Friday 20 February 2015

A dart round to the mud-fest

The Safari had a quick look at the engineering works at the nature reserve this afternoon. Since we were last on site the Visitor Centre is coming on leaps and bounds and looking from the Fylde Bird Club hide there was a goodly dollop of mud to be seen.
It's starting to look quite different out there. We walked quickly round noting the carnage along the pathway, it looks really bad now but once they've finished and bladed it back you'll hardly know they've been by the end of the summer...and who knows next year that patch could be full of Bee Orchids.
We stopped to see if any of the Long Eared Owls were in view - one was, and very much in view it was. We only had our bins and phone with us - actually we did have our camera with us but its SD card was still in the slot in the puter back at Base Camp - dohhh schoolboy error!
We had to improvise with a bit of digi-binning.
A chat with one of the drivers had us worried about the weather, they really need it to stay dry so they can crack on a pace. Rainy days, he told us, really holds them up as the dumper truck gets bogged down and can only go slow in the mud. They've also found more soft earth and less clay than expected, they need hard clay to build the mound to place the new panoramic hide on.
The flat bit beyond the fence isn't the finished level.




Hope they can reach that Willow in the reeds to the right of the big mound of earth.
There's a Buzzard in the picture. The lads tell me it sits up there waiting for the machine to unearth worms or grubs n stuff.
Coming back to the Land Rover we spotted another huge pile of earth that wasn't there last week.
Beginning to look something like - just hope it doesn't rain this week. As we left the lad we were speaking to was out on the island with some marker paint spraying up some levels.
Where to next? Something marshy this weekend for the very hide tides.
In the meantime let us know who's been making all the holes in your outback.




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