{"id":814,"date":"2010-12-07T10:19:08","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T10:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=814"},"modified":"2012-04-16T11:43:56","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T11:43:56","slug":"mulling-things-over-a-wild-goose-chase-and-some-garden-ticks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/mulling-things-over-a-wild-goose-chase-and-some-garden-ticks","title":{"rendered":"Mulling things over, a wild goose chase and some garden ticks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of the last week has been spent working on various admin type things ready for 2011, and clearing snow and ice.<\/p>\n

On Friday we both went along to Choppington First School to help with clearing the car park so that school could re-open yesterday.\u00a0 As a business that values sustainability we’re committed to supporting our local community, and this certainly fitted the bill, as well as providing good exercise.\u00a0 Along with the Head, the caretaker and one of the teachers we’d made good progress when 2 contractors turned up, having been engaged by Northumberland County Council, to clear the car park.\u00a0 So, we then watched the entertaining spectacle of a JCB and a snow plough racing around the car park, clearing it completely in 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Saturday saw us clearing the 2.5′ wall of ice and snow that was blocking Martin’s car on the drive.\u00a0 Mulled wine and a mince pie afterwards seemed like an appropriate reward \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Of course, we’ve still managed to fit in some birdwatching \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Sunday was Goose Count<\/a> day.\u00a0 The East Chevington access road was a treacherous sheet of ice and compacted snow, so we parked near the main road and walked up to the pools.\u00a0 With most of the North Pool frozen, goose numbers were lower than we would expect for December.\u00a0 Highlights of the walk were at least 15 Woodcock<\/em><\/strong>, and 3 Barn Owls<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 that drifted along the hedgerows just after dawn.<\/p>\n

Monday is Martin’s ‘office day’, and the vantage point of the office window allowed him to add 2 more species to the garden list; Woodcock<\/em><\/strong> and Tree Sparrow<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 It’s still white-over outside, but maybe there’s a thaw on the way…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the last week has been spent working on various admin type things ready for 2011, and clearing snow and ice. On Friday we both went along to Choppington First School to help with clearing the car park so that school could re-open yesterday.\u00a0 As a business that values sustainability we’re committed to supporting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,107,5],"tags":[97,424,423,125,71],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-family-and-friends","category-northumberland","tag-barn-owl","tag-community-involvement","tag-icelandic-breeding-goose-census","tag-tree-sparrow","tag-woodcock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}