Pump knacked, bridge welded, dead saplings replaced, infill continues. 19th January 2019

What a busy week has transpired.  My mid-week foray, in somewhat gloomy but mildish conditions, had a man continuing to weld the Bailey bridge.  The pristine condition of the bridge (aka not muddy) suggested no lorry or bulldozer traffic had crossed it since last week. This translates into no further progress on Manor farm...well, not quite. More later.

Our stalwart pump was not. It was quite silent. Obviously the leaky pipe or obstruction in said pipe has not been rectified. Water levels were still surprisingly low.

I noticed a white van on Fleet Hill farm near the southern Longwater road entrance. Along this part of Fleet Hill farm, many of the green tubes protecting saplings from being eaten were lying on their sides. These, I surmised, contained dead saplings, those succumbing to the long hot summer of 2018.

It was interesting to see the distribution of the dead saplings. I wonder to what extent deaths were attributable by species, strength of sapling when planted, availability of water or all of above.  In any case, when I returned on Friday (taking advantage of some rare sunshine to further try out my new lens) I noticed many of the tubes were now upright. No doubt containing a nice, shiny new sapling. A white van was still on Fleet Hill farm, and I suspect will be there next week to continue replacing dead saplings with live ones.  I'm not sure how they tell which species had died. Most, when I peered down the green tubes, resembled twigs  - albeit dead.

My Friday, sunny visit, revealed a very muddy works (aka Bailey) bridge with a reasonable fleet of tipper trucks, busily at work transporting inert material from Chandlers farm to Manor farm. the bridge had been full welded and pronounced safe.

One of the bulldozers was busily at work on the south shore of Finch pond, building up soil levels once again.

There was some encroachment of bulldozing closer towards the south footpath, on an area that had already been filled in.  There was evidence of work on the north shore of Finch pond with (guess what) the soil being gouged out and pushed southward; leaving a gentle long slope.

I reckon this will continue next week, with the land levels being raised further.  At some point the infill must stop, if only to leave some semblance of a pond.

There was a great deal of activity on Chandlers farm.  One, particularly large, hill of spoil was being dug out and loaded on to lorries - I think for transferring to Manor farm, but I am not sure. Diggers, lorries and bulldozers were trundling all over Chandlers farm.

I'm still concerned work has stopped on Cormorant lake.  The breeding season is fast approaching, and calls will be made to halt any restoration activity - unless, that is, the birds will be able to breed on the new, pristine but tiny Finch pond.

I've had to post process the photos as the weather on most of the days was cloudy and manky. Also I have been using bridge cameras for wide angle shots.  My Sigma, with its lowest 150mm is not brillient for landscape photos.  I started off using an old Canon bridge camera, but it has been through the wars and now takes slightly out of focus photos. On Saturday, I switched to an old Lumix. It has the advantage of having a view finder. I can't stand using an LCD screen on the back of cameras. Too much reflection and difficult to compose the shot.