Ailsa Craig for sale (1 Viewer)

One of the prominent landmarks on the Ayrshire coast is now up for sale - if you have £2.5m to spare.

The RSPB have a reserve there, and according to this news story http://forargyll.com/2011/04/ailsa-craig-for-sale/ they're in discussions about it themselves, but I wonder what chance any new owners might have of excluding the RSPB from the island?

Two miles wide and 1,100 feet at its highest point, the island is an RSPB nature reserve with one of the world’s largest colony of gannets, the wonderfully gregarious guillemots, herring gulls, razorbills, kittiwake and the photogenic sardine-eating puffins.

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Those puffins must fly further to feed than we realised.

Deceptive little buggers.

Barred Wobbler said:

Those puffins must fly further to feed than we realised.

Deceptive little buggers.

Click to expand...

Nah, those multi-coloured bills are perfectly evolved to use the little key thing to open the tim.

If the RSPB has a spare £2.5 million, I hope that they will spend it on something more worthwhile.

Ailsa Craig is designated as a Special Protection Area under the EU wild birds directive, which is the highest level of legal protection a site can have, so this will contrain the activities of any owner of the island. While it might be nice for the RSPB to own it, it probably wouldn't make that much difference to the conservation of the seabirds nesting there.

Also I see that it is being sold as a 'private island', but I'm not sure how that works with the access legislation. It is possible for visitors to land on the island, and indeed I have done so myself many years ago.

I've landed on the island myself.

I agree that the RSPB shouldn't buy it, their money would be better spent elsewhere, but I hope they still get allowed to maintain their presence on the island.