{"id":4798,"date":"2019-06-26T14:38:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T13:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4798"},"modified":"2019-06-26T14:38:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T13:38:26","slug":"london-buses-bespoke-red-squirrel-safari-25-06-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/london-buses-bespoke-red-squirrel-safari-25-06-19","title":{"rendered":"London buses; Bespoke Red Squirrel Safari 25\/06\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday was one of those days with a very specific target, this time one of our favourite mammals, and a real Northumberland specialty, Red Squirrel<\/em><\/strong>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I collected Lynne and Rob from Lowick and we headed down the Northumberland coast towards Druridge Bay<\/a> and southeast Northumberland. I’d got an itinerary in mind, based around good wildlife locations that have squirrel feeders. Plan A was the site where I was sure we’d find squirrels but they weren’t showing so we headed off to Plan B. We’ve been stocking feeders there and Sarah had replenished them all on Monday evening…and every scrap of food had gone by the time we arrived there on Tuesday morning! The extraordinary number of Jays<\/em><\/strong> flying around, as Goldcrests<\/em><\/strong> sang from dense dark conifer plantations and Bullfinches<\/em><\/strong> called from pathside hedgerows, may have been a clue to where all the food had gone and the only squirrel we saw was a Grey Squirrel<\/em><\/strong>. Plan C was a site we haven’t visited for a couple of years, and the well-stocked squirrel feeders there were a very positive sign, but Great Tits, Coal Tits, Chaffinches<\/em><\/strong> and a Magpie<\/em><\/strong> were the only visitors to the feeding station while we were there. Plan D is a site that has produced some memorable squirrel experiences for our clients over the years, but it’s also a site that is periodically overrun by Grey Squirrels<\/em><\/strong> and the unstocked squirrel feeders left me less than optimistic, although a small flock of Bullfinches<\/em><\/strong> added a touch of colour in the increasing gloom as the first raindrops began to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally to Plan E…which was a reprise of Plan A. No sign of any squirrels<\/em><\/strong> but it’s always good to catch-up with Anthony – and in the 30s I looked away from the feeders to tell him where we’d been during the day…one popped up on top of a feeder! It’s always a relief to get a target species safely observed then, as Lynne used her ‘phone to photograph the squirrel<\/em><\/strong> through the eyepiece of our telescope a second one appeared and they disputed the right to be on the feeder. Then a third Red Squirrel<\/em><\/strong> appeared above the feeder as the second one launched a sneaky attack from below and the squirrel<\/em><\/strong> occupying the feeder was knocked clean out of the tree. Like London buses, you wait ages and then three come along together \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was one of those days with a very specific target, this time one of our favourite mammals, and a real Northumberland specialty, Red Squirrel… I collected Lynne and Rob from Lowick and we headed down the Northumberland coast towards Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. I’d got an itinerary in mind, based around good wildlife […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,139],"tags":[133,101,135,45,24,47,833],"class_list":["post-4798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-blackbird","tag-coal-tit","tag-goldcrest","tag-great-tit","tag-jay","tag-magpie","tag-red-squirrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798","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=4798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4799,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4798\/revisions\/4799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}