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TURTLE DOVE
Streptopelia turtur
Turtle Dove © Mike Weston
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe: SPEC category 3 (declining)
UK: red (>50% population decline)
Long-term trend
UK, England: rapid decline
UK population size
44,000 territories in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04, APEP06)
Status summary
The CBC/BBS trend is of severe declines in Turtle Dove abundance, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to the present. Hunting during migration is a possible cause of the decline, to add to those related to agricultural intensification that have been postulated for other farmland seed-eaters (O'Connor & Shrubb 1986, Krebs et al. 1999). Analysis of nest record cards and ringing data for farmland Turtle Doves suggests, although without statistical significance, that productivity per nesting attempt has increased while annual survival has fallen (Siriwardena et al. 2000a, 2000b, Browne et al. 2005). Browne & Aebischer (2004, 2005) conclude that Turtle Doves today have a substantially earlier close to the breeding season and consequently produce barely half the number of clutches and young per pair than in the 1960s. Thus, the recovery of Turtle Doves in Britain would benefit from the provision and sympathetic management of nesting as well as foraging habitats.
 

Population changes
CBC/BBS UK graph
 
BBS acknowledgement
 
CBC/BBS England graph
BBS UK graph
BBS England graph
 

Productivity trends
 
Clutch size graph
Brood size graph
Egg nest failure graph
Chick nest failure graph
Laying date graph

 

 

Insufficient data on CES
available for this species
 

Additional information
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BirdWeb logo, click to go to BirdWeb

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This report should be cited as:
Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Crick, H.Q.P., Noble, D.G., Balmer, D.E., Coombes, R.H.,
Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. and Thewlis, R.M. (2006)
Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2005.
BTO Research Report No. 435. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends)

Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 2 May, 2006