Mid-morning on 28th August 2020, I saw a Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus wing-flapping vigorously, apparently mating, in a tree in our front garden in Oundle, Cambridgeshire. I did not pay particular attention as a pair had been nesting close by for several weeks. Later that day, I found a dead Wood Pigeon at the base of the tree where the activity had taken place. I picked up the dead bird and put it in the back garden, half expecting that it might be taken by one of the local Red Kites Milvus milvus.
Wood Pigeon displaying to and mating with a dead conspecific
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