We had a dropping river level and a good spell of dry weather for the first ten days of March. This was followed by some snow that did not last for long, then it was into a cold snap with the mercury getting down to -7.5⁰C one day.
We were lucky enough to see an Ermine hunting along the banking up at the Fishery on the 7th, and on the 12th we had hundreds of Fieldfare passing through heading back north.
The Buzzard was caught on camera enjoying a feed on a Woodcock in the snow up at the Fishery, and we sighted our first Curlew of the year on the 13th.
The log splitter was kept busy during the cold spell, keeping our wood burning stoves going with a steady supply of fuel.
There has been a bit more activity out on the river with a few coasters taking advantage of the bigger tides to ply their trade up to Perth harbour.
We have seen a few more skiffs out and about on the water making the most of the calmer conditions to practice in.
One job that was taken care of this month was getting the Sandmartin banking ready for them returning to nest again, the weeds on the face of it were attended to and some more holes were drilled in to help encourage them in. The weather took a turn for the worse with temperatures dropping and there was some more snow in places, it was to be a cold spell through to the end of the month. There were big skenes of Geese flying north on the 28th and we were starting to see some activity around the nest boxes with the Blue tits and the Great tits trying to stake their claim!
There has been an increase in the amount of Cormorants along the estuary this month, and their numbers have been high around the Earn mouth area in particular where they must be getting good feeding.
With the river dropping back to near to summer level and the clock change giving us an extra hour of daylight there will be more time to enjoy being out on the river.
Dago
