Art You See
  • Home
  • What's new
  • Contact
  • RSPB fund raising
  • Longwater Road Nature Reserve
    • Manor farm then and now
    • Fleet Hill farm then and now
    • Scenes from the reserve
  • Exhibitions
  • About
    • Where to buy

Mink photographed, pile up stage on going 30th November 2019

2/12/2019

 
Inert continue with the pile phase of their usual modus operandi of Pile-Level-Gouge. Pace seemed a little relaxed when I stomped around the south footpath on Wednesday morning. Only one or two tipper lorries dumping stuff on the west shore of Cormorant lake, next to the mighty mound.. While our bulldozer drive seemed (on Wednesday) to have a sedate time of it all, waiting for its next lorry load of stuff.

The boulder sorter outer was now on Chandlers farm, next to its mighty mound, surrounded by a bevy of diggers and sundry plant.

Our on off pump was happily chugging away on Wednesday, and well it might. Water levels everywhere are still very high, whilst the ground is sodden, mushy, soggy and lethal.  I stayed off most all muddy bits on my Saturday stomp. Even some of the vehicle tracks were no go areas; whilst firm, they were covered in varying depths of really, really gooey mud, causing me to sink halfway up my wellies, without applying much weight on my foot.  The stuff held on to my boot, as I tried to pull it out of its grip; all the while the supporting foot would sink deeper into the stuff.

I know to keep of the bits of track where even the bulldozer has sunk into the mud, cutting out a deep gouge.  The 'trench' fills naturally with oozing mud the consistency of runny porridge, forming a deep pool. I know that the bottom of the trench, on which the oozing mud sits, will be soft.

Otherwise, a freezing cold (minus two) Saturday morning simply revealed that Inert continue to pile up soil on the west shore of Cormorant lake, and also graded material is pushed into Cormorant lake. All the while still carefully going around the scrape.

I would expect that in the next week or two that Inert will enter the 'levelling' stage, where the material piled up over the past few weeks is flattened. Then the whole load will be gouged out, pushed into Cormorant lake, with another depression formed.

Shame. I had expected more progress on Manor farm than what has been achieved. But then I do not know what else has been going on the site.

Normal, but small, slide show follows. Then pictures of the grim reaper i.e. American Mink.

I decided to splash out and purchase a cheap trail cam to replace my Crenova, which had not recovered from being submerged by flood water. It remained resolutely foggy due to moisture in its body.

As the rain continued throughout the week, and water levels creeping back up to flooding, I placed the new trail cam (an entry model Apeman) well up the river bank.  I was very fortunate in capturing photos of  an American Mink, which wandered round on Friday.

This mink appeared very pale, in stark contrast to the darker coloured one I (well, my trail cam) filmed a year or two back.  I sincerely hope they are not breeding.  It'll be the kiss of death for many creatures in the area.

Rather annoyingly, whilst the Apeman appears to be a more robust and reliable unit that my Crenova and Victure trail cams, it appears to have a much slower trigger time and time to video.  This means I only got photos of the mink.  It was fast moving and well out of the way in the 2 seconds it took for the Apeman to start videoing.

Anyway, unusually for me I went straight back in the late afternoon to stake out the fallen tree with two trail cams.

Comments are closed.

    Author

    A polite notice first: All photographs on this blog are owned by me and subject to copyright.

    Also, note that I have special permission to be on the Eversley quarry site of Fleet Hill farm, Manor farm and the Hampshire part, Chandlers farm. They are not open areas for general access.  Please keep to the public rights of way.

    I was quite fascinated to see how Cemex would restore their gravel extractions workings to become a nature reserve, and so started this blog.  There is an ulterior motive. It does mean that my partner and I get some well needed exercise as we stomp around the reserve every week.  Following the progress of the restorations does mean the walk is not as tedious as it might otherwise become.

    Don't worry about one of the archives being November 2025. You haven't entered a time warp! It's just that I've discovered a way to pin a post to the top of a blogger in Weebly; not straight forward apparently.  I have to set the date far far into the future.

    Archives

    November 2025
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • What's new
  • Contact
  • RSPB fund raising
  • Longwater Road Nature Reserve
    • Manor farm then and now
    • Fleet Hill farm then and now
    • Scenes from the reserve
  • Exhibitions
  • About
    • Where to buy