© Simon Davies/NRBOClearly exhausted, the Mourning Dove barely moved from the same small patch of grass by the lighthouse all afternoon
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.
Comment: A mass fish die off followed by a 'naturally occurring algae'. Although one would expect that if this was normal for the region it wouldn't be such a surprise to the newspapers nor the port authority. It's worth noting that just 2 days later there was an unusual M2.5 earthquake that occurred further inland in Surrey, in an area of fracking exploration.
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