Angus Hogg,
November 2024

Arriving in Ayrshire in 1969, with a somewhat vague interest in birds, my move to Crosshill in 1970 took me into an area which I quickly realised was home to a rich diversity of wildlife and, more particularly, birdlife. I could see and hear all sorts of farmland species from my house, from secretive Spotted Flycatchers breeding in the garden, to jingling Corn Buntings at nearby Garpin Farm. However, I soon became aware of a rather special location which I could watch from a minor road (B7045) between Kirkmichael and Minishant – Blairbowie.

Hayden Fripp
November 2024

Any sighting of the diminutive European Storm Petrel is a delight in itself and this year in particular has been a bumper year for Ayrshire sightings. My personal tally of sightings whilst sea watching from my favoured spot at Dunure between 23^rd May and 30^th August is 46 birds with a high count of 15 on 28^th June including a flock of ten birds at one point in my scope view. Viewing from Dunure with its height above sea level definitely gives an advantage to seeing Storm Petrels.

Recently I was looking through the web-site of the Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and came across a number of documents published by the Society about birds in Ayrshire stretching back to 1948. I thought these might be of interest to readers of this site and so, with kind permission of the Society, I have included links to them below. Note, these are pretty big PDF documents.

• Some Observations on the Status and Distribution of Birds in Ayrshire, 1949-1960 by R. Macalpine Ramage.
• Birds of Ailsa Craig by John McCrindle.
• A Check-List of the Birds of Ayrshire. 1966 by G.A. Richards.
• The Wild Birds of Ayrshire Today. 1948 by Cmdr. G. Hughes-Onslow.

I recently bumped into a fellow dog-walker, Vivienne Glew and her dog Baillie, who told me that she had recovered a moribund Storm Petrel that had dropped into the sea near Irvine harbour mouth. While the bird didn’t last long, Vivienne did notice that it was ringed. She sent the details off to the Natural History Museum and the BTO returned the following ringing info:

Ringing Scheme: London
Ring Number: 2694931
Species of bird: Storm Petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus)

This bird was ringed by D Manley as age at least 1 year, sex unknown on 12-Aug-2015 00:30:00 at Annagh Head, Bellmullet, Mayo, Ireland (54deg 14min N -10deg -7min W).
It was found 2883 days after it was ringed, 379 km from the ringing site, direction ENE.

My thanks to Vivienne and Baillie for such an interesting chat.

Background – Red Kite (Milvus milvus) formerly nested in Glen App during the early 1830s, but vanished as a breeding species soon afterwards (Gray & Anderson 1869). The last 19th century sighting of a live bird was at Lendalfoot during Oct-Nov 1892, by which time the species had become extinct over much of Scotland, largely due to persecution and egg-collection. Between 1856 and 1859 Gray recorded it breeding in Argyll (Bonaw), and Loch Lomond around the same time.

Since that time, Red Kite has remained a rare visitor to Ayrshire – until 1989, when they were re-introduced to several parts of the UK. A steady increase in sightings resulted from their re-introduction to Dumfries and Galloway in 2001, after which time records within Ayrshire became almost annual, often involving more than one bird after 2010, as the breeding numbers in D&G increased.

The Collins Bird Guide was first published in 1999 and instantly became the go-to guide for all birders. The 2nd edition was published in 2009 with a subsequent reprint with further amendments in 2018 (though not enough amendments to call it a 3rd edition). The long-awaited 3rd edition was finally published earlier this December. Is it still the go-to guide for birders?