With a slight improvement in the weather, the spate on the estuary began to ease and the river level soon settled back again.
There are a lot of plants beginning to come through now with the season moving on, and as the snowdrops begin to die back the wild primrose and daffodils are out in full bloom. Buds are appearing on most of the trees with the crack willow one of the first out in leaf.
Into the second week of the month there were more gales and heavy rain, this brought more spate down river affecting the Tay system. All this on top of big tides put flood alerts into place for a few days.
The harbour had a busy spell around this time with some larger coasters taking advantage of the big tides, most boats having timber cargo on board. As the weather improved again we started to see some of the smaller birds getting territorial over nest-box sights, crows carrying twigs to the tree tops and it was good to see the curlews returning back to our part of the estuary.
There was more activity on the river with a few skiffs out getting some training in. Better weather returned although good Friday saw snow flurries most of the day. The colder weather eased off towards the end of the month and river levels dropped back as-well. There were a few different jobs done this month which included a start to our annual litter pick along the foreshore, repairing and replacing some of the older nest-boxes, a bit of tree planting on the riverside, general maintenance to some of machinery and more chainsaw work clearing up large pieces of drift.
Oystercatcher numbers were on the increase as the month drew to a close.
