{"id":582,"date":"2010-06-13T10:53:43","date_gmt":"2010-06-13T10:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=582"},"modified":"2010-06-21T03:21:41","modified_gmt":"2010-06-21T03:21:41","slug":"on-the-trail-of-the-otter-and-then-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/on-the-trail-of-the-otter-and-then-some","title":{"rendered":"On the trail of the otter…and then some"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first of several forthcoming days where we’re running multiple trips on the same day, and with 6 clients during the day, and 2 of them joining us for an evening safari as well, it was a day that could go really well, or not…<\/p>\n

The primary target species for everyone was our old favourite, Otters<\/em><\/strong>. We started with a spot of birdwatching, and excellent views of the Little Owl<\/em><\/strong> that we should probably be adding to the NEWT payroll \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 Our first Otter<\/em><\/strong> site didn’t produce the goods, although 2 Brown Hares<\/em><\/strong> chasing each other around a nearby field provided good entertainment.\u00a0 Once we’d been there as long as I’d decided in advance of the trip, I had a hunch that another site, that has disappointed for several months now, might just produce the goods.\u00a0 As we arrived I pointed out the location of a holt and suggested that the area around that was a good place to check.\u00a0 Within a minute, Anthea had found 2 Otters<\/em><\/strong>, and we watched them for 75 mins as they fed, played, paddled along the surface, dodged in and out of the reeds and eventually vanished, probably to\u00a0have an afternoon nap\u00a0after their marathon feeding session.\u00a0 A bit more birdwatching further up the coast produced excellent views of Common<\/em><\/strong> and Sandwich Terns<\/em><\/strong> and then it was time to return Liz &\u00a0James and Kate\u00a0& Take (pronounced Tarka – the most appropriate name for any participant in a NEWT trip so far) to their respective holiday locations and start the second trip of the day with Andy and Anthea.<\/p>\n

Anthea is an Australian with a fascination for British wildlife and the day out was part of a target list that she has for a 3 month trip around Britain and Europe.\u00a0 Red Squirrel<\/em><\/strong> was next on the list and patience and persistence paid off as we settled ourselves close to a feeding area\u00a0and eventually had excellent views of at least 3 squirrels, and some very close Jays, Great Spotted Woodpeckers<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 and a Nuthatch.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With such a long day, sustenance came in the form of a meal at The Swan<\/a>\u00a0before we were on our way again.\u00a0 Myriads of Rabbits<\/em><\/strong> were along the roads and we made our way along the heavily wooded valley of a small stream and got into position opposite a Badger<\/em><\/strong> sett.\u00a0 A Red Fox<\/em><\/strong> walked along the hillside before vanishing into the undergrowth and causing consternation in all of the birds that were settling to roost.\u00a0 It re-appeared just up the track from where were sitting and ran up the hill behind us, then a 2nd Fox<\/em><\/strong> crossed the hillside.\u00a0 Soon we were treated to the sight of not one, not two, but three Badgers<\/em><\/strong> crossing a clearing.\u00a0 As the light levels in the wood dropped to unmanageable we relocated to a feeding area that’s popular with Badgers<\/em><\/strong> and Foxes<\/em><\/strong> where we watched another Fox<\/em><\/strong> as it stalked along an edge, apparently invisible to the Rabbits<\/em><\/strong> that were sitting on the grass.\u00a0 As we walked back to the Land Rover we added mammals #7 and #8 to the day list; Common Pipistrelle<\/em><\/strong> and Daubenton’s Bat.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>A long day, but a really, really excellent one \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first of several forthcoming days where we’re running multiple trips on the same day, and with 6 clients during the day, and 2 of them joining us for an evening safari as well, it was a day that could go really well, or not… The primary target species for everyone was our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287,3,5,21,19,139],"tags":[286,823,57,250,299,25,24,72,825,300,837,284,847,833],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badger-wildlife","category-birdwatching","category-northumberland","category-otter","category-red-squirrel","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-badger","tag-birdwatching","tag-brown-hare","tag-common-pipistrelle","tag-daubentons-bat","tag-great-spotted-woodpecker","tag-jay","tag-little-owl","tag-northumberland","tag-nuthatch","tag-otter","tag-rabbit","tag-red-fox","tag-red-squirrel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","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=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}