Yesterday’s Druridge Bay\/Southeast Northumberland trip was focussed on coastal birdwatching and, particularly,\u00a0mammals.\u00a0 We’re moving more and more towards early starts and\/or late finishes on our Safaris; some of our clients like the 9-5 sort of day out which slots easily into their daily routine whereas\u00a0others are more adventurous and a mid-afternoon start means that we’re still out at what is, in my opinion, the best time of the day…<\/p>\n
It’s near to dusk and we’re sitting on a hillside in a shaded wood.\u00a0 Opposite us is an area of open ground that will, I hope, provide a longed-for lifer for my clients.\u00a0 Pipistrelles<\/em><\/strong> are racing backwards and forwards around our heads and everyone is following\u00a0their pre-trip\u00a0instructions to the letter; no movement, no sound, make sure there’s something behind you to break up your silhouette.<\/p>\n We’ve already had an excellent afternoon in the stunning weather;\u00a0 a Little Owl<\/em> <\/strong>sat and watched us without any concern – perhaps it recognises our Land Rover after a few visits,\u00a0and realises that we aren’t a threat?\u00a0 A Barn Owl <\/em><\/strong>flew close by, taking prey back to the nest and\u00a0a Reed Bunting<\/em><\/strong> sang from a reedbed just a few meters away, it’s simple song drowned out by the extraordinary performance of a Sedge Warbler<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Now though, we’re approaching\u00a0the culmination of the trip and there’s a strong sense of anticipation.\u00a0 A movement on the hillside opposite, and there’s our first Badger<\/em><\/strong> of the evening \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Trotting along a track near the top of the hill, we get just a few seconds as it’s clearly on a mission.\u00a0 Everyone sits still and silent; discipline indeed after the appearance of the day’s main target.\u00a0 A Red Fox <\/em><\/strong>came down off the hillside then\u00a0walked past us and up the bank we were sitting against, as unconcerned as the\u00a0Little Owl<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by our presence.\u00a0 Patience pays off a few minutes later when two young\u00a0Badgers<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0appear low down on the hillside.\u00a0 After a few minutes of playing around behind a tree trunk, and only being visible briefly, one of them comes out into the open; snuffling and foraging it’s way across the clearing, these are the views of wildlife that make what we do so much fun.\u00a0 A brief pause, and it turned to face us, lifting it’s head high.\u00a0 Have we been spotted?\u00a0 A lot of succesful wildlife encounters depend on not being seen, or at least not appearing to be a threat.\u00a0 As it returns to happily foraging on the hillside I breathe a sigh of relief,\u00a0knowing that we’d got it right, and once it had vanished into the undergrowth we retreat silently from our watchpoint, treading carefully; after all, we’ve managed to watch these iconic animals without disturbing them, it would be\u00a0a real shame to cause them distress as we leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday’s Druridge Bay\/Southeast Northumberland trip was focussed on coastal birdwatching and, particularly,\u00a0mammals.\u00a0 We’re moving more and more towards early starts and\/or late finishes on our Safaris; some of our clients like the 9-5 sort of day out which slots easily into their daily routine whereas\u00a0others are more adventurous and a mid-afternoon start means that we’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287,3,9,5,139,18],"tags":[286,97,823,72,825,292,847],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badger-wildlife","category-birdwatching","category-druridge","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","category-wildlife","tag-badger","tag-barn-owl","tag-birdwatching","tag-little-owl","tag-northumberland","tag-pipistrelle","tag-red-fox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","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=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}