The 13 tonne digger didn't sink, and the excavation work went as planned.
This was the start of the day, with the machine starting to scrape back the water body towards the Phil Stead Hide.
In this photograph, you can see the expertise of the digger driver as he scrapes the spoil back to leave 1cm of water over the remaining mud, an ideal habitat for feeding waders. He made a large spoil mound behind him, and then moved that back as he progressed towards the hide.
And on completion of works, a nice scrape in front of the hide. Look at the post that was next to the machine in the first photograph. That's a nice stretch of wader feeding habitat once the squidgy bird food colonises the mud. It's a shame 13 tonne excavators are so expensive, just think what we could do if we had one parked in the compound. Then again, without the expertise of the driver, I'd probably just make a big mess.