Trackway cut through the ridge 26th July 2018

You would have thought, dear reader, that by now I would have learnt not to try and second guess what area of Manor farm Inert will attack next.  Fully expecting them to fill in the area west of the new 'causeway', they instead build a ramp along the edge of the ridge and then cut a trackway across the south end of the ridge.

I suspect this trackway is to give lorries access to Cormorant lake (north) to allow this lake to be filled in. Naturally, having second guessed what is going on here, I will be proven completely wrong.

Thursday's excursion was taken at roughly 9:15am when the temperature was a rather warm 26 degrees centigrade. No way was I going around the reserve at my usual lunchtime. Temperatures by then were 31 degrees centigrade - it would be even higher in the exposed blistering heat of the nascent reserve.

I do wonder how many of the plant drivers and operators have air conditioned cabs. A fair number of the haulage lorry drivers had their driver side window down. Does this suggest they do not have air con? Poor lads, the dust, temperature and noise were quite extreme.

In many ways I was lucky to capture the digger cutting the trackway. I suspect the digger operator would have finished the work by 11:00am.

The bulldozer driver is often out of his cab directing operations or assessing progress. He's probably the only one who knows what is going on. I also get the impression, perhaps wrongly, that most all the work is done by eye.  I can't see any of the normal surveying guides you see on a building site e.g. bits of wood nailed together in the shape of a cross - much like the Cross of Lorraine.  Perhaps they use some form of satellite positioning?

Oh, I think that Finch pond jnr II has been well and truly filled in.