Location and Access The whole stretch of coastline from Turnberry Bay to Girvan, with sand dune system in the northern part and raised beach throughout, is well worth a look at any time of year. Unfortunately, the A77 trunk road carries fast and heavy traffic and this is an accident black spot. Extreme care is […]
Location and Access Turnberry Point at NS 196 073 can be reached bywalking along the track to the lighthouse from the A719 Maidens-Turnberry coast road at NS 206 068, a distance of about 1km. The track is on Turnberry Golf Course ground and crosses fairways, so care should be taken not to disturb play or […]
Angus Hogg has been having a wander down memory lane and is putting together a series of articles giving the stories behind some photos of the famous bird species seen in Ayrshire in years gone by. So far we have: These articles are just the latest in our growing set. Angus will hopefully find time […]
Welcome to the 2019 Ayrshire Bird Report. With the completion of yet another bird report, the progress towards getting it back on track continues, and the plan is to have another one finished by the end of this year. Of course, none of this would be possible without help from a great variety of people, […]
European Storm Petrels at Turnberry Point During 1980, my interest in seawatching had got to the point where Turnberry lighthouse had almost become a second home. However, it kept on producing interesting seabirds and the head greenkeeper at the golf course was happy to allow me to take my car all the way down to […]
Leach’s Storm Petrel, and the Girvan Police The 18th of November 1982 turned out to be an interesting evening, and not, I might add, because of the parent-teacher meeting I’d just been to. The weather on my way home from Ayr was wet and windy, with strong, blustery rain showers battering the car from time […]
A thundery afternoon gives me an opportunity to deal with the large backlog (as usual) of photos kindly sent in for the Photo Gallery. We have the usual mix of the commoner (but still worthy) species, rarities and distinct odd-balls. For example, Cathy Cochrane’s picture of a Whitethroat demonstrates something I’ve learnt is what serious […]
A rainy afternoon at the end of Winter gives me an opportunity to deal with the large backlog of (non-Chough) photos kindly sent in for the Photo Gallery. In this short selection we start with Owls and Alan Brown’s superb photo of a Long-eared Owl at Hunterston that made his day, and a sequence of […]
The appearance of a Chough at Turnberry Point at the end of January coincided with some nice weather and so I’m grateful for the lovely photos sent in for the Photo Gallery. Given it has been almost 90 years since the last reliable record of the bird in the county, Angus Hogg has produced an […]
The discovery of a Chough just North of Turnberry lighthouse on January 30th 2019 came almost 90 years after the last totally reliable record of the bird in Ayrshire. A once widespread bird in Scotland, the numbers today have declined to the point where it hangs on in places such as Islay, Jura and Colonsay, […]