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