Squares of the Month – July: NS3012, NS3111, NS3112; NY0188, NY0289
A huge thankyou to recorders who have been helping to record wildlife in our ’empty’ squares with no wildlife records. We will report later in the year about how many gaps have been filled.
This month we are highlighting squares near to two villages in Dumfriesshire and South Ayrshire where we have no wildlife records at all on our database (as of Feb 2026).
Parkgate, Dumfriesshire: NY0188,NY0289
Two squares near Parkgate NW of the A701 feature this month as our Dumfries and Galloway empty squares. Both cover the lower southern and eastern slopes of Kirkmichael Fell, and include a mix of habitats. NY0289 includes Wreaths Burn and Hawk Cleuch, along which there appears to be some semi-natural woodland, scrub and grassland vegetation. The norther part of NY0188 includes an area of broadleaved woodland.
The nearby square at NY0388 is also on the ‘no records’ list but a large field of flowering Cuckooflower Cardamine pratensis was noted by SWSEIC’s Malcolm Haddow in the square earlier this spring. But there is still opportunity to add to this solitary record in that square too.
Maybole, South Ayrshire: NS3012,NS3111,NS3112
This cluster of the previously unrecorded squares lies just north of Maybole. NS3111 straddles the A77 Maybole bypass; the land on either side of the road is dominated by intensively farmed agriculture, though the road verges on the A77 could hold some wildflowers or a feeding Kestrel. North of this lies NS1112, housing two settlements, a pond and some woodland. A road connecting the A77 and the B7024 passes through the square, leading to the thirs empty square in the group at NS3012. This square is again dominated by intensively farmed agricultural land, but the Brockloch Burn passes through the SE corner and there is a patch of damper ground in the square near High Milton.
As of Feb 2026, there were 1389 1km squares without any detailed records in the SWSEIC database — roughly 14% of the terrestrial squares that cover the area. To encourage our recorders to rectify this we have created an interactive map on our website that will allow you to view and investigate these ‘not-spots’.
Mark Pollitt
SWSEIC Support Officer