As the cold weather and snow continued, the mercury was to drop to minus 15.5°C by the start of the 2nd week.
This was a hard time for the smaller birds and all the swans making their way to the estuary as inland waters became iced up.
Up in the woods the smaller birds were also benefitting from regular feeds of chaff, seeds, peanuts and fat-blocks.
Swan numbers rose to over 140, and as the river started to ice over the regular feeds of grain were a big help to the swans at this difficult time.
There were a few more swans appearing with darvex rings, and it was good to see some from last winter that had made their way back to us again. We also had a whooper swan (yellow ring 45J) which was ringed in Iceland on the 19th of August 2003, this bird stayed with us for a while taking advantage of the feeding during the bad spell.
The SSPCA also brought round 6 more mute swans to the estuary for release, these birds had been nursed back to good health at their Middlebank Rescue Centre before being returned to the wild.
On the 11th we had another group of Scouts back to the river again to use one of the old bothies to do an overnight stay. On a chilly night, cooking over an open fire was a welcome part of contributing towards one of their badges. 
Despite there being ice on the river, there were still a few coasters that made it up to Perth harbour this month. One of these was the Batica Hav, from Rotterdam which had a cargo of wheat. The harbour also had a lot of snow and ice to contend with but they managed to keep coasters moving in and out on the tides.
By Christmas week, the ice had continued to build up and there were impressive icebergs floating downriver.
The Fishery and café have remained closed this month due to the harsh weather, but the boys did manage to get on with some jobs during this spell.
Also more work to upgrade the footpath between the Fishery and Perth has been done, but some areas will still be affected for a short time by high tides, new sign posts should help to avoid being caught out. 
It was into the last week before the temperature got back up above freezing and we finally got a reprieve and a bit of a thaw. The last day of 2010 saw the river running just above summer level on a calm bright day.
Happy New Year
Dago
