=\"_blank\">Kielder<\/a> and the Scottish Borders&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Birdwatching in a dense forest in early May is a challenge and a small flock of Chaffinches feeding on the track ahead of us were particularly obliging.  <strong><em>Robins, Blackbirds<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Chiffchaffs<\/em><\/strong> were singing from the trees around us, flight calls betrayed <strong><em>Siskins<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Crossbills<\/em><\/strong> as they passed overhead and a <strong><em>Willow Warbler<\/em><\/strong> sat out on a dead tree and was visibly shaking with the exertion of delivering that silvery descending scale.  Five <strong><em>Roe Deer<\/em><\/strong> stared at us over an open grassy bank before nonchalantly trotting off towards the cover of a small copse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Birds on the reservoir tend to be concentrated in favoured areas and <strong><em>Cormorant, Canada Goose, Mallard, Teal, Tufted Duck, Mandarin<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Little Grebe<\/em><\/strong> were all on the water as an <strong><em>Oystercatcher<\/em><\/strong> waded in the shallows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other side of the border <strong><em>Ravens<\/em><\/strong> and a <strong><em>Common Buzzard<\/em><\/strong> accompanied our picnic stop, <strong><em>Wild Goats<\/em><\/strong> were grazing close to the road and a <strong><em>Sparrowhawk<\/em><\/strong> flew low over the valley bottom before heading through the trees and out of sight.  <strong><em>Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> were chuckling in the heather and two of them were sitting very still and offering very accommodating views.  A pair of displaying <strong><em>Hen Harriers<\/em><\/strong> quickly moved over the moor and away out of sight before a lone male quartered the valley bottom, occasionally dropping and apparently tussling with prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the first few spots of rain speckling the windscreen we headed back towards Bellingham and civilisation \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I collected Nick and Mel (for their 3rd day out with NEWT) and John and Heather from Bellingham and we took a short drive up the North Tyne valley for a day out around Kielder and the Scottish Borders&#8230; Birdwatching in a dense forest in early May is a challenge and a small flock of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[102,268,148,372,839,360,171,203,210,457,208,66,89,131,169,182,495,213],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kielder","tag-chaffinch","tag-chiffchaff","tag-common-buzzard","tag-cormorant","tag-hen-harrier","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-mandarin","tag-oystercatcher","tag-raven","tag-red-grouse","tag-roe-deer","tag-siskin","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-teal","tag-tufted-duck","tag-wild-goat","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","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=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4777,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions\/4777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}