KINTYRE: An adult ROSS’S GOOSE was in fields just NW of Peninver (Jim Dickson, David Jardine) having been seen briefly the previous day from a passing bus and suspected as a Snow Goose (Alasdair Paterson). It seems most likely this is the same un-ringed bird that had been in Ayrshire 40 miles to the east between 26 Sep and 19 Nov. It will be for the BBRC to determine if this counts as a wild bird and become a new species for Argyll. Since the 1950’s when the global population was only 2,500 birds, legal protection and provision of refuges has seen numbers rise to over 3 million birds and there have now been 18 accepted records in Great Britain – however they are widely kept in collections and escapes are not infrequent.