It was a mild start to the month, and the river was nearly back to summer level. The first day of the month saw another coaster heading up river to Perth Harbour with its cargo.
We are seeing more swans beginning to move about on the estuary and we had seven whoopers come in about on the 1st. They stayed with the other mute swans for a few hours before moving on again. The SSPCA were back again this month to release another 12 cygnets, they settled in very quickly with all the other swans, some of which were released by the SSPCA last month.
This month we have also seen the return of three ringed mute swans that over-wintered with us last year (they were green darvex LTH, JTI and JTN), and on the 25th we had another new arrival - green darvex ringed mute swan (NHC).
On the 24th we saw our first Dabchick back on the river, and on the 29th we had a Great Crested Grebe, but the Goldeneye and Redshank are still not back with us. It has been a mixed month as far as the weather goes, with bad flooding and spate, frost, thick fog, more rain and a few good days thrown into the mix! There has been a bit more activity on the river with the odd canoe going by, the skiffs are back out rowing most days and there has been the odd pleasure trip on some of the bigger boats.
A lot of our work this month has been more cutting, the tractor and mulcher has been going over all the pathways, and the tractor and flail mower has been getting round the bankings and hedgerows. Once again due to the logistics of the river the old barge was used a few times to move our kit around the riverside.
We have also been doing a lot of planting in various places along the river and up in the woods. So far we have planted 12 large sacks of Daffodil bulbs, 2000 Crocus bulbs and 2000 Bluebell bulbs. This should add a splash of colour when they all come into flower.
This year we are seeing a lot more fungi in the woods, this might be down to the damp weather.
The odd frosty mornings that we did have in October were followed with some good sunrises, but it was a wet miserable day and rising river that saw out the month.
