The cold weather was to continue into the new year for the first week or so, with some more snow and sleet to go with the icy conditions.
This was all to change by mid-month when there was heavy rain coupled with a mild wind which saw a rapid snowmelt. Up at our rod beat at Cargill the water rose by over 16 feet in 48 hours. With localized flooding in Perth, the floodgates were all closed. A big spate came down the system but things could have been a lot worse if it had been a week later and coincided with the bigger tides that were due.
After the spate had eased off there was all the usual clearing up to be done, with large piles of driftwood and reed-mat catching up on the boat mooring lines. The mini digger and chainsaw helped make this work a bit easier, and all the boats got a good bail out.
With the milder weather the tractor and flail were busy cutting back some of the banking and hedgerows, then the flail was swapped over for the grubber and we made a start on the hailings. This helps free up the gravel and weed so that the tides can remove more of the silt, and then the wading birds like to take advantage of these areas.
Things got a lot easier for the birds once the snow and ice had all thawed out and the temperature climbed up a bit. The feeding station in the wood was a busy place at times, where we had good numbers of yellowhammers, redpoles, greenfinches, chaffinches and tits. There were also woodpeckers, goldfinches and siskins to be seen taking advantage of this supply of feed.
We are seeing more seals back in the estuary just now as they feed up on the kelts that have dropped back down the system from the spawning grounds.
Now that it is milder we are seeing the snowdrops pushing through at last, they are a little bit behind last year with the big freeze setting them back but it finally feels like we are shaking winter off.
The spate had eased right off and the weather got a bit cooler as the month ended.
Sadly we have had to close the Willowgate Fishery and café which is being missed by a lot of people. We would like to thank everybody for their support on this and we are working at trying to rectify this matter.
Dago
