Having visited the archaeological dig on Moncrieffe Hill on Friday, their last full day to a very worthy week, having discovered and found some very interesting features and items. I was prompted to go onto Moredun Top the adjacent, much larger and higher hill fort. Principally to have a look at an unusual block of stone. The stone easily found was interesting and worth further investigation. Chatted with another pro photographer Donald Ford who specialises in golf courses and calendar orientated landscapes for a spell, while the weather remained dull. However when I set off back down the hill I noticed a rather nice splash of sunlight on Perth and an ominous heavy shower further to the west. I decided on doing a quick hand held panorama, the results of which you can see below. With accompanying zoomible hi res panorama. Here or click on image.
Many trees have been felled on the top so its now possible to also get a reasonably good view towards Dundee. My subsequent thinking is to do a series (with my proper panorama setup) if not also a 360º panorama from the top at some stage during the Summer or Autumn.
There will be excavations by the Tay Landscape Partnership on Moredun Top come September.
To view zoomable panorama once opened in new tab, click on the 'full screen' icon bottom right and then use arrow keys to navigate or scroll with mouse, or bottom pano navigation.

Two images from Carse of Gowrie orchards project. The trees are now coming into flower and lovely they are to.

On following up the curling pond from last week another has been revealed, not very far from the first and indicated only on one old map, the OS 6 inch 1st edition 1843 - 1882, so its certainly an old curling pond going by map date. Again very near my home, just along the road and located in what is now a wooded den. This is actually the 'curling pond wood' my neighbour was thinking of and not the one I found. This wood is correctly Burnside Wood, though one can see it being called curling pond... locally. There is in fact another pond but probably not for curling further up the den.
The pond is rectangular and of a much more serious construction, very specifically for the sole purpose of curling. Considerable earthworks and water management going into its creation. A stream flows to one side from which a culvert (sluice by rocky dam section on stream image) was utilised to divert water into the pond. All in all a lovely den and an interesting curling pond. No sign of any hut but as they generally were made of wood, not necessarily surprising. This pond is on what would have been Stobhall estate ground, the previous pond on Balhomie ground.
A newspaper entry for a Stobhall Curling Club has also been found, another positive outcome for The Scottish Curling Places website and database.

Ok not the greatest heading:)
Two fun and interesting days of helping at an archaeological dig on Moncrieff Hill hill fort, just south of Perth, as part of the Tay Landscape Partnership archaeology program. One trench I was working on sadly didn't confirm a suspected hut platform (pic with range poles) but would have made a nice rockery. Sadly no finds either. However the other trench I worked on, was considered to show an entrance to the hill fort, looked at first to be equally elusive but there was a section of possible rampart wall revealed, along with use of bedrock structure almost probably an entrance, of sorts. Bill from Dublin (via Hawaii) unearthed a 'maul' in that trench, a heavy duty hammer stone. Picture shows Dawn (with Bill) from AOC archaeology group and small finds expert pointing out peck notches, indicating its use. The stone had spilt, so probably why abandoned.
The excavations continue for another week so it will be interesting to see outcome and any other finds.
The AOC dig diary is Here.
Added 28/4/15; Picture (bottom) of Sophie, archaeologist from TLP talking to visitors.

Having rediscovered an old curling pond at Forter in Glenisla (Here) my interest has been piqued for others. My neighbour mentioned that across the way there's a wood that having lived in the area for most of her life called Curling pond wood. So yesterday I set out and had a look. I had been to the pond before but thought nothing of it and it gave the impression of just being a rather boggy mire. If approached from the west and not from the east as previously its quite a different story and much more interesting, if only I had known. It will be good for wildlife watching, especially as its only a 20min walk from my house.
There is also the remains of the old hut or rather just the remains of the brick chimney that they often had, the rest being wooden and now gone.

I liked THIS so much I bought the cd. The other tracks are less rocky but equally excellent, give them a listen here. Apart from Fred Frith for me the other standout musician is Joey Baron on drums, stunning precision drumming.

In 1989 Frith was commissioned by choreographer Bebe Miller to write a suite of music for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave" series. Frith composed and recorded the suite, Allies, in October 1989 with musicians Tom Cora and George Cartwright, with whom Frith had been collaborating for a number of years. The percussion on the recording was provided by a drum machine that Frith had programmed. In August 1995 Frith began preparing Allies for release on an album, but was unhappy with the computerised drumming. He asked drummer Joey Baron to re-record the drum tracks (six years after the original recording was made). The resulting mix was released by RecRec Music in 1996. [from wiki page] The music was later remastered and released in its final complete form in 2004.

What is particularly interesting to me is that the music though composed for dance in 1989, a dissatisfied Frith kept it in mind to get it perfect, to improve upon it. A lesser artist possibly wouldn't bother. The moral being, 'if its worth doing it's worth taking the time'.. . If only I.... .

By way of celebrating the past few days of glorious weather I managed a couple of tree images today, just a few miles from where I live. These I'll be following throughout the year but not monthly as I did last year.

Working on some of the images from Port Allen including this triptych.

Down by the Tay estuary there is a place called Port Allen which was a small harbour as the name implies, in times gone by. Its not far from Erroll in the Carse of Gowrie, where you can take a circular walk, though there is a public road down, parking is very limited.
This part of the Tay has extensive reed beds that were harvested for thatch but now that operation is no more except I believe to maintain a nature reserve and a colony of bearded tits amongst other estuary type wildlife, see Here.
My main reason for heading down to Port Allen however was to further my work on the Orchards of the Carse of Gowrie. There is a particularly large orchard with some prize old trees. The orchard is in private hands so permission must be granted. The trees are just coming into bud but not as extensively as I had thought, another week or so. It was however interesting to see that primulas were in flower unlike where I live a few miles further north on the other side of the Sidlaw Hills, demonstrating the southern aspect of the Carse and its slightly warmer micro climate, hence the orchards.
It was an interesting couple of hours working there and I'm reasonable pleased with what I got. Its usually best to leave looking at images for a spell so you go back with a fresh and open mind, slightly removed from the actual experience. You then concentrate more on the image as an image, rather than just a record of a time. Certainly an orchard I'll look forward to going back to. Here's just a very quick selection of images from yesterday.

Down by the river there is a nice walk that takes in the riverbank of the River Tay on one side and on the other a lade. The walk starting at Cambusmichael opposite Stanley Mills follows the river and the lade downstream, eventually ending at Waulkmill. On Sunday I didn't walk quite that far but intend to come later in the Spring, when the leaves start to show, making a day of it and explore more. Part way down there's a nice small sandy beach by the river that will be ideal for a picnic lunch.
Practised some panorama shots but not happy with the Mill image.

I posted notice last November of the death of Lewis Baltz Here. I've just come across this very good and extensive interview with him, sadly his last ever.

The interview with his friend Jeff Rian can be found HERE.

I was up in Glenisla last Saturday with no specific aim except to get some panorama image practice. The light was quite nice on some woodland and a small meandering stream that within a few yards goes into the River Isla itself. I crossed into the woodland and then noticed some earth working, then quickly realised that it was a the site of a curling pond, though I also wondered if it could have been a fish pond given its proximity to Forter castle. You can clearly see the inlet from the stream and at the other end an outlet, presumably a certain methodology to build up the ice*.
Once home I checked to see if there was any record on RCAHMS's pastmap, not unsurprisingly nothing. However, later I did a further search on curling ponds in general and came across this excellent site and resource HERE. The pond is noted and has some further info that a match was played in 1897 between Glenshee and Upper Isla (presumably also a Lower Isla team existed) but they didn't know the ponds location. The exact co ordinates for the pond are: 56.770771, -3.333173 and I've passed these on, for their site to be updated.

Its really good that there are people enthusiastic about our heritage and prepared to put in the time to record and conserve for the future, whatever the subject. The above website is excellent in this regard, even if you are not specifically into curling. It was obviously a pastime (sport) that brought the local community together and crossed the social divide. With landowners and workers engaging, accommodating and participating.

As for the panorama, well the sun disappeared for me to spend anymore time working on something better but just passable, a little more foreground and tree tops perhaps: 

*(Update; thanks to Lindsay Scotland, 'Man-made ponds, such as Forter. There are many of these across the country. They are always near a water supply, with control via sluices. The idea was to use the sluices at the start of the winter to create a shallow, level pond, so that the chances of freezing were high. Then at the end of the winter, the lower sluice would be opened to drain it away and allow cleaning and maintenance. They didn't always work – there is a record of such a pond in Newton Stewart where the lower bank or wall gave way, flooding some houses and a business below it!')

Further update: Two images showing actual pond area. Left image shows outlet and some of the shallow banking, the right image shows inlet end by the two silhouetted birch trees.

I made this image following a photography workshop that I organised and led quite some time back, on the Isle of Rum. Staying in and using as a base Kinloch Castle hostel (while it was still open). The castle has a lot of wonderful artifacts from the time of George Bullough who built the castle but as a wealthy industrialist also travelled around the world in his yacht The Rhouma. In particular to Japan where he became friendly with the then emperor. As a gift George Bullough was presented with this magnificent and enormous bronze Monkey-Eating Eagle (Philippine eagle), that he brought back and now resides in the grand hall of the castle. 
Iolair is Gaelic for eagle and Iguru is Japanese for eagle. I wish to bring these to cultures together as Rum is also famous for the reintroduction program of the white tailed sea eagle.
While I made it sometime ago I had actually lost the original so recently remade it, for some reason it had stuck in my brain and it was not until I came across the eagle image again that I thought of realising it afresh.

Added a new gallery of the Sycamore tree I've been photographing throughout 2014 and January of 2015.

Click on the tree -