02/05/2019
At 6 pm
on 29 April, a message came through on the North Ronaldsay island WhatsApp from
Alex Wright. It consisted of a very blurry photo of an unidentified dove sat on
the railings by the lighthouse. It had been taken earlier in the day by Helen
Galland and she wanted to know what it was.
Dinner
was being prepared, drinks were being served and the photo was inconclusive at
best, so it was ultimately dismissed as a dodgy picture of a Collared
Dove.
Thankfully, though, it was at that moment that Pete Donnelly telephoned the
Observatory to discuss a 'funny dove' at the lighthouse.
For the
first few minutes of the call, I simply assumed that he was discussing the same
photo that we’d all been looking at – but then the penny dropped. He was
actually at the lighthouse, watching the bird at that moment! Having been
working at the lighthouse, Pete had independently come across the dove and not
yet seen the photograph on the island WhatsApp group. Things became a bit more
urgent as he described it as "definitely not a Collared Dove" and
that it was "too small [for Collared], with wonderful spots on the
wings." However, he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
Enough
was enough. I ran into the bar and told Alison Duncan, who was cooking dinner,
as well as Toby Green and his tour group. We all bolted out the door and raced
up to the lighthouse.
When I
arrived, the dove was sat on the grass in front of the café, a mere
10 m in front of Pete, who was lounging against his Land Rover. One look was
enough – the small size, attenuated shape, orangey-peach body, shiny,
iridescent purple neck patches, pale turquoise eye-ring and the big, black oval
patches on the wings that Pete had described – it was a Mourning
Dove!
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