{"id":704,"date":"2010-09-19T11:18:42","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T11:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=704"},"modified":"2011-06-09T09:12:04","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T09:12:04","slug":"northumberland-birdwatching-on-the-high-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/northumberland-birdwatching-on-the-high-sea","title":{"rendered":"Northumberland; Birdwatching on the high sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was our final full-day pelagic for the year.\u00a0 With a couple of late cancellations, ten of us boarded the SarahJFK<\/em> and headed out to sea.\u00a0 Before we reached the end of the Tyne piers there was already a bit of swell…<\/p>\n

Once we were out and heading offshore it was exhilarating, with\u00a0an often icy westerly breeze and long rolling waves from the north.\u00a0 Small groups of Pale-bellied Brent Geese<\/em><\/strong> passed by during the day and a small group of\u00a0Greylag Geese<\/em><\/strong> and Pink-footed Geese<\/em><\/strong> as well – a sure sign that the autumn is here.\u00a0 There was an almost complete absence of Fulmars<\/em><\/strong>, leading to speculation about what these enigmatic seabirds are doing when we can’t find them, and only one Manx Shearwater<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Arctic Skuas<\/em><\/strong> were a bit thin on the ground, but we did find a good pelagic prize – a sub-adult Pomarine Skua<\/em><\/strong> that passed by with two Great Skuas<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Excellent views of the latter species, and some stunning Sooty Shearwaters<\/em><\/strong> were the highlight of the day, and there were lots of Kittiwakes<\/em><\/strong> and Gannets<\/em><\/strong>, although that accolade could have gone to the 2 White-beaked Dolphins<\/em><\/strong> that were seen briefly on 3 occasions late in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"Northumberland<\/a>
Great Skua or 'Bonxie'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pelagic,<\/a>
Sooty Shearwater<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Pelagic<\/a>
Sooty Shearwater - the epitome of grace<\/figcaption><\/figure>The swell proved a bit too much for\u00a0some participants so, in between scanning for birds and cetaceans, I spent some time providing sympathy and advice for the worst of the stricken \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Don’t let that put you off signing up for any of next-year’s pelagics though; it’s actually quite unusual for anyone to be really seasick on one of our pelagics, but the big swell (probably originating a few days ago from the near the north west coast of Norway)\u00a0combined with a strengthening westerly breeze was a freak combination of conditions that\u00a0managed to\u00a0hinder the enjoyment of all the birds around the boat for a couple of the girls.\u00a0 I was once asked, by someone who was a\u00a0self-professed non-sailor, why I would spend so much time on a small boat in the North Sea…I think that now I would just send them a link to the images in this post and the videos in my Farne Deeps trip report<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve got one more pelagic this year, around the Farne Islands, Holy Island and the Skate Road on Saturday December 4th, so give us a call on 01670 827465 for further details or to book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was our final full-day pelagic for the year.\u00a0 With a couple of late cancellations, ten of us boarded the SarahJFK and headed out to sea.\u00a0 Before we reached the end of the Tyne piers there was already a bit of swell… Once we were out and heading offshore it was exhilarating, with\u00a0an often icy […]<\/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":[362,122,185,363,190,301,364,220,108,388,129,387,365],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-north-sea","category-northumberland","tag-arctic-skua","tag-fulmar","tag-gannet","tag-great-skua","tag-greylag-goose","tag-kittiwake","tag-manx-shearwater","tag-northumberland-birdwatching","tag-pale-bellied-brent-goose","tag-pelagic-birdwatching","tag-pink-footed-goose","tag-pomarine-skua","tag-sooty-shearwater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","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=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1072,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}