• Enhance the natural environment
• Increase understanding and appreciation of East Ayrshire’s natural environment and wildlife
• Engage with local communities to increase participation in wildlife conservation

These winter sessions are all indoors and are to produce important resources for wildlife conservation in the area around New Cumnock. We are working with landowners to improve habitat and these sessions will provide resting places for many species being supported through this work.  Details of the various sessions are in this document .

The regional office in Glasgow has managed to get a hold of a limited supply of a new RSPB Stonechat pin badge. This badge is not available anywhere else in Scotland and will be available at the next indoor meetings of both the North Ayrshire and Central Ayrshire RSPB local groups. Why not head along for a good night’s entertainment and get a hold of one of these exclusive badges at the same time!

Neil O’Donnell
Public Affairs Administrator, RSPB, South & West Scotland Region

The Ayrshire Species List has been revised to bring it up-to-date with recent sightings and a few enhancements:

• Each entry may have a coloured icon giving the trend in how this species is doing in the country. means things are looking good; means things are looking bad; no icon means there is no real change. This is a very rough, subjective indicator to give a quick gestalt of the species status in Ayrshire.
• For those odd people who like sub-species, the list now has separate entries for the different races of species.
• The status codes have been updated to reflect the current state: those that have been changed are highlighted in red.
• The list is now arranged into the sort du jour favoured by the people with PhDs in Ornitholgical Taxonomy.  (Ed.: personally I think this regular reshuffle is just a way for these people to keep their jobs – it seems pretty unintuitive to me!)  This was a horrendous edit and I’m sure I’ve messed up somewhere so please let me know where and I’ll feign interest.
• One thing that didn’t make it into the new table is the species’ BOU category.  (Angus added them, but the Editor’s decision is final.)
• If these codes are of interest to you then I assume you already have the BOU web site on your favourites fo easy reference and don’t need them repeated here (especially as they keep changing).
• This is a work-in-progress and we’d like your feedback.

You have only until 31st August to vote for the UK’s most wildlife-friendly farmer. Cast your vote at www.rspb.org.uk/farmvote and enter our prize draw and you could win a luxury weekend break for two.  The RSPB Telegraph Nature of Farming Award celebrates the fantastic work farmers are already doing for wildlife – with a top prize of £1,000 for the very best!

Lagoons Book

The SWT has just published a check list of New Cumnock and Knockshinnoch Lagoons compiled by Jimmy Begg. It covers the period from 1959 to 2010. It costs £4.60 including postage and all profits go to the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

50 years of bird data 174 species of bird 25 expert contributors Bird watching hotspots Key species illustrated

To order, send your name, address and phone number, with a cheque for £4.60 (payable to Scottish Wildlife Trust), to: Gill Smart Scottish Wildlife Trust Unit 6 Kyle Business Park Cunninghame Rd Irvine, KA12 8JJ. Phone 01294 279376 or email for bulk purchase.

RSPB Central Ayrshire Local Group are holding their wildlife art exhibition Art on the Wing  once again from Sunday 28 August until Saturday 25 September at the Maclaurin Galleries in Rozelle Park, Ayr. 6 artists will be participating in the exhibition including many nationally-known figures. The range of work will include paintings, drawings, tapestry, jewellery, ceramics and wood sculptures and metal work. This follows a most successful exhibition in Ayr five years ago, when over £4,500.00 were made for RSPB Scotland’s conservation projects. We hope to repeat or improve on the figure this time around. Click here for details of the events  being held during the Exhibition.

Southannan Sands, ©K. Waite

The Scottish Wildlife Trust is urging its North Ayrshire members to object to plans to destroy a nationally important wildlife site on the Ayrshire coast.

The Portencross Coast SSSI has nationally important eelgrass beds and the best intertidal mudflats for feeding wildfowl and waders on the Ayrshire coast. The site is also important for other notable wildlife including otter, the nationally scarce plant – seaside centaury and a type of cuckoo bee which is rare in Scotland.

Adult Rose-coloured Starling at Hunterston, ©Angus Hogg 2011

While doing a survey near Hunterston Power Station, a lucky observer and his dog came across an adult Rose-coloured Starling in with the squadrons of juvenile Starlings.  Apparently this is only the 7th Ayrshire record for this species. However, as Jazz, the Springer Spaniel involved commented, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about: I preferred the smelly gull I found decomposing in the grass back there.” Each to their own. Still, Angus’s photo obviously makes it into the Photo Gallery and Species list.

Ayrshire Birding web site front page in February 2002

Ayrshire Birding front page in May 2004

The Ayrshire Birding web-site celebrates its eleventh birthday at the beginning of June: there can’t be that many local birding clubs with active web-sites that old. In that time it has changed style a few times, switched from static HTML pages to full content management, collected 1000+ photos (mostly gulls:-), built up a comprehensive guide of birding locations, tried stuff, dropped others and been supported throughout by a loyal bunch of contributors. So for a bit of nostalgic fun I’ve dug out a couple of screen shots from the early days: spot the text that hasn’t changed much… And hasn’t web design come a long way! Actually, when you think about it, we are back at the start – a simple design with a white background.

The Central Ayrshire RSPB Members Group, in conjunction with South Ayrshire Council, are pleased to offer two opportunities for bird walks on Saturday 10th April 2011. As always, nature lovers of all ages, families and friends, are very welcome to join us on either or both of these dawn chorus strolls filled with birdsong. The walks are FREE, and they start and finish at the entrance to Rozelle House, Ayr. Everyone welcome. For more details see the poster .