Turtle Dove (European Turtle Dove)
Streptopelia turtur
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Distribution Britain 940 (-24.9%) Ireland 20 (-35.5%)
Numbers breeding: Britain 75,000 — Ireland 0 European status: 2,200,000 (4% in Britain and Ireland =7) British population trend: further losses (-62% CBC){-77%} How likely are you to record it? 436 squares (9.7%) Ranked 65 |
This richly coloured dove, a long distance migrant to West Africa, has always been a bird of England and, to a lesser extent, of Wales. There have been a couple of dozen breeding records in Ireland but none since 1977. In Scotland about 10 breeding records, in the Borders and Lothians, have been recorded. Between 1900 and 1950 or so the birds spread north and west into Lancashire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and west into Wales. They probably were as widespread as they ever were in the 1960s. Since then they have retreated from the North and the west and have been lost from many peripheral areas. The population loss, from the CBC, has been serious and steady. The agricultural change, with reduced weed seeding and early planting of crops, has reduced their chances in Britain but the birds are also shot on migration through France and Iberia. There are fewer breeding attempts made by each territorial pair in recent years. Unless proper agri-environment measures are introduced there is little chance of reversing this depressing trend.
UKBAP MAFF RSPB & English Nature.
From
The
State of the Nations Birds
Copyright © 2000 by Chris Mead