{"id":670,"date":"2010-09-06T06:25:43","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T06:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=670"},"modified":"2012-09-25T13:44:07","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T12:44:07","slug":"life-begins-at-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/life-begins-at-40","title":{"rendered":"Life begins at 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday was our long-awaited pelagic to the Farne Deeps.\u00a0 We’d originally planned the trip for August 12th, but the weather put paid to that \ud83d\ude41\u00a0 Rescheduling to September 3rd meant that four of the original participants had to withdraw because of other commitments, but we were able to fill those places and have a reserve list.\u00a0 Birdwatching from a boat in the North Sea, with the possibility of cetaceans as well, is always an enjoyable way to spend a day.<\/p>\n

When I arrived at Royal Quays just after 7.30 I was surprised to see that nine of the other eleven participants were already there; obviously eager to join Northern Experience on our ‘voyage into the unknown’.<\/p>\n

As we left the Tyne we soon began to began to find Guillemots, Razorbills\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and Puffins<\/em><\/strong> on the sea; all 3 species featuring regularly throughout the day.\u00a0 Gannets, Fulmars <\/em><\/strong>and Kittiwakes<\/em><\/strong> were all seen in good numbers (Kittiwakes<\/em><\/strong> in particular) and we continued to head north northeast, getting further offshore from the Northumberland coast.<\/p>\n

I was watching the depth plotter carefully as we approached the edge of the deep water and, as I stepped out of the wheelhouse, thinking that things could get very interesting quite soon, almost collapsed as Allan shouted “Dolphin!”.\u00a0 Within a minute we’d got two stunning White-beaked Dolphins <\/em><\/strong>bow-riding.\u00a0 They stayed with us for 40 minutes, and during that time there were at least another three a little distance from the boat.\u00a0 I managed to get ‘a bit’ of video footage \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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As if all the excitement of having the dolphins around the boat wasn’t enough, Geoff Morgan spotted a Grey Phalarope (Red Phalarope <\/em><\/strong>for any readers in the US).\u00a0 After Geoff’s initial call it was 4 mins before the bird was relocated; sitting on the sea in front of the boat as we continued along with the dolphins.\u00a0 The phalarope, as well as an excellent bird to see in early September, was a milestone as it’s the 40th ‘seabird’ (defined as those covered by Peter Harrison’s excellent ‘Seabirds: an identification guide’) to be found on pelagic trips off Northumberland since the first NTBC organised trip in 1987.<\/p>\n

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As well as the birds mentioned previously we also found;<\/p>\n

Manx Shearwater<\/em><\/strong> 4<\/p>\n

Sooty Shearwater<\/em><\/strong> 4<\/p>\n

Arctic Skua<\/em><\/strong> 4<\/p>\n

Great Skua<\/em><\/strong> 9<\/p>\n

Typically, the Manx Shearwaters<\/em><\/strong> and Arctic Skuas<\/em><\/strong> stayed well away from the boat but the Sooty Shearwaters<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 and Great Skuas<\/em><\/strong> were much more obliging \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

By the end of the day, nearly everyone on board had enjoyed lifers; the White-beaked Dolphins<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were a much sought-after species for Joanne and the result of a lot of effort \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 With the battalion of long lenses on the boat, there’ll be plenty of good quality images for the White-beaked Dolphin<\/em><\/strong> identification catalogue that forms part of the Northeast Cetacean Project.\u00a0 We’ll be running at least two trips out to the Farne Deeps next year (date and cost tbc) so get in touch soon to register your interest.\u00a0 With only 12 places available they’ll fill quickly.<\/p>\n

After the 10hr marathon of the Farne Deeps, our 8hr pelagic on Saturday was just like a pleasure cruise \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Again we had good numbers of Kittiwake, Gannet<\/em><\/strong> and Fulmar,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 as well as some very obliging Sooty Shearwaters.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>With some of South Tyneside’s finest on board, I was half-hoping that one of them would point his camera at the sky and randomly photograph a Cape Gannet <\/em><\/strong>\ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Sadly, it wasn’t to be.\u00a0 Never mind, there’s always next week…and the week after…and next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday was our long-awaited pelagic to the Farne Deeps.\u00a0 We’d originally planned the trip for August 12th, but the weather put paid to that \ud83d\ude41\u00a0 Rescheduling to September 3rd meant that four of the original participants had to withdraw because of other commitments, but we were able to fill those places and have a reserve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,105,5],"tags":[362,823,367,347,122,185,363,368,186,301,364,366,361,825,225,226,369,365,841],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","tag-arctic-skua","tag-birdwatching","tag-dolphin-videos","tag-farne-deeps","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-great-skua","tag-grey-phalarope","tag-guillemot","tag-kittiwake","tag-manx-shearwater","tag-north-sea-pelagic","tag-northeast-cetacean-project","tag-northumberland","tag-puffin","tag-razorbill","tag-red-phalarope","tag-sooty-shearwater","tag-white-beaked-dolphin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","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=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}