Materials Man

I was in good time, having left Whitelee wind farm at 12.30 where for you road techies we are laying blacktop on a floating road, designed by several heads and road note 29, yes road note 29. Without fuss or hindrance got back to the m74 to travel south to Locherbie, when after junction 6 met solid traffic doing that stop starting shuffle. Radio Scotland informed me there was a breakdown on the south bound and traffic was building up, aye, right it was, 4/5 miles of it! there was several breakdowns in the hard shoulder, probable over heating as…

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Well whatever wasps have nice for eating have attracted yet another dig em up raider. this is about 35 m away from the one I posted about earlier, the earlier one, despite me thinking it was being abandoned, is still on the go as well. So why not dig into that one  again? the job is half done. And because it is half done it surely cannot be a honey buzzard? Daft dozey badgers probably, or as I like to think of them, big scratchy weasels.

One country item I have learned is that a wasps nest is…

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While walking towards a small wood, a fox was walking up the side of it 200m away. I stopped he/she did not, but spotted me within a few fox steps and it half barked and disappeared into the wood. After about two hours I was climbing a gate at the other side of the same wood when a movement on a path about 5m away caught my eye, knowing there was a fox around (there usually is) I stood on the spars on the gate exactly at the point when I had seen the movement. A game…

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This fuzzy pic was taken this morning, and clearly the female is watching me. I had watched from a less disturbing point earlier and I could only see one chick. no female and male preening nearby, and 30 mins later there was still only one chick, now I was worried where on earth was it. Took my eye of the scope to look around me and when I  looked again within a minute, there was the female and she had a fish, not that I could see it but she attempted to pick off a bit and…

What is this?

My brother, sent me this pic, could have done with a close up as well. however for you botanistists out there, it is an orchid? of some type, at Peel park near East Kilbride. Suggestion (from my brother) is early purple orchid?

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I had checked out the Ospreys and was heading back from an uneventful session, except the females penchant for chasing crows. The male just sits there and she has a right go at them! two chicks are wing stretching, one is noticeably larger. Anyway i took a different path back to my car and saw this, or rather heard it.

Of course being a birder and seeing a plundered wasps nest, I’m thinking Honey Buzzard, but i don’t think so, not enough decidious forest here. Plus a honey buzzard would not have left the plunder behind as one…

Big Buck?

Osprey chicks, there are two, are big enough not to need brooding so it is easy to confirm there numbers. My crap picture, I blam heat haze! should show two heads. The male when I arrived, I can now separate them by plumage differences, was doing his flapping about trying to stablise his footing near the nest. I knew he had a big fish just by this behaviour, and sure enough after feeding himself he flapped onto the nest and I caught a glimpse of a long skinny, covered in blood fish. I think it was a pike. Meantime…

This is an English proverb, just written in Scots. I like many others interpreted May as the month, it is however thought to be the May flower which is the flower of the Hawthorn. Last week 10/5/09, there was none in bloom and this week 17/5/09 it is well established. This, at where I observe Ospreys. Last week she should have had chicks hatched but my visit did not coincide with feeding so I could not count chick heads. This weekend I had more time so got up early and was on station at the back of seven. Female (assumed)…

Our, not design and build,  A7 project is nearing completion, and I have to do falling weight defectometer (FWD) top of base and top of binder for designer validation. The design is HD 26/01 and uses figure 2.2, so the design is material choice and thickness. Not stiffness, so how does the designer validate his design? and how does he validate his design on a part built pavement that generally is still warm, but below 30 degrees C? It also occurred to my “catch up brain”, that the temp is recorded by drilling into the pavement to 100mm. I do…

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construction shots from April 2009

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Believe it or not I captured these images on the site of the new M74 at Polmadie, although I suspect the wildlife at night may be somewhat different.

Talk of, travels and trouble with travels in the office, reminded me of the day I nicked my own passport. It was all about money, a gratuity paid by a company for time spent with the company, this was in Dubai in 1980/1981. My company was a joint venture of a local housebuilder and a massive French outfit, essentially a part of Colas. I had worked for 18 months on the underpasses and enjoyed Dubai and the project enormously. But i was due this dosh and was not going to let it easily escape my clutches. The problem was the…

White deer

White deer 2

I startled this creature in the woods, of course the brain said sheep, then a goat, and finally got round to a deer. A pure white deer, on it’s own, these woods have roe aplenty and I have once been mesmerised and rooted to the spot when a large pale fallow deer walked within 20m of me, but a white deer? whiter than a sheep too. Incredible. It was not familiar with where it was, judging by the way it behaved, it had no clear escape route and the fact it left the woods for open fields…

Fresh fish

How’s this for breakfast? 7.35 am Saturday 11 April, male could not keep the fish steady on a branch near the nest and flapped onto the nest for a stable platform. The female considered this was a passover of food and got off the nest. No deal says he and just about falls from the nest to the post where I took this picture. I have seen him use these posts in high winds, this morning was not really windy.

Had a good look at other pics I took and could see the ring on his left leg that I…

I was at a pavement meeting this week for a road tender project. These meetings never used to happen, as the choice was blacktop of what thickness (except DBFOs) and the market place used to sort that out, usually after an award. As the rules are new in HD 26/06 and the now much clearer IAN 73/06, 2009 update, there is a part of the meeting that is educative. It’s not that its complicated to understand as you still end up with thicknesses of layers, it’s the choice that complicates. In this choice matrix are grey areas, the largest is…