Mourning Dove Carnach, North Uist 3rd November 2007
The 1st of November 2007 was when the news broke of Britains second Mourning Dove. I was keen to see the last one but didn't know if I could drive the 620 miles to the ferry terminal on my own in time. By friday afternoon after some decision making a car load was assembled at the trip was in place. One word of warning, if you are using a GPS to guide you there, make sure it doesn't take you to the ferry terminal to get to Skye.
Whilst waiting for the ferry on saturday morning a Golden Eagle flew across the bay giving me my first ever scottish sighting. The trip across to Lochmaddy was quick and it didn't take long for a convoy of birders cars to drive the short distance to the site. Once there, a worrying hour ensued as the bird was nowhere to be found. It turned out that dove had been in a garden 300 yards away so we must have driven past it. The bird performed well feeding at a reglar patch of seed whilst many delighted and relieved birders looked on.
Birding on the island gave us a great supporting cast of species including two more Golden Eagles, a raft of long-tailed duck, 2 black-throated divers, slavonian grebe, good numbers of barnacle and greylag geese, twite, rock dove plus several otters.
On the return journey through Skye we were treated to views of two White-tailed Eagles.
The pictures were taken with a Nikon D200 and 300mm f2.8 with 2x converter.
