Bird and Wildlife Watching

This bench was repaired by local creatives during COP27 (October 2022). The bench and surrounding work (prints and gutter repair) aims to provide a space for people to meet, chat, sit, and think about the positive actions they could take to protect biodiversity and improve the health and wellbeing of the local community here in Dunoon.

A sloping area in the grounds of some flats with wild flowers.

Waste ground in a residential area which isn't suitable for building on due to marshy and boggy ground. This area provides a vital habitat and refuge for local wildlife such as hedgehogs, frogs, insects and birds. The occasional deer have even been reportedly sighted here. Plant life grows here uninhibited.   

Mature trees and hedging, which line the Argyll Street edge of the station are alive with birdlife. The trees are planted on a regularly mown lawn. The trees give the main road, Argyll Street, a lush appearance. The Argyll Road side of the station has a large section of open lawn, which doesn't appear to be used for anything and is regularly mown. 

Otters have been spotted feeding in the rocky shallows at East Bay in Dunoon. Members of Cowal Wildlife Group have also recorded photos of waterbirds such as curlews, goldeneye and oystercatchers, and fish including butterfish in the rockpool habitats. 

If you look west from the A880 at Cot House you will see a lovely area of woodland on the banks of the Eachaig river. It often floods at very high tides, especially after lots of rain, which creates a different kind of habitat from other woodlands nearby. 

Walk through the Scottish native woodland of oak, ash, birch, rowan and hazel at Ardnadam. Look out for the lichens and mosses that indicate that this woodland is part of Scotland's growing temperate rainforest. 

The Holy Loch Nature Reserve at Sandbank stretches across the head of the loch. There are 24 acres of ungrazed saltmarsh, wildflower meadows and woodland, with reedbed and bog, which are intersected by several burns.

Around 12 miles north of Dunoon, Ardentinny beach is on the shores of Loch Long. It has the longest sandy beach in Cowal and lies in part of the Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park. Buzzards, oystercatchers, grey herons, common seal and porpoise, there's plenty of wildlife to see from the beach and in the nearby woodland.