After enjoying a record breaking spell of glorious weather at the end of March, there was a quick change for the worse as April got underway. It was back to much colder weather with some snow and frost thrown into the mix, followed by a dry spell that had a bitter wind with it most days. With time marching on there was a final push to get the last of our planting jobs out of the way.
There were more Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Rowan and Birch whips put into the river bank at various locations. The native Wild Primroses planted a few years ago in some areas along the estuary have done very well and are self seeding as we had hoped they would, some of the younger plants coming through have been re-planted into nearby areas to give some continuity.
The two large areas on the old Incherrit net green that were prepared for sewing with a dry meadow wild flower mix have now been sewn, there were 21 wild flowers and 4 grasses in the mix. It will be interesting to see how this wild flower seed mix does over the coming months and to watch the activity it generates with bees and butterflies.
We had our first orange tip butterfly sighting on the 11th.
There was more movement of birds along the estuary this month with the osprey being seen early on, then we had our first sighting of the swallows on the 16th, there were ducklings and goslings hatched out at the Fishery pond on the 17th.This was followed up with the Common Sandpiper returning on the 18th.
At the Fishery the Mute swans have nested again on one of the islands and the female has been sitting tight on her eggs for a while so we should be seeing some cygnets soon!
The Jays and Woodpeckers have been using the feeders around the bothy and there are a few more Warblers and the odd Blackcap to be seen at times.
The mixed weather this month has dictated when some of the jobs on our “to do” list were done. The wetter spells saw some inside work being done including painting the cobble that was put inside the big shed, and there was also a bit of maintenance done on some of our kit that is used for cutting.
Some of the pathways have already had their first cut, along with the tackling of the invasive Hogweed that appears about the riverside, something that goes with the territory when you are on a water course.
There was a final push in a couple of areas to clear up more of the litter that washes down river and ends up blown ashore along the estuary tide line, this was cleared by hand before it would disappear under all the new growth coming through on the reed beds.
The river level has been a bit erratic this month but some slightly better weather towards the end of the month saw it settling back again.
