{"id":522,"date":"2010-05-20T06:34:52","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T06:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=522"},"modified":"2010-05-24T08:04:36","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T08:04:36","slug":"slow-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/slow-slow","title":{"rendered":"Slow, slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first of two days out with the winners of last year’s Birdwatching Northumberland prize draw.\u00a0 After collecting Andy and Jean from the Bamburgh Castle Inn our destination was the Harthope Valley in the Cheviots.\u00a0 It’s one of our favourite locations; stunning landscape, interesting geology and, of course, excellent wildlife.\u00a0 As we reached the start of the valley we stopped to check on a Dipper<\/em><\/strong> nest, and there was one of the adults sitting on a rock in the river, so close that we didn’t need binoculars.\u00a0 Further upstream we watched a pair of Grey Wagtails<\/em><\/strong>, eventually locating their nest in the tangled exposed roots of a riverside tree, before setting off in search of Ring Ouzels<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 It wasn’t too long before we heard a singing male, but he remained stubbornly out of sight.\u00a0 As we climbed higher up the valley the song seemed to be coming from somewhere else and careful scanning of the area revealed our quarry, perched on the remnants of a dry stone wall.\u00a0 A pair of Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong>, with at least 7 chicks, were very obliging and a pair of Whinchat<\/em><\/strong> were flitting around in the heather.\u00a0 After lunch we were treated to more Grey Wagtails<\/em><\/strong>, including a bird singing and displaying high overhead, and these were a real highlight of the day, a singing Dipper<\/em><\/strong>, Tree Pipit<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Redstart<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Cuckoo<\/em><\/strong>, a plethora of Willow Warblers<\/em><\/strong> and the shivering trill of a Wood Warbler<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Andy was keen to take a photograph of a Green Tiger Beetle<\/em><\/strong> and, eventually, one sat still for long enough to allow him to get close to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Green Tiger Beetle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The non-bird highlight of the day though came as we walked back to the Land Rover; a pair of Slow Worms<\/em><\/strong> locked in a mating embrace.\u00a0 A remarkable end to an excellent day captured on camera by Andy, who kindly sent me the images to add to our blog.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This embrace can last for up to 10 hours!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
That doesn't look comfortable<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first of two days out with the winners of last year’s Birdwatching Northumberland prize draw.\u00a0 After collecting Andy and Jean from the Bamburgh Castle Inn our destination was the Harthope Valley in the Cheviots.\u00a0 It’s one of our favourite locations; stunning landscape, interesting geology and, of course, excellent wildlife.\u00a0 As we reached […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,5],"tags":[823,52,264,257,279,256,825,208,259,263,261,258,262,213,260],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-cheviot-valleys","category-northumberland","tag-birdwatching","tag-birdwatching-northumberland","tag-cuckoo","tag-dipper","tag-green-tiger-beetle","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-northumberland","tag-red-grouse","tag-redstart","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-slow-worm","tag-tree-pipit","tag-whinchat","tag-willow-warbler","tag-wood-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","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=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}