Finch pond is now split in two, and Peregrine treat. 10th November 2018

Firstly, dear reader, a treat. A Peregrine falcon has been flying around Manor farm. I had spotted and photographed it a month ago, but hadn't realised what it was, such is the dodgy nature of my bird recognition skills. In my defence, it was 200 metres away on the far side of Cormorant lake north, whilst I was on the south footpath.

This Wednesday, however, it firstly flew out of the trees some 50 metres in front of me, whilst I was near the sewage works. The blighter flew off east, and I thought nothing of it until I passed the former location of the boulder sorter outer and spotted a white smudge on the end of the scrape in Cormorant lake.

I still didn't know what it was until I photographed it (at 300mm) and looked at the resulting image.  The beauty sat there for at least ten minutes, with lorries trundling past, before it took off.  I must have taken 50 photographs, as I walked east along the footpath, getting ever so slightly closer to it.

I wonder if it is one of the birds from Woking?

This has been heavily cropped out of the photo.  My cheap, entry level Tamron 16-300mm did its best; though at 300mm images are a little soft.  Sigh, I shall continue saving the pennies for a mid range lens.

Moving back to the mundane, dear reader, what is left of Finch pond has been split into two small ponds; one east and one west.  Over the past week Inert have extended the infill from the copse to join up with the 'causeway' they built from the north shore of Finch pond last week.  There is now a land bridge between the north and south shores of Finch pond.

With the pump still chugging away, water levels were very low, which enabled me to easily hop across the small stream running through the middle of the land bridge, thus crossing from the north shore of Finch pond to its south shore.  The small, nay tiny, stream is draining Finch pond west into Finch pond east, thence through the channel to Cormorant lake.  Water is then pumped out of Cormorant lake, over the Blackwater to three settlement tanks, whence the filtered water then flows into the Blackwater.

Elsewhere, infill has taken place taking various areas up to their finish level.  However, perversely areas bordering the north shore of Finch pond which had reached their finish levels have been bulldozed into Finch pond!  A familiar pattern, dear reader.  Therefore, yet more inert material will be trucked into the area.

As I suspected, there was no way that Manor farm could be finished by the end of this year.  I have been informed that a new finish date has been set - the end of next year.  This, I feel, is eminently achievable. However, I do not know the details, and an unable to comment as to whether the whole site will be completed. This will involve laying down of footpaths and bridleways, planting of trees, building fencing, etc, etc, etc.

The recent heavy rains have made the area exceedingly muddy. I had up to three inches (75mm) of mud stuck to the sides of my wellies.  Thankfully I did not encounter any quicksand.

Some strange, yellow signs appeared on the strange structure built near the Longwater road entrance. Q Bays, apparently. No idea what this might mean, unless it is an area for the lorries to queue in.  Unlikely, but then the unlikeliest of actions appear to happen with this restoration.

I did notice a great deal of activity on the Chandlers farm part of the reserve.  Mostly around the huge mound of earth near the Blackwater. There were also a number of piles of spoil along the road leading to Manor farm. I didn't investigate, partly as I spotted these mid week, and partly as I haven't been paying a great deal of attention to Chandlers farm due to it being mostly for sports grounds.

Now some other animal shots.