A hedge to far?

It was time to tackle the second hedge in the garden- if anything more overgrown than the first one, and bounding the neighbours garden.
Duly bought a large board as per earlier post to mimic the professional technique of working forward on top of the hedge using the board as a support. It worked for about three feet, then came the gap with just a few spindly branches, before the next thick trunk.  Not a safe system- so the board the professionals used must have been very big indeed to span the gaps.
Went back to old system, ladders braced against one side, a bit of praying to ensure no slips, and the occasional lean over the void with chainsaw in hand to get at branches beyond normal reach. In the end managed to get everything cut down to the old height and only dropped two pieces of cutting over my neighbours boundary.

Well I said all of it, except for the bit that had what looked like an old abandoned pigeons nest in it (hard to tell when they are haphazardly built in the first place). Having done a visual check for absence of any baby pigeon I proceeded to hack the branches away to be surprised by a pigeon flying in and landing on the nest and settling down.

I proceeded to cut further along, she flew off and I checked from a higher perch (pun intended) and spotted a single egg. At this point there was little remaining of the top growth so I thought it might be abandoned, but not a bit of it, once I had done with the last of the hedge, the pigeon was back, settled down and has been there since, so the hedge top is flat except for two long upright branches with a contented mother sitting in it. Hopefully in about three weeks I can finish the job on both hedges ( 10 day old baby in the other hedge awaiting its fledging also)

Then came the fun bit- transporting the debris to the recycling center. As most of the cuttings were 6 to 10ft long, they had to be reduced in size to fit the trailer- a case of tendonitus later and I was ready to take it to the center, however the weather had other ideas- after the second load it rained very heavily so I decided as I was already wet I might as well carry on, so after the 4th load I was wet to my skin and needed a good warming bath to recover.
I am mightily relieved it is done and aim to keep it well trimmed in the future- looking to get an extendable hedge trimmer to do the job in future.