{"id":5248,"date":"2018-05-23T20:10:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T20:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=5248"},"modified":"2018-11-06T21:16:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T21:16:39","slug":"sand-martins-on-the-mersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=5248","title":{"rendered":"Sand Martins on the Mersey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Sand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Another warm sunny day ideal weather for a bike ride down the Transpennine Trail to check out the local Sand Martins. Fortunately over the winter part of the river bank collapsed\u00a0exposing a fresh, sandy cliff – ideal for a new breeding colony.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Sand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Sand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Previous efforts to photograph the Sand Martins\u00a0have\u00a0resulted in failure. However this time with bright sunshine I was able\u00a0to choose a faster shutter speed.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Squabbling<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Just to make the challenge a little more interesting the Sand Martins had chosen to excavate their nesting burrows in the far riverbank. With it being in the breeding season attempting to get any closer than standing on the opposite bank behind the trees would risk disturbance.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Male<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Spending a couple of hours watching the Sand Martin colony proved to be fascinating. So much activity going on from excavating burrows, constant flycatching, preening, squabbling, pulling each other out of nesting holes. In addition a male Kingfisher repeatedly flew past and\u00a0a Dipper\u00a0that now breed on the upper reaches of the Mersey.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"An<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Another<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Nesting<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hopefully the sandy cliff face will prove too much of a challenge for the local Mink!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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

Another warm sunny day ideal weather for a bike ride down the Transpennine Trail to check out the local Sand Martins. Fortunately over the winter part of the river bank collapsed\u00a0exposing a fresh, sandy cliff – ideal for a new breeding colony. Previous efforts to Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[253,69,796],"class_list":["post-5248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","tag-manchester","tag-river-mersey","tag-sand-martins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5248"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5266,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5248\/revisions\/5266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}