The month started with a dry milder day and that was to be the pattern of the weather for most of October. The river sat just above summer level for most of the month due to this welcome dry spell.
There was a bit of movement along the estuary this month with a few more swans flitting about, we had big numbers of geese passing overhead and after seeing our first Fieldfare on the 18th, plenty more followed.
Teal and the snipe are back in good numbers again. We are also seeing some Slovakian Grebe about the river too. It was that time of year again when we turned our attention to stocking up on the winter feed for all the birds. Once again we pass on our thanks to Ted down at Tayside grain for sorting us out with plenty chaff to keep the birds going throughout the colder months.
We also filled a few crates of apples from the orchard to store for a bit before using them to feed the birds during the winter.
We were lucky enough to get a last spin of honey off our bees this month, it has been a good year for them and they are now all sorted out for the winter.
It was not such a good year for picking the sloes, it was a poorer crop but we did manage to get enough to ensure we have some sloe gin to look forward to.
Hopefully that is most of our grass cutting all done for the year now, the growth rate has fairly slowed up this last couple of weeks. We had a final cut round the fishery with the weed boat before it is moored up for the season.
There were other jobs to keep us all busy this month; work is ongoing at the Willowgate café where the new toilet extension to the back of the building is coming on.
Down at the Willowgate Activity Centre work is progressing on the car parking areas and the outdoor classroom is now up in place. It is good to see that the work is well underway now on the pontoons at Ferguson gallery and also down at the Willowgate Fishery
With all this going on and the activity centre getting busier, it is good to see these places being utilised and coming to life.
The last day of the month was a very mild calm day and the river is almost back at summer level.
Dago