Turtle Dove by Dawn Balmer

Turtle Dove survey 2021

Survey background

The Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP) and RSPB, with the support of BTO and Natural England, are organising a national Turtle Dove survey for 2021, subject to Covid-19 conditions.

The Turtle Dove is one of the highest conservation priority species for the RSPB and is the fastest declining UK species. We lost 95% of our Turtle Doves between 1995 and 2018, and with low numbers, monitoring is becoming increasingly difficult. While the BTO/JNCC/RSPB UK Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is still able to produce an annual trend for the whole of the UK, the number of 1km² survey squares contributing data had fallen to just 56 in 2018. If this number drops below 30, the BBS will no longer be able to effectively monitor the species. So the time is right for an intensive ‘stock-take’ on our Turtle Doves – how many remain in the UK and where are they? Operation Turtle Dove and its many partners – farmers, land managers, communities, volunteers, and a whole raft of different organisations – are working hard to improve things for Turtle Doves. We are lucky in that we now have good scientific evidence to understand the causes of our Turtle Dove population decline, and hence have confidence that we are taking the right conservation approach. We are helping provide good quality breeding season habitats – plentiful and accessible seed food, fresh water and dense scrubby nesting habitat. We are also tackling unsustainable levels of hunting on the Turtle Doves’ migration route. Good progress is being made on both fronts. But a good picture of where and how many birds now breed in the UK would both help assess our progress, and help us refine priority target areas for conservation action. Turtle Doves can easily hide away in area of countryside seldom visited by birders or bird surveyors. We are sure that an intensive survey will reveal some breeding birds that we don’t know about. And we can’t help them, if we don’t know where they are.

The breeding season distribution of Turtle Doves revealed in Bird Atlas 2007-11 can be seen here via the BTO map store.

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To take part in the survey, click here. Come back to this page soon for more information about the survey.

Survey plans

The aim is to conduct county-level surveys across the known range by study groups, county bird clubs and other organisations, with coverage of known sites or recent historical sites in other counties.

The survey design will be developed over the initial stage of the project, but is likely to be:

1) non-random, self-selected 1km-squares in areas identified as core, mostly around existing monitoring/intervention efforts, such as the RSPB’s Turtle Dove Friendly Zones, where it is likely that there will be some additional data collection;

2) higher intensity sampling within core counties and areas;

3) lower intensity sampling through other key counties, and

4) coverage of known and recently occupied sites in counties with few current records (back to the 2008–11 period included in Bird Atlas 2007–11).

For now, we have identified the following core counties: Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire.

And other key counties: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorset, East Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, South Yorkshire, Surrey, Warwickshire.

Surveys will aim to detect the presence and abundance of singing male Turtle Doves within each selected 1km-square, with two visits between mid-May and early August. Each survey should be undertaken between sunrise and 0900: 70% of singing males should be detected within the first 2 hours after sunrise, after which vocal activity decreases markedly. The time taken for the survey will depend on the density of field boundaries.

Work in 2020 has focussed on developing a random stratified survey design and the volunteer survey network, as there are active groups working on Turtle Doves in many of the key counties.

As well as recording Turtle Doves, surveyors will also be asked to keep an eye out for other birds of conservation interest in the same areas. The resources that Turtle Doves need during the breeding season – seeds from annual or perennial low-growing plants (a.k.a. weeds), accessible fresh water for drinking and bathing, and dense scrubby vegetation (preferably native broad-leaved thorny scrub/hedgerows) – are not unique to them. Many areas that hold Turtle Doves are also good for other woodland and farmland birds such as Linnet, Bullfinch, Yellowhammer, Sylvia warblers and Nightingale. The conservation work being carried out for Turtle Doves in the UK is highly likely to benefit a wide range of our wildlife, and not just birds, but plants, insects and mammals too.

How to get involved

If you are keen to be involved in this national survey, please contact Simon Wotton.