{"id":5134,"date":"2022-01-23T13:02:46","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T12:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5134"},"modified":"2022-01-23T13:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T12:02:47","slug":"punks-not-dead-otter-mini-safari-22-01-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/northumberland\/druridge\/punks-not-dead-otter-mini-safari-22-01-22","title":{"rendered":"Punk&#8217;s not dead; Otter mini-Safari 22\/01\/22"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Yesterday was our first mini-Safari this year, after filling the first three weeks of the year with stargazing events and all of the planning for other projects we&#8217;re going to be involved in this year, so it was great to meet up with Clare and Lisa, then Monica and Michael, for a few hours around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/experiences\/tour\/12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">our local patch<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Wansbeck is a vast mudflat currently, and after a stop at the weir, where <strong><em>cormorant, little grebe<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>goldeneye<\/em><\/strong> were all feeding, we walked upriver to Castle Island.  Scanning through the roosting gulls and dabbling ducks, a larger white bird was unhelpfully directly in the glare from the sun.  There&#8217;s no mistaking the long thick legs and ruffled crest of a <strong><em>spoonbill<\/em><\/strong> though, and we found a spot where it was easier to see as it obligingly woke up, preened, looked around and then seemed to be on a mission as it marched along the muddy margins. <strong><em>Cormorants<\/em><\/strong> stretched, <strong><em>little egrets<\/em><\/strong> darted at small prey in the shallows, <strong><em>redshanks<\/em><\/strong> flew off calling, the eerie cries of curlew echoed along the valley and, uncharacteristically, a single <strong><em>fieldfare<\/em><\/strong> was hopping around a large paddock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As dusk approached only five <strong><em>starlings<\/em><\/strong> appeared at a regular roost site as <strong><em>lapwings<\/em><\/strong> were scattered by a <strong><em>sparrowhawk<\/em><\/strong> and then <strong><em>teal<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>wigeon<\/em><\/strong> took to the air as a juvenile <strong><em>marsh harrier<\/em><\/strong> drifted over.  Competing against the <strong><em>spoonbill<\/em><\/strong> in the hairstyle stakes, <strong><em>red-breasted mergansers<\/em><\/strong> paraded in front of us and the harrier reappeared&#8230;accompanied by a second juvenile, and then a male harrier joined the party and started talon-grappling with one of the juveniles as a <strong><em>Cetti&#8217;s warbler<\/em><\/strong> delivered it&#8217;s explosive calls from deep in the reeds and Jupiter shone through the evening twilight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was our first mini-Safari this year, after filling the first three weeks of the year with stargazing events and all of the planning for other projects we&#8217;re going to be involved in this year, so it was great to meet up with Clare and Lisa, then Monica and Michael, for a few hours around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[919,172,168,283,243,360,171,397,188,358,131,398,161,169,181],"class_list":["post-5134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-druridge","tag-cettis-warbler","tag-curlew","tag-goldeneye","tag-grey-heron","tag-little-egret","tag-little-grebe","tag-mallard","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-red-breasted-merganser","tag-redshank","tag-sparrowhawk","tag-spoonbill","tag-starling","tag-teal","tag-wigeon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134","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=5134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5135,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134\/revisions\/5135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}