The printed copy of the 2014 Ayrshire Bird Report is now available. It consists of 102 pages including 18 full-colour inner pages with 36 photographs.
It can be obtained via the outlets listed here.
Anne M. Dick (Mrs)
Tony Scott has sent in the latest issue of the The Stonechat, the SOC Ayrshire Branch‘s newsletter. It comes in two parts: Part A and Part B. 
The Summer 2017 issue of The Gannet, the club newsletter of the RSPB Central Ayrshire Local Group is now available. It comes in two parts: Part A and Part B .
Now that Spring is over and we are enjoying the summer rain (hmm!), it’s time to update the Photo Gallery with the latest submissions. Again wetland birds were the stars (Dave Grant’s Shag on her nest on Lady Isle is particularly striking) but we also have the incoming migrants and even a late Waxwing. Angus’s lovely photos of the Great White Egret at Hunterston made it onto the Ayrshire Species List.
My thanks go to Dave Grant, Angus Hogg, David Lynn, Jamie McPike and Bob Ross for sending in photos for the Photo Gallery.
As the latest in our occasional series of longer articles Angus Hogg has written a tour de force piece on that under-appreciated group of species, the Pipits. In particular, his article Let’s Hear it for Pipits!! covers in depth those tricky ones, the Rock and Water Pipit (and their variations). You’ll never look at a Pipit in the same way again!
The Arran Bird Report for 2016 is now available. More details are available here. It can be obtained from:
It is priced £5.00 + £1.50 p&p
Tony Scott has sent in the latest issue of the The Stonechat, the SOC Ayrshire Branch‘s newsletter. You can get it here . Note: this is a 12MB PDF document as it contains a lot of high-quality images.
You may remember the project to describe all the best places to watch birds in Ayrshire. That was over a decade ago (!) and things change. So it was great to receive an update from Mike Howes for the entry for Craigdullyeart and Corsencon in East Ayrshire now that access restrictions have been removed after the completion of open-cast mining. If you have any updates for other sites please let me know and I’ll update them. My thanks to Mike for sending it in.
It’s time to update the Photo Gallery with the latest submissions. While most are wetland birds, we did have a small bunch of Waxwings around and a late Chiffchaff to brighten up urban birding. Down at the coast we had a few Little Egrets, Water Pipits and (for Ayrshire) rarer stuff like Velvet Scoters. Angus Hogg managed to get a photo of a Water Pipit and Meadow Pipit together as an identification aide: but which is which? And winter wouldn’t be the same without some interesting gulls: Dave Grant managed to get some nice photos of a juvenile Glaucous Gull on one of the rare days when the sun shone! Sadly, no new photo entries to the Ayrshire Species List.
My thanks go to Dave Grant, Angus Hogg and Jamie McPike for sending in photos for the Photo Gallery.