A FUNERAL service will be held this week following the passing of a former leader of the North Ayrshire RSPB.

Duncan Watt passed away on Sunday, August 28, having dedicated himself as a driving force for the group for over 30 years.

In a statement, the group said: “It is with great sadness that we report the passing of past group leader Duncan Watt.

He will be sorely missed by the friends he made during his time as leader. He will also be missed in the wider community for his artistic achievements. Most of all, Duncan leaves a lasting legacy in nature conservation and education. We pass our deepest sympathies on to his wife Liz and family.

For information, his funeral will take place on Thursday, September 8 at 1pm, at St Margaret’s Church, Dalry then to the Woodside burial site in Lochwinnoch”.

Born in Ayrshire in 1949, Duncan attended Dalry High School, before studying at the Glasgow School of Art between 1967 and 1972. Over the course of a fascinating life, he also worked in the Olivetti studio of Mario Bellini in Milan, at the National Engineering Laboratory and at Carnaby Street in London.

Duncan’s involvement with wildlife began when in 1961, at the age of twelve, he met George Waterston at Project Osprey at Loch Garten, when he filmed the Osprey’s nest on 8mm cine film.

He began performing talk and paint shows in the early 1980s to audiences large and small for the RSPB, SOC, SWT, around Scotland and designed a range of gold and silver jewellery, especially featuring the Osprey with fish.

A keen drawer, he had many sketchbooks filled with birds and other wildlife drawn throughout the world. In the USA, he drew in Florida, Nevada, and made a 4,000 mile trip in the SW-USA where highlights were the American Bison and Grizzly Bear at Yellowstone National Park.

In India, he drew Royal Bengal Tigers at Ranthambore and delighted in making fast sketches on a birding trip in Hong Kong. He also visited Kenya and Tanzania over seven safaris, and made drawings filling many sketchbooks.

Duncan exhibited in Maastricht, Amsterdam, Aachen, Paris, Brussels and in the Holland Art fair in Den Haag, which led to his visiting Japan to show in the Japan International Artists’ Exhibition in Tokyo, where paintings of zebra and wildebeest on the Mara plains created great interest.

During his life, he worked with Singai Tanaka in a calligraphy workshop televised in the Netherlands.

In recent years, he was was also filmed for BBC’s One Show, concerning a rescued hedgehog from Uist which he released in his ‘wilderness garden’, in collaboration with Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Trust.

A mark of his legacy on Scottish shores, his large sculptural installation at Culzean Country Park saw another aspect of his art coming to the fore – an aspect which he first showed in his mixed media work, Artist, Oryx, Light, exhibited at the Glasgow Art Club’s show at the House of an Art Lover, and then in Japan — the aspects of Tao and Zen.

Duncan was a leader of North Ayrshire RSPB local group, Secretary of Ayrshire branch SOC and a member of the SOC Council.

Not only did Duncan show at the highly successful Art on the Wing exhibition at McLaurin Gallery at Rozelle in Ayr, but he packed the gallery to capacity.

A jovial, often dramatic, speaker, Duncan taught art in a North Ayrshire secondary school for 30 years.

In addition, during the last five years, Duncan offered a very successful course under the auspices of Glasgow University’s Department of Adult and Continuing Education (DACE) entitled ‘An Introduction to Ornithology’.

Rest in peace - Duncan M. Watt DA.