The hills are pretty soggy after lots of rain recently💦 It's good to see that our newly installed peat bunds are working, creating shallow pools of water in an area that has just been reprofiled. These pools will help to keep the peat wet and provide a nice habitat for wildlife 🐦🦋

Some nice #peat video clips 😊

Perfect #peatland weather 😂

What a day 😃 Checking on #peat restoration work, with sun, snow and no wind...so rare 😂

Although our work is focussed on restoring natural #peatland habitats, it's also great to remember that there is a wealth of human history in these hills😊 It's important to retain these cultural connections to the landscape, while also trying to restore natural habitats for future generations 🌿

A red-nose, cup-of-tea kind of a day today! Lovely ❄️

#Peatland restoration ❄️

A spot of night fishing last night at Peel #isleofman 😊

Looking 👀for advice on #peat pipes🙏 Pipe flow approx. 1.5m below surface, several roof collapses, one large (see photo). The source of water is from a fairly steep slope. Is there anything that can be done to reduce erosion and bring the water to the surface? Any ideas greatly appreciated 😊

Great to see interventions working😊 #peatland #restoration

Today is all about water 💦 Visiting our restoration sites after rain shows us how the ground is responding and can highlight any additional work needed. This small ditch was dammed to raise the water table in the surrounding peat. It's great to see how much the sphagnum moss is thriving🌿😁

So many reasons to love #sphagnum moss 😀

The importance of wet #peatland 💦

What a day 😍 #peatland rainbows 🌈

This wet area of #sphagnum moss has formed where water seeps out of the hillside 💦 The last two photos show the same feature after a week of no rain. In flatter places these sphagnum carpets sometimes hide a deeper pool of water, so if you like to keep your legs dry it's best to avoid them 😬

Sometimes my job looks like this 😂 #peatland restoration

Meet our contractors 🐶🐾 These two corgis are very experienced at #peatland restoration work and are highly skilled digger operators. They have the added advantage of having nice warm coats, ready for when the weather turns cold ❄️😊

#Peat and #whisky 😍

One of the best things about Autumn is the gorgeous colours 😍 This is the time of year where #sphagnum mosses become more vibrant and really stand out amongst other #peatland vegetation 💚 Cotton grass turns autumnal red and cladonia lichen (aka reindeer moss 🦌) adds a splash of white 😁

A family of shaggy ink cap mushrooms ☺️ #fungi

Sometimes simple interventions are all that are needed 😊 #peatland

Encouraging signs after #peatland disturbance....lots of #sphagnum 😊

Any suggestions for this interesting #fungi found on a #peatland restoration site 🤔 It caught my attention as it looks like it has the '3 legs of Mann' 🇮🇲 on it ☺️ #isleofman

Another guided walk in fabulous conditions 😂, this time for delegates at the Inter-island Environment Meeting #IIEM25 . We saw nothing of the surrounding hills 💚 but saw enough #peatland restoration, interesting fungi, mist and #sphagnum moss to keep everyone happy 💦🌿

Peat pipes can be really difficult to deal with, especially on steep, degraded #peatland 🤔

This piece of wood, likely hawthorn🌳 was found at the base of a #peat hag on Snaefell. Wet, acidic peat can preserve materials for a very long time. Without carbon-dating, it's impossible to tell exactly how long this wood has been buried, but it's likely to be THOUSANDS of years old 😮

Best thing about a rainy day...wizard chess in front of the fire 😊

Perfect weather to look around a #peatland restoration site 🤣

It was great to be joined on Friday by Gareth from www.conservefor.co.uk 😊 We had a look at some of our #peatland sites and discussed different restoration methods. Gareth has many years of experience in this type of work and was happy to share his ideas while on the Island 👍

Today has been a sheep rescue kind of a day 🐑 (and yes, I did brave the crocodile infested #peaty swamp to pull it out🐊🤣) It turns out that coir logs on a sledge make quite a good floating rescue platform 😀

Clinging precariously to a #peat hag 😊

Have a go at our interactive #peat map 😊

My daughters and I were joined on the hill by a pair of ravens yesterday ☺️ They were VERY close and were chatting away to us - a magical experience 😍

Lovely #peatland fungi 😊

We've been impressed by how much vegetation has established on reprofiled #peat hags, however some places need a helping hand 👇 This hag had areas where the peat was still bare, so we've transplanted some small plugs 🌿 from the adjacent hillside 😊

I love that my job involves wandering the hills in wet musty days 😍

Damming small drainage ditches can have an immediate effect. What was once an area of dried out bare #peat is now a small upland pool. This will keep the surrounding peat wet and create habitat for invertebrates and birds 🐦See the last three photos to see the pool infilling 😊

Dragonflies🐲, one of the many benefits of #peatland restoration 😊

Cutting #peat for fuel in the past has left some areas of the hills with bare, eroding peat. In these places the first step is to slow the flow of water💦 which we have done here using coir logs. We are currently trialling growing our own moss for use on this site 🌿😊

It's nearly time for restoration work to start again, so we made the most of the calm weather to gather some drone shots of the site before the work😊 This site was historically cut for fuel, which has left exposed and eroding peat hags, shallow vegetated gullies and hidden peat pipes.

Invertebrates are an important source of food for upland birds 🦟🐦 Craneflies and midges are most common, but the warm weather has brought out the flying ants. Unfortunately these ones have landed in a #peaty pool 😬

One of the few cottongrass seed heads left on the hills 😢 But just as we lose these summer beauties, the autumn brings out the vibrant colours of sphagnum mosses ☺️ The seasonal change in peatland vegetation transforms the colour of the hills 💚🤍💜🧡

The honey-scented smell of the heather is divine today 💜😋

Some more before and after photos, this time from Beinn-y-Phott. The first two show a large peat pipe which was reprofiled last winter. The second two photos show a peat hag which was reprofiled just before a large storm, which caused some damage, but it is now looking lovely and green 🌿 ☺️

I got held up for a few minutes on my way to work this morning while someone was having breakfast 🦅☺️

Bog Asphodel flowers are turning from yellow to orange as they fruit, but they still look beautiful ☺️ They grow in wet, acidic conditions and were once thought to cause brittle bones in livestock. The plants can cause problems for lambs, however other plants are usually eaten in preference 🐏

The purple heathered hills are awash with flowers at the moment ☺️Calluna vulgaris is the most common heather species found on the #isleofman but you can also see bell heather and cross-leaved heath 💜

Great summer #peat survey weather 🤣

I love that cushag (ragwort) is the national flower of the #isleofman 😍 Such a good plant for wildlife 🐛