Once again, we had very mixed weather over the month covering everything from one very wet week that saw a rapid rise in the river level to the first hard frosts of the autumn.
There have been some lovely sunrises to take in during some of these colder mornings. The grass has slowed up a fair bit now and hopefully after a busy week or so out on the tractor, that`s our final cuts for the year out the way!
We did manage to get a late spin of honey from our beehive at the start of this month and the bees have been sorted out for the winter now.
The 15th of this month brought an end to another season up on our Cargill rod beat, this year was a much wetter one than the last, but overall the catches remained about the same.
With winter looming, we found some time to pay a visit down to Tayside Grain again and sort out a pickup load of chaff for feeding the birds over the coming months.
It was into the second half of the month when the colder weather kicked in that we saw the return of the Redwing and fieldfare in decent numbers. With a lot more Geese about, more Dabchicks, Teal and Goldeneye on the river, things are definitely starting to move again, but still no Redshank yet!
On the last day of the month the big crane was brought in again to remove the pontoons from the water up at the Fergusson Gallery site, they were then transported down to the harbour area for safe storage over the winter months until they are needed again in the springtime.
After a cool start to the day there was a last short burst of glorious sunshine as October drew to a close on a river that was sitting just above summer level.
Dago