Eurasian Spoonbill at Hunterston in 1978

In the days before Global Climate Change was a phrase we all got to know, winters in Ayrshire tended to be cold, wet and dreich affairs (so, what’s changed, I hear you say?).  The general pattern of our winter weather was something which people in the south-west of Scotland knew well, and met with the usual resignation.  Occasionally, there would be a day when a ridge of high pressure brought slightly colder and sunnier weather, and it was during such a period that an unexpected visitor appeared at Hunterston. 

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 the point, thus avoiding the need to carry tripods, telescopes etc,

Leach’s Storm Petrel, and the Girvan Police

The 18^th 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 to time.  On my arrival, I was greeted by my wife who told me that the police had dropped by earlier – a Sergeant McClung from the Girvan station.  He’d enquired if “I might be able to do anything for the wee bird which he’d had handed in to the station by a member of the public who’d found it sheltering in a garden in Girvan.” 

Yellow Wagtail at Bourtreehill mid 1970s

Imagine, if you will, a time when Bourtreehill, Irvine was predominantly farmland, with fields of barley and hay rippling in the early summer breeze.  Most of my limited encounters with Yellow Wagtail, up till this period, had been in wet meadows and marshland, often with cattle present nearby.  The thought of looking for breeding birds in cereal fields or hayfields hadn’t crossed my mind.  Strange, really, since it had once been a bird which had been quite common in Scotland, rejoicing in nicknames like “Corn Willie.”   

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Wilson’s Phalarope at New Cumnock 1978

On the 5^th September I walked round the subsidence lagoons at Knockshinnoch with Mark Rollie, looking for waders in what looked like some promising areas.  Mark, being a local lad from New Cumnock, knew the area well, and seemed keen to show me some parts of this wetland which were unknown to me. 

When you look at the spread of bird records within Ayrshire, many places jump out of the page as locations which are very well-watched – some, less so.  However, the woodland of Auchinleck House is one of those areas into which birders very rarely venture.  In truth, there are many such places in the county, and you have to wonder what birds are missed during the course of a year.

A sunny afternoon on the 23^rd July 2020.  I decide to take a trip down to Maidens harbour.  Recurrent thoughts running through my head kept coming back to “What are you doing?  You know it’s going to be full of tourists, and there’ll be no birds!”  Arriving at the harbour, I rigged up my ‘scope on the tripod, and proceeded to look across the bay towards the north.