{"id":6389,"date":"2016-01-02T22:48:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T22:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/?p=6389"},"modified":"2016-02-06T00:04:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T00:04:16","slug":"saturday-2nd-january-birding-in-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/?p=6389","title":{"rendered":"Saturday 2nd January 2016 &#8211; Birding in the Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had looked forward all week to a day\u2019s birding at Druridge Bay this Saturday and I was reluctant to give in to the wet and windy weather.\u00a0 I started at Killingworth Lake, in the hope that yesterdays red head Smew was still around.\u00a0 No sign today however.\u00a0 As the rain showers become more persistent, I considered my options.\u00a0 I was thinking of driving instead to Holywell and the shelter of the NWT bird hide, when I noticed on my twitter, an <strong>Iceland Gull<\/strong> was at\u00a0Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Country Park, Local Nature Reserve.\u00a0 Filled with new enthusiasm, I made my way to the A189 and up to\u00a0Queen Elizabeth Country Park.\u00a0\u00a0 Great choice as I was rewarded with very close views, from the car park, whilst sitting in my car, sheltered from the rain.<\/p>\n<p>As the weather started to settle, I drove up to Druridge Pools, where On the main pool there were seven Pochard and a moutling male <strong>Scaup<\/strong>.\u00a0 I find Pochard are more difficult to find early January, at my local sites.<\/p>\n<p>Nearby at Widdrington Moor Lake, a <strong>Great Northern Diver<\/strong> which I had seen on New Year\u2019s Eve was still present to the right of the lake.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Buskin<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6431\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6431\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings.jpg\" alt=\"Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings\" width=\"440\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Iceland-Gull-1-QEII-2-2-16-PB-sightings-533x400.jpg 533w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had looked forward all week to a day\u2019s birding at Druridge Bay this Saturday and I was reluctant to give in to the wet and windy weather.\u00a0 I started at Killingworth Lake, in the hope that yesterdays red head Smew was still around.\u00a0 No sign today however.\u00a0 As the rain showers become more persistent, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,29,91],"class_list":{"0":"post-6389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-great-northern-diver","8":"tag-iceland-gull","9":"tag-scaup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6389"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6963,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions\/6963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}