More smoothing and another nascent pond perhaps. 23rd June 2018

Our hard working bulldozer driver was all on his lonesome when I popped over to Manor farm Thursday lunchtime. He was working away around the former site of the Yellow bridge, which is now occupied with the boulder sorter outer.  (I looked up a proper name for the boulder sorter outer. Screen unit or screeners or screening plant appears to be the official term. Rather boring I think.)

It is quite evident that the boulder sorter outer has been hard at work over the past week. There is a large pile of new stuff to be screened (look, I'm picking up on the lingo already), and new and bigger piles of screened stuff.

Much has gone on around Finch pond during the preceding three working days. The infill along the north shore now extends all they way across Finch pond. I was able to step off the end of the infill and clamber directly up the north embankment. Last week I had to walk along the north shore of Finch pond for a bit.

Inert have, I feel, widen the infill a bit, but also appear to be creating yet another small pond to the east of Finch pond jnr. It is hard to tell at such an early stage, but it really does look like it to me.

I reckon the little gap Inert leave between the north embankment and the infill is for drainage. Water continues to flow along the narrow channel left by inert. Even on the eastern end of the infill, where it meets the spit running parallel to the ridge, there is a narrow channel. I guess it stops the soil bulldozed for the infill getting too water logged and so unstable. I know to my cost (aka muddy knees) how the soil can turn to the consistency of quicksand when it gets too wet.

I also get the feeling that the infill along the south shore of Finch pond, particularly adjacent to the copse, has been graded so that it is fairly smooth. Now, this might have actually happened over the preceeding weeks, but it was most evident this Saturday when the memsahib and I walked along the south footpath. I kind of feel that the area around the former site of the Yellow bridge has been spruced up.  Everything looks a little tidier and smarter.

Elsewhere the pump keeps chugging away. I really get the feeling that Inert will turn their attentions to Cormorant lake soon.

I notice, dear reader, that my website and blog has seen a large increase in hits over the past week; possibly due to my entry to the Artizan summer art exhibition. Weebly, my provider, provides statistics on the number of visitors hit the site and how many pages they viewed per day. However, Weebly provides no details other than x visitors hit the site and they visited y pages. One upshot is that I cannot tell if these hits are caused by robots or not. I suspect 90% are caused by robots and cataloguing spiders.

On the off chance that a proper human has inadvertently encountered my blog, I must remind all that I have permission to be on the Cemex site; and even then I am careful where and when I walk. Particularly now, during breeding season.

Before the slide show, this is how far I think Inert have progressed infilling Finch pond. My crudely drawn blue bits aren't to scale and I may have got some of the thicknesses wrong. It does give an idea how much Finch pond has been filled in and how much there is to go.

Wildlife.

As I do not dawdle on my walk, what wildlife I see has to be front and centre for me to capture it. That being said, there is an awful lot to see. There is even more to hear, and I need to get an app that will help me recognise them - not that I have a mobile phone.

Again I am struck by how much the wildlife has got used to the (fairly traumatic) human activity around the site. Large flotillas of Canada geese (and possibly others) and Tufted duck ply Cormorant lake. I spotted at least five Lapwings creeling about the place.

The Shelduck are, as usual, dead wary. I have a sequence where they take to the waters of Finch pond when they spot me. At the time I was over 100 yards away, on the south footpath, wearing fairly sombre coloured clothing and bush hat, largely screened by chest/chin high weeds, and separated by a large expanse of land and water! Yet the blighters were still nervous!!!

Go to the local park or leisure ground and there is a wild scrum as the wildfowl jostle in their eagerness to get at any food you may or may not have for them.

I did get some splendid views of three (yes three) Green woodpeckers. The memsahib and I decided to walk along some footpaths around the Sandmartins golf club on Friday evening. As we walked past the club house, complete with ball bashers engaged in alcoholic revelry, I spotted three Green woodpeckers flying in the club carpark. They landed no more than about 40 or 50 yards from us, and allowed me to haul off several shots with my bridge camera! They hung around for about five minutes, ignoring the noise coming from the ball bashers on the other side of the club house.

Sadly, despite the excellent light conditions, despite it being 19:30, my bridge camera didn't take brilliant photos. It's autofocus isn't wonderful, and I did take the photos at 1200mm zoom without a tripod. Still, I'm well chuffed I got so many photos, and they allowed us to watch them for so long.