It was a dry, calm and mild start to the first day of the New Year but the weather soon returned to wind and rain, and storms once again wreaking havoc all over the place.
There were more power cuts, trees down and chaos on the roads and railways. The river level also shot back up again with around 12 feet of extra water recorded on some parts of the system. The second week of the month saw some decent weather at last, with a calm mild spell settling in for a few days.
On returning from the holidays some of the first jobs attended to were getting the barge and all our boats bailed out. We had a big clear up along the old net green where the chainsaw and dumper were put to good use cutting up and removing a lot of the driftwood that had accumulated during the gales.
With daylight lasting a bit longer, milder weather, the snowdrops and wild primroses showing through in some areas it was beginning to feel like we were shaking winter off, but I am sure we will see a bit more snow yet!
We had a few of the older nest boxes come down in the storms, but these were soon gathered up, patched up in the workshop, and given a quick coat of Cuprinol ready to be put back up again.
The wildlife has been a bit static on the estuary this month, during the mild spell of weather that we had the feeders put out for the birds were lasting a lot longer than usual between re-fills. There has been smaller than usual numbers of swans, redshank and goldeneye on the river, but there are good numbers of teal about and we are seeing the odd kingfisher.
The sandmartin bank that we built a few years ago is having some repair work done to it, as the weather has taken its toll causing some erosion. With the digger on the job we should have it ready for the birds returning in the coming weeks, and hopefully it will continue to be a hit with them.
The weather turned much colder again as the month was ending. There was snow on the high ground, hard frost and some very cold calm days. The river level was settling back again with just a little extra water coming down the system.
Dago
