My thanks go to Dave Grant, Edith and Bruce McInroy, Angus Hogg and Bruce Kerr for sending in photos for the Photo Gallery. Here are a couple to tempt you to look at the rest.

Castlepoint Press in Dalbeattie are selling a reprint of the classic Birds of Ayrshire by E. Richmond Paton and Oliver G. Pike, first published in 1927 for the special price of £14 including postage.  The publisher’s notes:

As well as a new short memoir of Paton by Dr Mavis R Paton (his daughter) and a slightly longer one of Pike by his grandson Professor Jonathan Dollimore, this reprint includes two letters to Paton from Lieut.-Commander G. Hughes Onslow and a note from Leonora Jeffrey Rintoul. Also included are the short ‘Supplements’, issued in 1932 and 1934, by The Scottish Naturalist. R. Paton lived at Hareshawmuir, by Fenwick and died in 1951.

Please send orders to castlepointpress@aol.com or to:

Castlepoint Press
Colvend
Dalbeattie
DG5 4QB

Payment by direct bank transfer, Paypal, or cheque.

A grey, dreich day gives me the time to catch up on submissions to the Photo Gallery.  And photos for species on the Ayrshire Species List are a bit like buses: nothing happens for ages then three turn up at once (i won’t count my Black Swan!).  So my thanks go to Angus Hogg for his Mistle Thrush and Kittiwake, and Jamie McPike for his Little Stint.  However, it’s not just the glory as they have also sent in a lot of other nice pictures with a few shown on the left to tempt you.

I’ve had a couple of emails from people about this Black Swan that was at Irvine Beach Park and Harbour this morning.  It appears to have a leg-ring and is almost certainly an escape from a wildfowl collection.  It was getting repeatedly attacked by the territorial Mute Swan at the pond so might decide to move on.  Very attractive white wing patches when it flies.

The Summer 2014 issue of Stonechat, the club newsletter of the Ayrshire Branch of the SOC is now available: click here to download it .

The Summer 2014 issue of The Gannet, the club newsletter of the RSPB Central Ayrshire Local Group is now available: click here to download it .

The Events Page has been updated with the following:

• Indoor meetings for the SOC Ayrshire Branch
• Indoor meetings for the Central Ayrshire RSPB Members Group
• Indoor meetings for the SWT Ayrshire Branch
• The joint SOC Ayrshire/RSPB Central Ayrshire outdoor meetings (30-July: this has been updated)

The Arran Bird Atlas 2007-2012 has just been published.  This is an essential read for anyone interested in the bird-life of Arran.  Details of its contents and where to get a copy are covered in the associated press release (PDF).  More details can be found on the Arran Natural History Society web site.

While I was assembling the summer’s entries to the Photo Gallery I noticed that we still have some photographic holes in our Ayrshire Species List and so I’d like to put out an appeal to help fill them.  Obviously I don’t expect to be deluged with pictures of Franklin’s Gull or Pallas’s Sandgrouse but we still need photos of some commoner species such as Mistle Thrush, Kittiwake and even Feral Pigeon.  So please have a go and help fill the gaps.  The only constraint is that you must have taken the picture in Ayrshire.  Glory awaits!

My plan of doing quarterly photo updates on the site means that the summer one is always a bumper crop, and this one is positively laden with great pictures, not just of exotic or rare stuff, but also great pictures of commoner species. My thanks go to Gordon Fowley, Angus Hogg, Jamie Pike, Bob Ross, Natalie Welden. Here is a very small subset of the large bunch submitted to the Photo Gallery.

Picking out the winners for the Editor’s Prize (zero monetary value, but slight bragging rights) isn’t easy from this bunch but two stand out for me: Gordon Fowley’s picture of a Hoopoe that joined him for breakfast one morning, and Jamie Pike’s singing Grasshopper Warbler. Angus Hogg didn’t make the prize this time (hint: increase your bribe next time, Angus :-)) but as a consolation he does get two new entries on the Ayrshire Species List with his pictures of a Great Northern Diver and a juvenile Redstart (note, we still need a picture of an adult). Gordon’s Hoopoe picture displaced the old, pre-digital one that previously occupied the slot. Natalie Welden sent in a charming picture of a Black Redstart on Cumbrae, and although not part of the Ayrshire recording area it is administratively part of North Ayrshire and so I had a decent excuse for including it (and of course Natalie had informed the Clyde Islands area recorder too).

With Chiffchaffs singing and Sand Martins zipping about we can almost hope that Spring is here and good weather returns. This has also prompted me to deal with the backlog of photos sent in for the Photo Gallery: my thanks to Angus Hogg, Jamie McPike and Dave Grant. I’ve posted a selection here to tempt you. Given the awful Winter weather we’ve had it isn’t surprising that wetland birds are the strongest group. However, my personal favourite is Angus’s photos of a female Goshawk at an undisclosed site: this isn’t for her protection but yours – you wouldn’t want to get up-close-and-personal with this lady! Obviously it also gains Angus another slot on the Ayrshire Species List. Dave has also prepared some notes to help identify the Ring-necked Duck that spent some time at Trabboch.