Isle of Man Nature Journal

  • Several species of geese can be found in the wild in the Isle of Man. Some are migratory visitors, whereas others are present year round. The picture is often confused by feral, previously domesticated, birds being seen alongside those that…

  • I had a wonderful time away at a family wedding last weekend, and took my ‘Colours of Nature’ travel palette with me in case I had a chance to sketch during the trip. The weather was very grey but the…

  • Among the colours featured in the book ‘Nature’s Palette’ by Thames and Hudson, there are several that are described as ‘characteristic colours’ as they are used as reference points to describe other colours. As I’m going on a short trip…

  • Dragonflies are the most mesmerising of insects. To me, they always seem too big, too beautiful and too alien to be real when seen flying or hovering nearby. I guess one of the reasons they look so alien to me…

  • With Hop-tu-Naa on the way and the WildTober drawing prompts this week featuring ‘corvid’, I just had to feature these wonderful birds on the blog. The Isle of Man is lucky enough to be home to a variety of corvid…

  • With the Autumn Leaves in Ink workshop coming up, I’ve been creating lots of leaf ink drawings to show as examples and to test out different colour combinations of ink. While doing this, it occurred to me that these leaves…

  • Autumn is such a beautiful time of year, especially the wonderful warm colours of the leaves as they lose chlorophyll and fall from the trees. With the wind this year, there often seems to be more leaves in the air…

  • We’ve had a fantastic range of artwork to add to the Isle of Man Nature Journal map over the last couple of weeks. Before I start my ink-drawing adventures for Inktober, I thought I’d share all the new artwork in…

  • I recently discovered that Richard Adams, the author of the novel Watership Down, had lived on the Isle of Man and had written a nature diary during his time here. A quick search of online secondhand bookstores secured me a…

  • The rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia), also known as the mountain ash or ‘Billey Keirn’ in Manx, is a deciduous tree native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Culturally, it has a deep connection with folklore and mythology, particularly in Celtic…