The Eider is the quarterly newsletter of the Argyll Bird Club. It is published during March, June, September and December. Articles for each issue must be with the editor before the 25th day of the month prior to publication. However, it greatly helps if material can be submitted well before deadline dates. Articles are accepted in the order they are received, and late submissions may have to be held over until the following issue.
The editor welcomes contributions on ornithology, wildlife conservation and ecology in Argyll, and some articles of a wider natural history interest, notices of forthcoming events, book reviews and press releases. Whenever possible, contributions should be submitted to the editor as email attachments in Microsoft Word or rft format. But, this should not deter potential contributors, as hand-written scripts are also acceptable. If in doubt about whether an article is suitable, please contact the editor for advice. The Editor from April 2013 onwards is Steve Petty who can be contacted by email
Suitable illustrations greatly enhance the attractiveness of The Eider and photographers and artists are encouraged to submit material to the editor. Ideally, images should be submitted in an unedited form as jpeg files.
Members of the Argyll Bird Club receive either a black and white version of the newsletter by post or an electronic version in colour. The latter is sent to members as a PDF file attached to an e-mail. PDF files are readable by any operating system (PCs, Macs etc). It will take the PDF file around 4-5 minutes to download to your computer with a standard phone line and 56K modem, and substantially less time with a broadband connection. PDF files can be stored on your hard drive and, if required, printed in B&W or colour. To be able to read a PDF file you must have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. This software can be downloaded free from http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/.
Advertising rates: £80 for a full page, £20 for a quarter page, 7p per word for smaller adverts. Payment must accompany adverts, with cheques made out to the “Argyll Bird Club”. Contact the Editor for further information.
The following back issues of The Eider can be downloaded as PDF files. Just left click your mouse on any highlighted issue.
We also have pdf scanned copies available of Eiders from Issue 1 in December 1986 through to Spring 2002, representing a complete historical record of the Argyll Bird Club newsletters. However, these archived pdfs take up 70MB of file space so are not included here for download. Anyone who would like a copy of the archived newsletters for 1986 to 2002 can obtain that by contactingand they can either be posted on a DVD or made available through dropbox or similar.