{"id":948,"date":"2011-03-23T09:14:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T09:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=948"},"modified":"2011-03-28T14:48:50","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:48:50","slug":"the-hills-are-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/the-hills-are-alive","title":{"rendered":"The hills are alive…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…with the sound of Meadow Pipits<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning I decided to set out from home nice and early, so that I could spend a few hours in the North Pennines<\/a> before exhibiting at the Tourism Fair in Hexham.<\/p>\n

Birdwatching in Northumberland’s southwestern reaches is (almost always) about quality rather than quantity.\u00a0 Although it may seem sacrilegous, I prefer the dawn chorus on the moors to the one in our woodlands and gardens.\u00a0 Meadow Pipits<\/em><\/strong> (in almost overwhelming numbers after the dearth of sightings during the winter), Skylarks<\/em><\/strong>, Curlew<\/em><\/strong>, Lapwing<\/em><\/strong>, ‘drumming’ Snipe <\/em><\/strong>and the beautiful haunting calls of Golden Plover <\/em><\/strong>all contribute to a near sensory overload.<\/p>\n

Raven<\/em><\/strong> and Merlin<\/em><\/strong> were both top-quality birds for the morning (both, frustratingly, between my position and the Sun, so only allowing record shots).\u00a0 Two species that always bring\u00a0a particular quality to birdwatching, and photography, in\u00a0the North Pennines are the\u00a0two perpetually controversial\/contentious species; Red Grouse<\/em><\/strong> and Black Grouse.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>We’ve been taking clients to see and photograph these two species since we first started NEWT, and the opportunity to wander the moors with my camera yesterday, enveloped by birdsong, was the sort of experience that our clients appreciate so much.\u00a0 Our North Pennines Safari Days rarely fail to encounter both grouse species, and we organise bespoke photography packages and holidays\u00a0in the area as\u00a0well, so give us a call and join us on one of our tours to this remarkable area of southwest Northumberland.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…with the sound of Meadow Pipits. Yesterday morning I decided to set out from home nice and early, so that I could spend a few hours in the North Pennines before exhibiting at the Tourism Fair in Hexham. Birdwatching in Northumberland’s southwestern reaches is (almost always) about quality rather than quantity.\u00a0 Although it may seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,5,16],"tags":[52,54,172,175,123,207,56,457,208,191,204],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-pennines","category-northumberland","category-photography","tag-birdwatching-northumberland","tag-black-grouse","tag-curlew","tag-golden-plover","tag-lapwing","tag-meadow-pipit","tag-merlin","tag-raven","tag-red-grouse","tag-skylark","tag-snipe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","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=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}