The river was slowly settling back to summer level and we had some fine weather at times early on in the month but the heavy rain was never far away.
It was to be like this throughout August, and the farmers have struggled to get going out in the fields. By the end of the month there were still a lot of crops waiting to be harvested. We are seeing a bit more activity on the river again, there have been some young Kingfishers sighted about the place, and also young Flycatchers. With a few skeins of Geese arriving and the Swallows beginning to gather up you cannot help feeling that summer has passed us by!
Our resident swans are doing okay and the young cygnet is getting up in size now. We had a sighting of a Common Newt down by the bothy on the 7th, we have seen them at other locations but this was a first for us on the estuary.
This month saw us having another go at netting on the river again; with some assistance from the Fisheries Board we gave it a try for a few tides. Some fish were tagged and released, but a combination of spate and debris on the bottom prevented the net from fishing properly and it was decided to call it a day for this season.
On the 24th the scouts were back at the Willowgate Fishery for an evening of canoeing and kayaking. They also brought back along the coracle that they had made themselves as one of their projects.
I had a go in the coracle myself, it worked well in the water and was good fun once you got used to it. A good night was had and thanks were passed on to Tay Salmon from all who participated.
As the month drew to a close there was a lot of heavy rain causing localized flooding and bringing the river back out in spate again, rising over six feet in twenty four hours. Our bilge pumps have proved their worth during this time as they were kept busy pumping rain water out of all our rowing cobbles.
On the last day of August we had a mother duck out on the river with some little ducklings, what with predation, the cold wet weather and the duck shooting season starting up again tomorrow they will need all the luck they can get!
