We had a good spell of weather for most of this month, it was cold frosty start to a lot of the days, but by mid-morning the sun was through and there was a bit of heat behind it at times!
Our bees were enticed out of their hives by this early winter sunshine, making the most of the flowering heathers and enjoying the snowdrops, we even saw a couple of butterflies out and about one day!
We have had a lot more swans coming to the estuary to feed on the grain in the colder mornings as other areas in the vicinity become frozen over.
During this spell we have had seven more new green darvex ringed swans come in with all the other swans; they were PHN, PHX, PNN, NNS, NSA, NSI and NZA.
We have also been seeing a lot more Whooper swans in the area as more birds started to move about along the estuary. We had our first curlew back on the 6th, a lot more Snipe are beginning to pass through as they start back on their migration and the Dipper and Kingfisher are more regular visitors to the burn just now.
We have seen a variety of traffic along the river this month; from coasters plying their trade up to Perth Harbour, wildfowlers out in their cobbles, students out on their skiffs and even a few brave canoeists making the most of a good spell of weather.
This month we had the SSPCA back down on the river; they brought seven more swans with them which were safely released back into the wild again. These were swans that were brought back up to good health at the SSPCA rescue centre near Stirling. They also brought a Barn Owl along with them, which was also safely released into the wild on the other side of the river later on in the evening.
We took it over the river by boat so it would be further away from the railway lines and nearer to some out buildings.
After taking delivery of over 2000 pieces of hedging from Woodbury estates earlier on this month, we have spent a fair bit of time with the spades out getting on with planting it out at various locations about the riverside. We have been putting a mixed variety of plants into double rows that will be left to grow wild for the benefit of the birds and all the other wildlife in the area. The mix has consisted of Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Black Chokeberry, Dog Rose, Burnet Rose, Cotoneaster and Common Privet.
We also found a bit of time to put up some more nest boxes around the place, these helped to replace some of the older boxes that have been damaged in the storms over the years.
It was colder damp weather that saw out the month and the river was running a few feet above summer level.