2nd September
Yesterday was the first
day of meteorological Autumn and was warm and often sunny, in contrast
to today that has started wet and windy. We took our house-guest
Maggie for a walk up to the Centenary Park at the top of Birch Hill and
I took a few pictures in the park. It's a lovely area with some areas
cut but many others allowed to grow naturally with lots of wild flowers
varying with the seasons. Panasonic TZ200 1/9/20
The park has been developed
by volunteers since around 2016 and I've taken aerial pictures for the
Woodland Trust since then. I'm starting with
four of these showing
the park over the years. DJI Phantom 2 Vision+, Phantom 4 Pro &
Spark
4th September
Quite a large selection
of pictures taken yesterday afternoon on a walk down the Dhoon Glen from
the car park to the beach and back. It's quite a steep
descent, dropping around
600 feet over a lateral distance of only just over half a mile and of course
you have to climb back up again!
Nikon D7100 3/9/20
8th September
We had a visit to the
Wildlife Park on Sunday afternoon, some pictures from the park and the
Curragh with a panorama on the way there,
a couple of pictures
on the way home and some evening shots from home. Nikon D7100 6/9/20
East Baldwin Valley
and the Mountain Road
The Curraghs Wildlife
Park
Walking out of the park
into the Curragh on one of the provided pathways.
On the way home from
the Wildlife Park, in Druidale.
Evening skies at Birch
Hill Panasonic TZ200
9th September
A set of pictures taken
in Castletown late on Monday afternoon. It had been a generally dull
and wet day, but after I had left a meeting at the airport it appeared
to be brightening up, so rather than sit in queues of traffic around Douglas
at rush hour, I had a short stroll around the town for pictures.
Panasonic TZ200 7/9/20
12th September
A few pictures taken
at Port Erin on Thursday afternoon. Panasonic TZ200 10/9/20
16th September
These pictures are from
a walk up Tholt-y-Will Glen on Sunday afternoon, starting from the car
park near the converted chapel, then walking up through the glen with a
stroll around the Corrody and Creggans tholtans at the top. The map
says it's a bit over 300 ft from bottom to top, although the GPS suggested
that we'd climbed and descended between 500 and 600 ft over the whole walk.
On the way back down we detoured to visit the Tholt-y-Will tholtan.
It was a strange day for weather, with cloud covering the hilltops and
low visibility in fog on the Mountain Road, but bright sunshine in Tholt-y-Will.
Panasonic TZ200 13/9/20
17th September
Reflections in a calm
Ramsey Harbour on Tuesday morning. Panasonic TZ200 15/9/20
18th September
After visiting a couple
of shops in Ramsey on Tuesday morning, we headed onwards to Milntown House
for lunch, followed by a stroll around the gardens. Lots of great
flowers and an amazing number of butterflies, mostly Red Admirals but a
few others as well. Panasonic TZ200 15/9/20
19th September
More pictures from Tuesday
afternoon! After Milntown we had a fairly quick visit to the Wildlife
Park, but these pictures were taken on the way home from there, driving
via the Druidale Road from Ballaugh and stopping just above Tholt-y-Will
Plantation for these two panoramas. DJI Spark 15/9/20
Continuing our journey
home, we stopped at Injebreck Reservoir for some more aerial pictures.
The almost complete calm allowed some great reflections.
DJI Spark 15/9/20
20th September
Just came across a few
pictures from our Wildlife park visit on Tuesday. Panasonic TZ200
15/9/20
21st September
A few pictures taken
on a walk around Langness on Thursday afternoon. Panasonic TZ200
17/9/20
The sun setting over
Slieau Whallain viewed from Birch Hill. 17/5/20
22nd September
These are some aerial
pictures taken on Friday afternoon in the vicinity of the Laxey Wheel.
The intention of the flight was just to provide a comparison to an old
postcard showing the Browside Tramway that used to take visitors from road
level up to the wheel and operated between 1890 and about 1906. Much
of the location has subsequently been levelled to provide the present day
car park. The area available for flying was quite restricted due
to houses and other buildings, so there is no a huge variety of pictures
as a result. There is more information and some pictures on the Isle
of Man Cliff Railways webpage.
DJI Phantom 4 Pro 18/9/20
After the Laxey flight
I continued onwards to Ballafayle in Maughold parish. An interesting
site up in the hills between Port Cornaa and Port Moor and the location
of a Neolithic burial site, believed to date from 2,000 to 1,500BC.
On the opposite side of the lane there is a Quaker Burial ground where
William Callow was laid to rest in 1676. He had suffered persecution
and eventual banishment from the island for his faith. There has
also in recent years been a little park area established here. It's
on private land but open to the public and gives great views to Maughold
Head. DJI Phantom 4 Pro 18/9/20
23rd September
Still playing catch-up
with photos. These ones were taken on Saturday, when we had a trip
out to Peel, parking at Fenella Beach and then walking inland along the
River Neb to The Raggatt, before returning to the town. Just made
it to Davisons for ice creams as they were closing! Panasonic TZ200
19/9/20
24th September
We had a walk along
the Marine Drive from the arches to Port Soderick and back on Sunday afternoon
and I took the little Spark drone with me. Some ground level pictures
to start and finish, but the rest are aerial ones at three locations.
Panasonic TZ200 & DJI Spark 20/9/20
25th September
Some aerial photography
in the Whitestrand area, to the north of Peel, on Wednesday afternoon.
DJI Spark 23/9/20
26th September
A small selection of
aerial pictures taken late Wednesday afternoon at Peel Castle. DJI
Spark 23/9/20
There were some fascinating
cloud formations and illuminations around sunset on Wednesday evening.
The pictures below were all just taken from various locations around my
house, the lighting was changing by the minute, as it often does around
sunset. Panasonic TZ200 23/9/20
28th September
On Saturday afternoon
we headed north for a walk around the gardens at Milntown House.
The visibility was superb and we had a short stop at Guthrie's on the Mountain
Road to take in the views across the sea towards southern Scotland.
Nikon D7100 26/9/20
After arriving at Milntown,
we had a conker hunting session under the trees near the car park before
our walk around the gardens. There were still lots of flowers in
bloom but not the butterflies we had seen on our last visit. I used
my Sigma 105 mm Macro lens for all of these shots apart from the first
two.
29th September
Some aerial pictures,
looking at the Foxdale area on Sunday morning. DJI Phantom 4 Pro
27/9/20
30th September
Cronk-ny-Arrey-Laa
and a secret WW2 Radio Station!
Some more aerial photography
from Sunday morning. The main pupose was to obtain some more images
of the radio station remains there, but it was a beautiful day and I took
some more general images as well. DJI Phantom 4 Pro 27/9/20
The Radio Station
- and a request for more information!
I had been unaware of
this location until it was drawn to my attention by fellow researcher Chris
Corkish, although I believe it was considered as a possible location for
a new radar for Ronaldsway in the 1990s. Some people have suggested
that is was a WW2 radar site, but Chris managed to identify is as a 'Radio
Track Guide' station. This was a British copy of the German 'Knickerbein'
radio bombing beam system but why it was located here is still a bit of
a mystery. The radio aerial would seem to be on a fixed bearing,
poiniting across the sea towards Anglesey. It was possibly used to
designate a Night Fighter 'patrol line' for aircraft operating from RAF
Valley. In inland areas these were marked by light beacons, obviously not
practical over the sea. If anyone has any more information I would
love to know, at the moment its purpose remains unknown. It seems
to have been known as 'RAF South Barrule', maybe to confuse the enemy.
Chris has a Facebook
Page 'Military
Relics and Info Isle of Man' with lots of information and pictures.
P.S. Chris has come
up with another possibility that the site was linked to an installation
at West Freugh in southern Scotland, in which case it could have been a
training installation for future bomber crews based at the ten airfields
around the Irish Sea that were looked after by the Training Flying Control
Centre based at Ramsey Grammar School.
1st October
Some wild wallabies
in Ballaugh Curragh on Sunday afternoon. Nikon D7100 27/9/20
2nd October
Still catching up with
pictures from last month with some aerial pictures taken in three locations
on Tuesday morning. DJI Phantom 4 Pro 29/9/20
Druidale
Sulby Reservoir
Although the reflections
in the reservoir had looked good from Druidale, increasing cloud amounts
were affecting the pictures once I had arrived
at the new flying location
and I didn't stay for too long.
Snaefell
3rd October
Pictures taken on a
walk around Langness on Tuesday afternoon. We normally start and finish
this walk on St Michael's Island (Fort Island) which gets the road walking
part out of the way at the start. Distance is around 5.25 miles and
it takes us about three hours as we've not fast and make a lot of stops!
Panasonic TZ200 29/9/20
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