June's Pylon of the Month comes from the island of Formentera in Spain, which seems entirely appropriate for an early summer pylon. I hope that it's a bit less controversial than April's Pylon which attracted this comment:

I was rather dissatisfied with this months pylon and i am considering if I really wish to renew my subscription. I suggest you get your act together and start finding some proper awe inspiring pylons or I shall give you a slap

Strong words, to which I responded very reasonably, not wanting to initiate a pylon flame war:

Oh well - I aim to please, but if this month's pylon doesn't do it for you then it might be that you are beyond help. Keep reading the blog to see if things improve!

May's Pylon of the Month wasn't even a real pylon as one commenter on Twitter noted, so back to Formentera..................

Formentera, the smallest and least developed of the four main Balearic has fine beaches (and beach clubs) and mud baths, great walking and cycling trails, as well as secluded coves and sleepy fishing villages. It is much less lively than its hedonistic sister, Ibiza, and its peace-loving, beach-lounging devotees wouldn't have it any other way

The pylon enthusiast who provided the picture said that 'It appears to be a 30kV line', an immediate sign that there was technical knowledge behind the lens when the picture was taken.  A quick Google on '30kV lines Formentera' (perhaps the first ever such internet search?) revealed that "Red Eléctrica de España has installed a total of 420 bird-flight diverters on the 30 kV overland stretch of electricity line on the island of Formentera, which forms part of the electricity interconnection with the Ibiza. The diverters have been installed along the 2,100-metre the overhead line running between the coastal arrival point of the electricity interconnection and the Formentera substation". 

Bird flight diverters - how have I not heard of these before? A whole new world of pylon information has just opened up before me.  A bird diverter is:

a device that is attached to a power line or any type of wire suspended in the air to distract and divert birds away from the line, avoiding accidents and fatalities. These are particularly useful for power and communication lines that cross lakes or rivers, where bird tend to flock together

Here is an example of one installed to try and reduce the number of swans flying into power lines across the Fens in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk (from an article in the Eastern Daily Press).

I'll end with a link to Operation Jimmy, an organisation dedicated to preventing future incidents of bird electrocution following the death of Jimmy, an osprey. Their desire is to see a world in which Ospreys, other birds & electricity to co-exit harmoniously so that 'Jimmy did not die in vain'. Amen to that until next month.

It's been a busy month and with only eleven days to go I had a decision to make; wait until June or get a pylon up for May.  Pylon fans everywhere reading this will, I'm sure, be relieved that the latter option was chosen.  This month's pylon is a nod to current affairs, with the pylon on the emblem of North Korea featuring for May 2018.  According to Wikipedia:

The emblem features the Sup'ung dam under Mount Paektu and a power line as the escutcheon. The crest is a five-pointed red star. It is supported with ears of rice, bound with a red ribbon bearing the inscription "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea" in Chosongul characters.

The choice of a power station and a pylon is not without political symbolism:

In the late 1940s, the North produced most of the electricity in the country.  The dam symbolizes self-sufficiency in electricity: in the spring of 1948 shortly before the hydroelectric plant was added to the emblem, North Korea cut off her power network from the South.

It is, however, ironic that the only country to feature a pylon in its national emblem has a pretty patchy record when it comes to reliable power supply.  This article, "Dark nights in power starved North Korea," is one of many describing challenging conditions north of the 38th parallel.  The satellite image below from the Independent in 2015 shows the contrast between North and Soth Korea at night and does a better job than words in summarising the situation. 

So for most of us, it is a case of thanking our lucky pylons that we live in a country with a reliable electricity supply.  See you next month when I promise to get June's pylon posted sooner rather than later.

s 

 March's Pylon of the Month is one of the most amazing pylon pictures that I've seen.  I came across it on Twitter (thanks to @city_wander) and although on the whole, I don't tend to use images from the internet on the main blog, I couldn't resist this one.  It was taken in California by Will Connell around 1935.  A bit of digging around on the internet revealed that Will Connell was a self taught photographer who was born in 1898 and died in 1961.  This information came from the Will Connell Papers at the Onlive Archive of California, although there is also a Wikipedia page.  I couldn't track down this particular image in the Archive and so I don't have too much more information other than via this website which calls them Edison pylons and says that they are at Seal Beach.  Searching for Edison pylons didn't really lead anywhere other than to this article about Britains rather chaotic electricity generation system which apparently put us at a disadvantage in the First World War.  Here it is for your enjoyment:

BRINGING POWER TO THE PEOPLE – THE DISORDER SURROUNDING BRITAIN’S ELECTRICAL POWER INDUSTRY

I'll leave it there for March and let the amazing Will Connell photograph work its magic.

A belated Happy New Year to pylon fans everywhere, but especially to those in Sweden, because that's where February's pylon comes from.  We've had some amazing photographs recently, but I like to keep things real and so this month's pylon is a welcome return to the 'pylon pictures taken from the window of a moving vehicle' category. The last time one of these featured was back in January 2015.  The picture arrived with this message

The pylon design is not common here in Sweden, but I find it quite beautiful. It, and one like it, are placed by the road Norrortsleden in Täby just north of Stockholm. 

There was even a link to Google maps where you can see the pylon (and it's shadow).

If you happen to be in Sweden and February's pylon (plus it's nearby twin) isn't enough, then there is a chance to see two truly unique pylons.  Here is the low down:

East of Stenkullen in Sweden there are two electricity pylons which are unremarkable when you look at them but they are unique in the world of electrical inventions and devices. The Konti-Skan, a high-voltage direct-current transmission line that runs between Denmark and Sweden is the only electricity pylons in the world that carry both AC and DC circuits.

Transmitting electrical power using Direct Current (DC) electricity might seem a bit strange if you are thinking back to school physics lessons with transformers and Alternating Current (AC). If that's the case, you need to find a friendly electrical engineer and ask them to give you a few lessons on HVDC. The key point is that it can be more efficient over longer distances, but it also allows power transmission between unsynchronized AC transmission systems. If my understanding is correct that is the key issue here when the link is between two different countries (Denmark & Sweden) but perhaps I need to find myself a friendly electrical engineer to check this. That's all for now folks.

As November was pylonless, it only seemed appropriate that December's pylon of the Month should be:

1. Seasonal.
2. A fabulous picture.

Just when I was struggling to find a picture that satisfied one of those two criteria never mind both, the picture above popped up in my @pylonofthemonth twitter feed.  It was taken by @RubbishRider and for more wonderful pictures visit https://www.instagram.com/rubbish_rider/. 

The pylon sits above Briviesca, 750m up in the mountains of Northern Spain.  If you are in Spain then as well as this pylon, you could also tick off some pylons that have their own Wikipedia page, although it would involve a long drive to the other end of Spain.  That said, the 158m tall Pylons of Cadiz are surely worth a detour in anyone's book:

The Pylons of Cádiz, also known as the Towers of Cádiz, are two tall pylons supporting a double-circuit 132 kV three-phase AC powerline over the bay of Cádiz, Spain starting at Puerto Real Substation to the substation of the former Cadiz Thermal Power Station situated on the peninsula upon which the city of Cádiz stands

Merry Christmas to pylon fans everywhere.  Don't forget that I'm working with the lovely people at Unbound to get a pylon book out into the world.  Support the project and I'll be forever grateful.

The usual 'too much to do and not enough time to do it' at the start of a new academic year almost made September another month without a pylon.  Then the picture above popped up on @pylonofthmonth with 'Contender for September' as the byline.  That spurred me into action (well sort of - it's now over a week since then but better late than never!) and so here we are.

Amongst all the other pylon pictures that appear on Twitter, it was the contrast between the white ceramic insulators and the dark sky that caught my eye.  You can even buy these ceramic discs as garden ornaments although they brown rather than white.  The green field then adds another colour to the composition that appeals to my aesthetic sense.  The pylon can be found in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire and a bit of investigation reveals that Mountsorrel is a rather lovely village on the River Soar south of Loughborough.  According to Wikipedia, the unusual name of the village also has an interesting provenance

Whilst the origin of the name 'Mountsorrel' is still not understood fully, it is thought that the English nobility of the time named Mountsorrel after Montsoreau, a village in France close to Fontevrault, where Henry II was buried. The name Mountsorrel is of Norman-French origin and is thought to have developed due to the close likeness of Montsoreau and Mountsorrel – both settlements sit on rivers, the Loire and the Soar respectively, and are overshadowed by surrounding hills.

To see the pylon from the place where the picture was taken, you need to head to the Mountsorrel & Rothley Community Heritage Centre.  Having seen the pylon, there is plenty to keep you busy at this location including the Mountsorrel Railway, the Nunckley Trail and Granite's Coffee Shop to name but three.  Leicestershire is one of the parts of the UK that I've visited least often and so an excursion to Mountsorrel might just give me the excuse I need.  

 This month we have a Scottish pylon from Loch Errochty, a man made freshwater loch in Perth and Kinross.  The pylons are on the Beauly to Denny power line which brings power from renewable sources in the north of Scotland to consumers further south.  It was (and remains) very controversial and the Herald Scotland reported back in 2015 that 'Its impact on the Highland landscape was compared to taking a razor blade to a Rembrandt'.  Those who planned and built it insist that it is essential if Scotland is to meet national renewable energy targets.

You can see a more zoomed out picture below.

This month's pylon comes from Salisbury Plain.  It was sent in by a fan of the website who had this to say:

Driving across Wiltshire about the time of the summer solstice, I could imagine these flat fields being used to grow wheat thousands of years ago.  These big bales are reminiscent of standing stones near Avebury....

The exact location wasn't specified, but it's somewhere near the A342 and the A345 to Amesbury.  It is an area I know well because when I left Sandhurst, my first posting was just up the road in Bulford Camp.  Having then spent 16 years in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) and then the Royal Logistic Corps (RLC), I spent more than my fair share of time on Salisbury Plain.  The fact that the Army has owned it for so long has prevented intensive farming in a lot of areas (although not in the picture above!) and for this reason, it is a very important Site of Special Scientific Interest:

Because of the large training areas inaccessible to the public, the plain is a wildlife haven, and home to two national nature reserves, but there is concern that the low level of grazing on the plain could allow scrub to encroach on the grassland. The plain supports the largest known expanse of unimproved chalk downland in north west Europe and represents 41% of Britain's remaining area of this wildlife habitat. The plain supports 13 species of nationally rare and scarce plants, 67 species of rare and scarce invertebrates and forms a site of international importance for birds.

It is also an archaeological treasure trove with Stonehenge as the most famous of its prehistoric monuments.  I was once told that the reason for there being so many prehistoric and Neolithic sites on the plain is because it wasn't covered by forest that needed clearing without ready access to metal axes which came about a thousand years or so after Stonehenge was completed.  The pylon in this picture might not be as iconic as Stonehenge, but it does add something modern to this ancient landscape.

The month of May passed by without a pylon and so summer is now here rather than 'icumen in'.  This month's pylon, however, is looking back to a day in the Alps earlier in the year when a fan of the website took time out to take this picture of a mountain pylon.  The angle of the transmission lines leaving the pylon is pretty impressive, but sadly for pylon fans everywhere I couldn't find any technical details of maximum permissible angles or the engineering challenges of building pylons in mountainous areas.

 The email by which the picture arrived was pithy and to the point:

At Plan des Queux near Pointe de Daillant in French Alps. Height: 2150m. 

It also showed evidence that this pylon fan had been willing to go the extra mile (metaphorically if not literally):

Accessed on foot.

I couldn't track down the exact location on a map, but a quick look into electricity in the French Alps led to a story that I found impossible to ignore.  

So if you're a pylon fan and a cheese connoisseur on a skiing holiday next year then surely you won't be able to resist popping to Albertville.  If you do and there pylons on view please do send me a picture!