Turtle Dove II

On the off chance that the Turtle Dove might still be where it was yesterday, I headed round to West Cross around 5 p.m. I sat on a seat for half an hour, feeding the gulls to pass the time. I was about to leave, when an unfamiliar bird flew up from near the sea wall and into a tree to my left. A Jackdaw began harassing it, and it flew off into a small Sycamore tree behind me. 'It' was the Turtle Dove! I peered up into the tree, but couldn't locate the dove in the dense foliage, so I sat down again to wait. After a while, I began to get fed up, and was getting up to leave, when suddenly a brown bird flew rapidly close to the ground in front of me, and landed on the sea wall. Again, it was the Turtle Dove! I fired off a few shots:

The dove then dropped onto the grass verge between the wall and the cycle path only about a metre away, and proceeded to feed there in virtually the same spot for about thirty-five minutes, before flying up into a Sycamore tree. I spent the half-hour or so sitting on the grass opposite, taking photos, and filming it with my camcorder. It was amazing to watch this tiny bird feeding nonchalantly as joggers and cyclists thundered past just a few centimetres away! Even more amazing to me was that not a single other person noticed the dove, despite me sitting next to the path and pointing my huge bazooka of a lens in their general directions! How can people be so unobservant?! Anyway, a couple of pictures:



Hopefully, it will still be there tomorrow.