#MYBIOSPHERE: SUSAN JELLIS

In our regular feature in Isle of Man Newspapers, authors from different walks of Manx life offer a personal perspective on #MyBiosphere. This month Susan Jellis writes:

A waterfall in full flow is one of the most inspiring sites of nature and the Manx countryside offers many waterfalls to enjoy, from grand and gushing to small and splashing. Light dances off the falling stream and creates diamond sparkles as it breaks over rocks. Clear, rushing water meets your gaze briefly and is gone, forever. You never see the same waterfall twice.

I remembered that in Glen Helen recently. I have seen the Rhenass Falls a multitude of times but I have never seen it so full and tempestuous as it was then, its ferocity turning it yellowy brown with stirred up material. There was an overwhelming sound of rushing water. I was mesmerised.

The Manx National Glens are home to many waterfalls and there’s also an impressive but lesser known one at Laxey Quarry Falls that was celebrated on the recent waterfalls stamp issue from the Isle of Man Post Office.

A walk through the semi-natural spaces of the glens to find a cascade is an uplifting experience for me, with the blessings of tranquillity, the grandeur of large trees, wild flowers in spring and summer, fungi in autumn, and the different textures of leaves and moss.

To have all these ‘wild gardens’ freely available, lightly managed for safety by DEFA but as near wild as most of us get, is a heritage we need to value.

My ‘patch’ of Mona’s Isle is the north of the Island, with open farmland all around, the greatest of contrasts to the glens.

On days when I’m not up for hills and steep paths, my best nearby substitute is the lovely (level) wooded garden at Milntown, Lezayre, with its mature trees and amazing tree ferns.

However, I love to find that, even on the farmland plain, nature is being encouraged to creep back.

To see the orchid fields in bloom at Close Sartfield and understand how that natural display had been recreated is exciting. To walk the conservation areas in sight of the sea on a friend’s farm in Andreas and imagine it in 10 years’ time is uplifting; new copses of Scots pine on the gravel banks, willows in the dampest places with alders close by, then oaks, brooms, birch, whitebeam, sycamore (resilient to the harsh winds but not my favourite tree), juniper, ash, spindle, guelder rose - the list goes on.

The saplings are starting to thrive and the planting pattern is designed to encourage birdlife. Buzzards circle overhead, sparrow hawks, hen harriers and peregrines are sighted here. Linnets, sky larks, red wings, wax wings, blackcap, willow warbler, sedge warbler, gold crest and a host more thrive around the ponds and in the fields and many hedges.

The Woodland Trust helps farmers to plant trees in suitable places, hoping to increase the famously sparse tree cover. The new Biosphere project in conjunction with Manx Wildlife Trust and other partners aims to create a forest by linking and expanding existed wooded areas: the Hairpin Woodland Park.

Yet planting trees is not new, it follows a long tradition. Bishop Wilson started planting trees on the bare hillsides opposite his house, Bishopscourt, in the 1700s, creating a wooded glen; Revd William Fitzsimmons planted extensively in the Laxey Glen area in the early 1800s, on the now thickly wooded slopes; tree planting by the then owner of Glen Helen, Mr Marsden, was continued in the 1860s by the company which bought it; another passionate tree planter was William Quine at Silverdale.

All these areas are now mature and wildlife as well as humans can celebrate the foresight of the earlier tree planters, who sought to give natural beauty a helping hand, and thank those who are following in their footsteps today.