The first day of the new month arrived with a sharp frost, and the mercury falling back to minus 4.5°C.There was a wintery feel about it with the Willowgate Fishery ponds being iced over.
This was to last just the one day before turning wet and mild again. We had a mute swan (orange ring 3DNU) arrive on the estuary with us on the 1st, this bird turned out to have an interesting history, it was one of four cygnets ringed at Ronseath Gare Loch on 15.10.08 .
It also featured in a wildlife DVD made by local wildlife photographer Robert Bell, the DVD covered the parent swans building their nest, eggs hatching out and the young birds being ringed before moving on. Now we have one of them at our location 98KM from Ronseath. Some children and staff from “Our Lady`s Primary School” in Perth were down at the Willowgate on the 8th to help us with more bulb planting.
Our thanks are passed on to all who helped on the day with hundreds more narcissi and bluebell bulbs going into the ground, along with plenty of wild flower seeds (mixed) being scattered in selected areas. This should help the insect life and add a splash of colour. As the month progressed it started to turn much colder and the snow arrived, only a covering at first but we had nine inches on the 27th.
Things got much worse for the wildlife as this was followed by a very cold spell with the mercury reaching minus 15ºC.
We had to rescue one mute swan that was frozen to the beach at the high water-mark, it made it back into the water minus a few feathers but was soon feeding alongside the other swans.
The feeding stations in the wood were in constant need of topping up, sacks of chaff were run out in the woods for the smaller birds and the large numbers of mute swans on the estuary were making light work of the bucket loads of grain being put out to them.
It has been a long time since the river has iced up at the edges. The year ended in the grip of a big freeze and the river level was back to near normal.
