The last month of the year started with the river in spate, but this soon passed and a cold dry spell saw the river level drop back to normal again.
Work continued down at the old Tay Salmon Boatyard in Newburgh, with clearing up inside ongoing, and it was a sad day when the old boat builder`s shed was razed to the ground.
While working down at Newburgh in the early part of the month, large flocks of starlings were witnessed at dusk, dropping into the reed-beds around Mugdrum Island, to roost.
As the month progressed the mercury dropped with –6c recorded at daylight one morning. The feeding stations are busy just now and in need of regular topping up.
A winged Canadian goose has settled in with the mute and whooper swans, and is a regular at feed time. Redshank numbers are up to 40+teal duck 100+, and a lot more goldeneye are back on the estuary. The kingfisher, jay, woodpecker and snipe are also regulars.
It is that time of year again when we are seeing the seals picking of the kelts in the slack water along the edges of the estuary, they make the most of this as the exhausted fish struggle to escape.
As the year wound down, the tractor and grubber gave the gravel hailings another going over, and all the plant got a bit of a clean up and service. At the start of the holiday period, some of the swans on the estuary were given new identification rings to replace ones that had been damaged or lost.
It was a colder damp spell as the year drew to an end.
