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 ferry journey was quiet, a small number of Great and Manx Shearwaters, a Great Skua and an Arctic aside, and I was not prepared for the chaos of getting off the Scillonian. From there straight onto the Sapphire, with Andy, Owen and Trudy strategically choosing to sit near the door to disembark quickest, the rapid pace (some people actually running, which I always find hilarious - like toddlers with no impulse control) of the hike to the bird and then somehow finding myself as the large obstacle at the front of the group trying to see the Dove.
A very sweetly coloured bird, that simply does not look like anything from these shores, the Mourning Dove sat immobile on top of a blue pallet crate with a backdrop of a bale of green wire. At first I assumed the bird was sick, having come a very long way, but when I asked some of the locals it seems that the Dove gorges itself on chicken feed for a couple of hours and then has to sleep off the excesses of the morning, before going for round two. We were very fortunate that it had chosen to have its siesta in the open - there are days when it sleeps it off in the dense bushes around the yard. Given the constraints of limited time on the island due to boats back to St Mary's it is possible that people could miss the bird altogether during a nap!
The crowd was a bit big for me, and I dislike the rugby scrum for a bird - I feel big and clumsy at the best of times, but in that crowd I'm always scared I might break something or someone just by moving. I stepped back out of the pack, and we hotfooted our way around the island towards an American Pipit via a very obliging Hoopoe. This was my second American Pipit of 2025, following the one I saw in a meditative experience at Ross Back Sands which I wrote about earlier on the blog. This bird was no less magnificent, showing down to less than 10 feet at times, and it was brilliant to see Autumn plumage after the Winter I saw in early February.
A short walk around the coast took in a very showy Spotted Sandpiper (again, my second of the year) and we decided that we would have a second look at the Dove if the crowd had subsided. We arrived to a virtually empty courtyard, and had 20 minutes to observe the little American beauty on our own.
Ending our time on St Agnes with a pub tick for me at the Turk's Head, we were then denied the great company of Andy and Trudy as their daytrip closed with the ferry back, and Owen and I made our way to our accommodation. A short break, and we were back out looking for Rosy Starling and Common Rosefinch, missing both but enjoying a Black Redstart on Porthcressa beach as compensation. A great first day, with plenty to look for tomorrow. Mourning Dove was my 297th species of the year, and my 375th in the UK overall, leaving me hopeful of reaching 300 in my Big Year during the week here.
Forgive the back of camera images - I left my card reader at home!
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