The first week of the month saw very mixed weather with gales, heavy rain and a few inches of snow before settling down again. The river rose very quickly at this time but the spate soon eased off.
The large tree trunks that were brought down the system during this spate had to be cut and cleared from around our boats (again)! On some of the wetter days we spent a bit of time repairing a few of the nest boxes that had come down in the gales, and we also made a few more duck boxes. These were all put back out for the birds to find and hopefully use. We have had a good success rate in the past with all the boxes that have been made and put out for the birds have been used.
When the good weather did come it gave us the chance to get on with some of the outside jobs needing to be done. One of these was getting the road down to the Willowgate tarred. This job did not take long to complete but it will make a big difference for the vehicles using it.
Another job done was clearing the footpath along the back brae at Newburgh, between the old boatyard and the county burn. This involved cutting back growth and soukers in some areas, clearing up rubbish and bits of drift left by the big tides.
We also got more work done on the old netting station hailings, with the tractor and grubber giving them another going over. There was more work carried out along other bits of the river bank, with some areas of growth getting thinned out and cut back a bit.
This involved removing some of the smaller trees and cutting back scrub to let the light into the bankings for the benefit of the wild flowers.
We are seeing a lot of movement of birds along the estuary just now, the geese are on the move and there are a lot of oystercatchers back on some of the gravel areas. Teal numbers are still good and the mallard ducks are starting to rake about the bankings looking for nest sites. There has also been sightings of groups of curlews flying overhead.
There was another wet spell towards the end of the month and that put more spate on the system, but we got a drier milder last couple of days that saw it ease off again.
It was also good to see the bees active around the hive again after a long winter, but sadly we did lose one hive over this period.
Dago
