April started off with a fine, dry bright day and the mercury rising up to 18 degrees, the rest of the first week was fine too but with frosty mornings early on. The river level (around the 3ft 5” mark) continued to slowly drop back and by about the 9th it was back around the 1ft mark, where it was to stay pretty much for the rest of the month give or take a couple of inches.
We have had some movement of birds on the estuary this month with the return of the Osprey and the common sandpiper, along with the shell duck returning to their nest sights higher up in the estuary too.
The sand martins and swallows were sighted above Perth mid-month, but it wasn’t until the 24th that we sighted our first swallow down on the estuary. The swan was still sitting tight on her nest up at the fishery so it can’t be long now until we are seeing some cygnets!
By the time the worst of the frost was past, we removed the winter guard from the beehive,
on the warmer days the bees were soon piling out enjoying all the flowers and blossoms that are out just now.
It was good to be seeing a few butterflies again, and we are also seeing good numbers of orange tips as well.
A lot of our time now is spent back on our grass cutting and strimming, keeping on top of all the usual areas, and it won’t be long until some of the hedges are ready for their first cut too! There was also a bit of fence painting done, along with splitting up some of the thicker patches of snowdrops, we were replanting them back in the same areas, just spread out a bit more.
Another job undertaken this month was a bit of spot spraying of hogweeds,
hitting some of the hot spots about the place, it’s a good time to catch them before they get up in size. We did come across a skunk cabbage when out and about, we have come across the odd one over the years but we don’t see them very often. As the month came to an end we were enjoying a dry warm spell, and the river was getting low sitting at around nine inches above summer level.
Dago