{"id":598,"date":"2010-06-19T18:39:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-19T18:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2010-06-19T18:39:25","modified_gmt":"2010-06-19T18:39:25","slug":"a-little-otter-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/a-little-otter-on-friday","title":{"rendered":"A little otter on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our fifth safari in four days had been arranged as a birthday present and I collected Barry and Maureen from Ponteland\u00a0before starting with our usual southeast Northumberland birdwatching woodland walk.\u00a0 The ‘Red vs Grey’ conundrum occupied our conversation as we enjoyed excellent views of a Red Squirrel<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 As we walked by a wonderful hay meadow it was hard to believe that we were in an area that one of our previous clients had expected to be ‘sort of grim and industrial’ \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 On the coast our regular Little Owl<\/em><\/strong> was as chilled out as ever and the Sedge Warblers<\/em><\/strong> and Reed Buntings<\/em><\/strong> were struggling to cling to the reeds in a strengthening breeze.\u00a0 Strong wind is just about the worst condition for watching wildlife but I’m ever the optimist…<\/p>\n

The combination of that optimism, and a lot of experience of Otter<\/em><\/strong> behaviour, meant that I still believed that our target for the day would be achieved.\u00a0 Sure enough, we were able to watch\u00a0an Otter<\/em><\/strong> briefly as it fed.\u00a0 A commotion in a reedbed, a scattering of ducks, and two nervous-looking Coots<\/em><\/strong>, meant that I was sure we were about to see a second Otter<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 It soon appeared and we enjoyed a prolonged period of observation as it made it’s way across the pond, eventually passing close by our position.\u00a0 More Sedge Warblers <\/em><\/strong>and Reed Buntings<\/em><\/strong> were singing as we walked through another meadow, teeming with vetch<\/em><\/strong> and some stunning orchids<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and a Reed Warbler<\/em><\/strong> was picking it’s way along the base of a reedbed before starting to sing and providing a perfect comparison with a nearby Sedge Warbler<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 As I drove Barry and Maureen home I was thinking about how, no matter how often I lead our tours, every day is different.\u00a0 It may be a cliche, but it’s the best part of what we do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our fifth safari in four days had been arranged as a birthday present and I collected Barry and Maureen from Ponteland\u00a0before starting with our usual southeast Northumberland birdwatching woodland walk.\u00a0 The ‘Red vs Grey’ conundrum occupied our conversation as we enjoyed excellent views of a Red Squirrel.\u00a0 As we walked by a wonderful hay meadow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,139],"tags":[72,220,837,833,127,267,227],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-northumberland","category-southeast-northumberland","tag-little-owl","tag-northumberland-birdwatching","tag-otter","tag-red-squirrel","tag-reed-bunting","tag-reed-warbler","tag-sedge-warbler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","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=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}