{"id":580,"date":"2010-06-13T10:07:52","date_gmt":"2010-06-13T10:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=580"},"modified":"2011-10-28T05:49:24","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T05:49:24","slug":"remote-birdwatching-on-northumberlands-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/remote-birdwatching-on-northumberlands-borders","title":{"rendered":"Remote birdwatching on Northumberland&#8217;s borders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>North Pennines<\/strong> may not have the highest species density of any of the areas that we visit but, in terms of peace, tranquility and solitude, it takes some beating.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday morning I drove to Corbridge to collect Lesley and David, two of our Prestige clients, for a day of birdwatching around\u00a0Northumberland&#8217;s remote border.\u00a0 As we headed southwest the landscape became wilder and\u00a0with less of any obvious human influence.\u00a0 <strong><em>Curlew<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Lapwing<\/em><\/strong>, <strong><em>Golden Plover<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and <strong><em>Snipe<\/em><\/strong> may be common sights on the coast in the winter but, on remote moorland in the spring, they&#8217;re transformed into something other-worldly.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the <strong>North Pennines<\/strong> flowers are quite stunning as well; <strong><em>Mountain Pansy, Scottish Asphodel<\/em><\/strong>, swathes of <strong><em>Cotton Grass<\/em><\/strong> waving in the breeze and, my own favourite, <strong><em>Spring Gentian<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 we found no less than 20 gentians, including a group of 11 at a spot where last year there were only 4.\u00a0 As we used a hand lens to admire the remarkable structures of <strong><em>lichens<\/em><\/strong> on the rocks in a deep narrow gorge, the bird species that are typical of that habitat type entertained us;\u00a0a family of <strong><em>Dippers<\/em><\/strong> were feeding in the fast-flowing water, with the juveniles clearly hesitant to take the plunge, <strong><em>Grey Wagtails<\/em><\/strong> were flycatching and a <strong><em>Ring Ouzel<\/em><\/strong> flew from a pile of boulders.\u00a0 The afternoon continued with\u00a0a family of\u00a0<strong><em>Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> and then a small group of <strong><em>Black Grouse<\/em><\/strong>. As is often the case these were all <strong><em>Blackcock<\/em><\/strong>, engaging in some half-hearted lekking in the afternoon sunshine.<\/p>\n<p>After returning Lesley and David to their holiday cottage, stumbling across a <strong><em>Hobby <\/em><\/strong>mobbed by hirundines on the way,\u00a0I headed home, then out to a 30th birthday party (Happy Birthday Kerry!), then to The Swan before going home, checking everything in readiness for Saturday&#8217;s 2 Safaris, and hitting the pillow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The North Pennines may not have the highest species density of any of the areas that we visit but, in terms of peace, tranquility and solitude, it takes some beating. On Friday morning I drove to Corbridge to collect Lesley and David, two of our Prestige clients, for a day of birdwatching around\u00a0Northumberland&#8217;s remote border.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5],"tags":[54,297,172,257,175,256,294,123,30,298,208,263,296,204,295],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-cotton-grass","tag-curlew","tag-dipper","tag-golden-plover","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-hobby","tag-lapwing","tag-lichens","tag-mountain-pansy","tag-red-grouse","tag-ring-ouzel","tag-scottish-asphodel","tag-snipe","tag-spring-gentian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","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=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}