The bulldozer driver is back! 13th October 2018

Unless my eyes deceive me, the bulldozer driver has a shiny new bulldozer. It has a smaller cab, and wider caterpillar tracks. Walking over the tracks, I think I can just make out the extensions to them to give them a wider width.

I was getting a little concerned about the bulldozer driver.  It is possibly he has been on holiday for the past two weeks. Equally, he may have been on site all the time operating a digger or the bulldozer in a different part of the works. Perhaps he may have been awaiting the shiny new dozer.

Regardless of the reason, the return of the bulldozer marks an increased acceleration in the rate of restoration. I saw him working all over Manor farm on Wednesday morning; around the boulder sorter outer, scraping an ever greater area of the south shore of Finch pond into said pond, extending the finish level ground on the northern part of the Finch pond infill. The finish level has extended along the base of the north embankment almost all the way to the ridge.

There is still a terrific amount of infill to happen before finishing with Finch pond. I reckon as much as six feet (1.8m) over large swathes of the area.  I really can't see the December 31st 2018 deadline being reached.  Effectively it is only two months away - everything does stop for Christmas, and rightly so.

The final level of the ground does undulate so. Looking at the survey stakes, I can see figures of 51m, 52m etc. I assume this is metres above sea level.  Though I think the average height of land here is over 60m, possibly 70m. I am therefore a little confused what the finish level height is.

I am wondering, though I should have learnt my lesson by now not to second guess what will happen, if the excavations the bulldozer driver has been studiously doing on the southern portion of Finch pond is for a shallow area of reed beds. It is a bit curious, having filled in this large area and smoothed it off, it is now being excavated and pushed into Finch pond.

Other happenings. I noticed contractors strimming around the saplings on Fleet Hill farm. A never ending task, as we know from maintaining Moor Green Lakes. I am still perplexed as to some of the strimming and mowing. Nettles are growing back a pace on the west and north embankments and ridge.

As usual, the pump is not pumping and water levels are creeping back up.  It was decidedly muddy around bits of the infill. Some of this is due, no doubts, to the rain we've had recently. Some I reckon is due to the rising water levels.

I have mentioned, a couple of times, about the amount of building rubble I see being bulldozed into Finch pond, and Cormorant lake previously. I queried it's 'inertness'.  I did some investigation to find out the cost of inert material.  I never did find a cost, but did discover that inert waste covers a reasonably wide spectrum of materials.  Building rubble is perfectly legitimate inert material.

I think the basic definition of inert waste is that it does not leach nasty chemicals into the environment.

You might notice that the funny little bits of the pond, looking like inlets on the west shore have been filled in. Well, the southern bit was filled in a couple of weeks ago. It has now been partially excavated and now slopes down to the water surface; which seems to be normal practice.  The northern bit has been filled in, but as with the south bit, it too slopes down to the water surface.

An updated map, which is highly approximate, of the infill (purple) and where it has reached the finish level (orange). Some of the trackways, which the lorries follow, are at the finish level, as are some parts of the north shore of Finch pond. I have not marked these in. However, I do include some photos in the slide show with the surveys stakes detailing where the finish level has been reached.

Photography was a little challenging, especially when pointing my camera east. The sun, rising over the horizon, would cause my camera to under expose the photo. I sort of had a crack at fixing this in post processing software.

Although it presented some challenges for photography, the sunrise did offer considerable opportunities for some arty shots (as I call them) of the considerable amount of wildlife (some critically endangered) that already inhabit the site.  These shots are of the more common birds.