Scilly - 9.10.25

Seeing as the Mourning Dove was playing hard to get I decided against getting the early boat back to Aggy. In fact I wasn’t going to go at all but as I got back to my room after breakfast my phone dinged with a photo of the dove sitting on the roof of the island hall! 

So along with everyone else it back there again. We arrived at the cricket pitch and spread out hoping for it to appear on the roof again but about 10 minutes later the CB’s crackled into life with news of it by the Threshing Mill near Lower Town farm/Bulb Dump. Most piled down towards there but is too firm in the hope they’d flush it out. They didn’t initially and people were watching it so I ran over only for it to fly which I of course missed. 

Thankfully a few minutes later it was back by the mill and permission to enter this private area was granted. I missed it perched on a poly tunnel frame by seconds but it eventually flew back out and I finally laid eyes on my first ever MOURNING DOVE in the UK. It’d only taken 10 hours over 3 days but I didn’t care anymore. 

Mourning Dove

With this positive news most of the resident birders climbed aboard the next boat over only to be held up docking for 20 minutes due to a boat being unloaded. In the end everyone left happy that this 7th Britain/1st Scilly + England was in their notebooks.

Before we left we had another look at the Hoopoe and Red-breasted Flycatcher.