This month turned out to be one of the wettest on record; the river was constantly in spate, levels peaking at just over eighteen feet on the SEPA gauge up at our Cargill rod beat early on the 6th.
At the latter end of the month the water level was back up at over seventeen feet, causing a lot of localised flooding. A lot of the time this month seemed to be spent bailing out boats, draining the old barge and clearing a lot of drift of the old net green.
On some of the drier days a bit time was spent down at Newburgh working on the path along the old back braes, cutting back some growth and taking out suckers where it was encroaching access for walking. We had one day of frost on the 14th when it dropped to minus four, then three days later the temperature got up to a balmy fourteen and a half degrees! But overall it was mostly wet. There was a last visit of the year from the SSPCA on the 18th who were back on the estuary again releasing more swans back into the wild after recovering at their rescue centre, this time they brought along four Mute swans and another whooper swan which was good to see close up.
We had another trip to stock up our grain supply for feeding the birds over the coming weeks, and once again our thanks go out to Ted who looks after us and sees that the birds do not go without.
The swans and ducks are always looking for it and the Canada geese are not so wary now.
It has been a quieter month for seeing all the birds about the place, but the Kingfisher and dipper have put in appearances, and the greenfinches are back at the feeders after being absent for a bit.
With a very high river level we had a very wet and cold end to 2015,
we can only hope for drier things to come into the new-year.
Happy New Year
Dago