Sunday started with a journey to inland Northumberland, birdwatching on some heather moorland in order to complete our final 2 ‘early season’ visits for the BTO Bird Atlas.\u00a0 Contrary to the forecast weather, it was cold, windy and drizzly.\u00a0 However, we set off and were eventually rewarded with a dramatic improvement as the sun came out and so did the birds.\u00a0 Alongside all of the Willow Warblers, Chaffinches, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits the highlights were at least 3 Spotted Flycatchers and a stunning male Whinchat.\u00a0 A pair of Curlew began alarming as we crossed the moorland, constantly changing position\u00a0to draw us\u00a0away from\u00a0their nest location.<\/p>\n
After a walk of just over 5 miles we headed home and decided that we would venture out towards dusk in search of badgers.\u00a0 We’ve got an Otter and Badger trip on Thursday so\u00a0we needed to\u00a0check on the current status of a couple of setts that we’ve been watching for some time.\u00a0 As we settled into position, with what appeared to be a horde of bats flying around, Blackbirds and Mistle Thrushes were alarming (as they often do late in the day).\u00a0 Soon, movement on the hillside opposite\u00a0revealed our first badger of the evening.\u00a0 Very grey, with cream stripes, it came out of a sett, squatted on a patch of bare earth and then vanished into the undergrowth.\u00a0 A second animal quickly followed, much more gingery than the first, and then a third, starkly black and white.\u00a0 It really is a privilege to sit and watch these magnificent animals as they go about their business (no pun intended).<\/p>\n
After such a successful evening, getting a ‘phone call earlier today “can you take us out to look for Red Squirrels, Otters and Badgers tomorrow please” was exactly what we wanted.\u00a0 Once upon a time I wouldn’t have been happy working on a Bank Holiday weekend, now it’s an enjoyable\u00a0part of my career choice.\u00a0 Just over 2 years in, and I don’t regret even a tiny part of that decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday started with a journey to inland Northumberland, birdwatching on some heather moorland in order to complete our final 2 ‘early season’ visits for the BTO Bird Atlas.\u00a0 Contrary to the forecast weather, it was cold, windy and drizzly.\u00a0 However, we set off and were eventually rewarded with a dramatic improvement as the sun came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[286,823,133,102,172,207,146,825,220,837,833,191,285,262,213],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-northumberland","tag-badger","tag-birdwatching","tag-blackbird","tag-chaffinch","tag-curlew","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-mistle-thrush","tag-northumberland","tag-northumberland-birdwatching","tag-otter","tag-red-squirrel","tag-skylark","tag-spotted-flycatcher","tag-whinchat","tag-willow-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","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=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}