Mourning Dove, Scilly Day 1: 11th October 2025
October has been a strange and difficult month. Managing to dip and then redeem Leach's Petrel, finally seeing Barred Warbler along with a Yellow-browed at Flamborough, only to miss out on the Needletail that was at Tophill Low, then Bempton, then Filey and then Scarborough. A painful miss, but the rollercoaster of birding has some troughs as well as peaks. The drive from Manchester to Penzance was fraught with tension over a number of birds that had arrived on the Scillies, including and especially a Mourning Dove that had been incredibly elusive early in its stay, but which (with the help of the very organised support of the Scilly birding community) had been pinned down with access granted to private land to watch it. The Mourning Dove was asleep inside the metal bars of the tunnel in the centre of the picture, on the blue pallet. The ferry journey was quiet, a small number of Great and Manx Shearwaters, a Great Skua and an Arctic aside, and I was not prepare...