ARGYLL RAPTOR STUDY GROUP

The Argyll Raptor Study Group held its first meeting in 1993. It formed when a nucleus of experienced raptor workers met in Inveraray to unite under a single banner to combine resources and knowledge and improve monitoring effort as a whole. The group currently has 17 members, including several who attended that inaugural meeting. The group’s aims are not grandiose, its members are enthusiasts first and foremost, their primary goals being to monitor their birds, participate in national surveys and identify real and potential threats as they arise.

Argyll covers c.6397km² , stretching from Glencoe in the north to the Mull of Kintyre in the south and from the islands of Coll and Tiree in the west to Loch Lomond in the east. Approximately 31% of this area is covered by commercial plantation forestry and much of the remainder is open deer forest. The terrain rises from sea level to c.1150m with high and precipitous mountains in the north and more fertile, gentler, ground in the south. Islands such as Mull, Colonsay and Bute add to the diversity of habitats.

Argyll has 9 regular breeding species of diurnal raptor and 4 species of owl. The raven is also monitored as an honorary raptor given its close association with peregrines. With such a large area and number of islands, and a comparatively small membership, population estimates are best based on national survey results (when additional fieldworkers are involved) or from intensive single species studies. 96 hen harrier sites were monitored in 2004, 100 golden eagles in 2003 and124 peregrines in 2003, for example. Up to 10 osprey sites are checked annually alongwith more than 150 buzzards and over 100 ravens. Mull, of course, holds the core Scottish white-tailed eagle population.

Contact: Dave Walker