{"id":4909,"date":"2019-10-31T16:28:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T15:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4909"},"modified":"2019-10-31T16:28:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T15:28:39","slug":"murmuration-bespoke-druridge-bay-safari-21-10-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/murmuration-bespoke-druridge-bay-safari-21-10-19","title":{"rendered":"Murmuration; Bespoke Druridge Bay Safari 21\/10\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Late October and big flocks of stuff are starting to feature more and more prominently&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I collected Caroline, Ian and Ted from Embleton and we headed down the coast towards NEWT&#8217;s local patch, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/experiences\/tour\/12\" target=\"_blank\">Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland<\/a>.  <strong><em>Little Grebes<\/em><\/strong> were diving in calm water as <strong><em>Cormorants<\/em><\/strong> sat on long dead branches and a <strong><em>Kingfisher<\/em><\/strong> raced past as <strong><em>Little Egrets<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Grey Herons<\/em><\/strong> demonstrated very different approaches to hunting; debonair darting and dashing and steady, stealthy menace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <strong><em>Common Buzzard<\/em><\/strong> was perched on a fence as flocks of <strong><em>Wigeon, Teal, Mallard<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Goldeneye<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Gadwall<\/em><\/strong> drifted quietly on the water and <strong><em>Lapwings<\/em><\/strong> flushed in alarm as <strong><em>Curlews<\/em><\/strong> left a nearby field, their eerie cries cutting through the cool air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As dusk approached and the squeals of <strong><em>Water Rails<\/em><\/strong> emanated from the reedbeds a <strong><em>Starling<\/em><\/strong> murmuration grew into a swirling cloud against the darkening sky.  Twisting one way then another and then splitting, rejoining and tightening as a <strong><em>Marsh Harrier<\/em><\/strong> chanced it&#8217;s luck in a desparate attempt to grab a bird from the writhing amorphous mass while high overhead the high yapping calls of skein after skein of <strong><em>Pink-footed Geese<\/em><\/strong> continued as daylight faded to black and we made our way back north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late October and big flocks of stuff are starting to feature more and more prominently&#8230; I collected Caroline, Ian and Ted from Embleton and we headed down the coast towards NEWT&#8217;s local patch, Druridge Bay and southeast Northumberland. Little Grebes were diving in calm water as Cormorants sat on long dead branches and a Kingfisher [&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":[372,172,168,283,123,243,360,171,397,129,161,169,237,181],"class_list":["post-4909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-cormorant","tag-curlew","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-heron","tag-lapwing","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-water-rail","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4909","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=4909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4910,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4909\/revisions\/4910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}