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Rarities & Conservation: Rapid recovery of Turtle Doves on the Western Flyway brings hope for the UK population

28 March 2025
By James Hamilton
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Turtle Dove. Credit: Ben Andrew / RSPB

​Conservationists, farmers, and land managers who are diligently working to aid Turtle Doves are delighted to hear some encouraging news. New figures produced from Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme data show an additional 615,000 breeding pairs gained since 2021.

This 40% increase in Turtle Dove numbers follows three consecutive years of a hunting moratorium across France, Spain, and Portugal.

Prior to 2019, approximately one million Turtle Doves were hunted annually during the autumn. These numbers were clearly unsustainable for the population, leading to declines in the Western European breeding population due to both hunting pressure and inadequate breeding habitat.

The moratorium implemented since 2021 is the initial phase of an adaptive harvest management system designed to ensure that any future hunting of Turtle Dove is conducted at genuinely sustainable levels that facilitate the long-term recovery of the entire flyway population.

A bird synonymous with Christmas thanks to the ‘12 days of Christmas’ carol, Turtle Doves are actually only found in the UK over the summer months, arriving here to breed. Having migrated through France and Spain in the autumn, joining birds from across Western Europe, the birds winter in West Africa before returning along the same route. Their soft purring song can then be heard from May to August in parts of eastern and south-eastern England, their strongholds in the UK.

In response to their plight, the RSPB led the production of the international conservation action plan for Turtle Doves in 2018, bringing together experts from across the Turtle Dove’s range and working collaboratively across borders to identify the actions needed to secure the future of the Turtle Dove.

These included the need for better breeding season habitats, and the development of a hunting management system, which allowed the suspension of Turtle Dove hunting in France, Spain and Portugal from 2021, and which has been followed by the rapid increase in Turtle Dove numbers. An international team of scientists, led by the Spanish Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC) provides technical advice on this to the European Commission, and has reported on this rapid recovery in Turtle Dove numbers as shown by the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme data.

Dr Carles Carboneras, of the Spanish Institute for Game and Wildlife Research, said: “This rapid recovery of Turtle Dove numbers across the flyway in Western Europe shows just what can be achieved when wildlife population management decisions are based on scientific evidence and they have the support of governments, land managers, conservationists and hunters. A sustainable future for Turtle Doves looks much more likely now if everyone involved continues to provide the level of knowledge and scale of conservation actions that this special species requires, including robust and enforceable control of hunting levels and the provision of suitable habitat, so that we can continue to enjoy their purring calls in our countryside.”

On what the new figures could mean for the species’ breeding grounds here in the UK, Rick Bayne, Senior Project Manager for Operation Turtle Dove, said: “As this news, and the International Species Action Plan clearly demonstrates, the combination of ending unsustainable levels of hunting, together with delivering more suitable habitat here on their breeding grounds, is key to numbers of Turtle Doves increasing again. While the management of hunting appears to be having a rapid and very positive effect at flyway population level, we know the long-term future for Turtle Doves in the UK needs both actions to happen together – no more unsustainable hunting AND good breeding season habitats. This excellent news from the wider Western European breeding population is compelling evidence that our conservation strategy for Turtle Doves is working, making the work of Operation Turtle Dove to deliver good breeding habitat for these birds all the more important here in the UK.”

Operation Turtle Dove, a partnership between the RSPB, Natural England, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust and Fair to Nature, is dedicated to helping the UK’s breeding population of Turtle Doves to recover.  Ensuring that they have good breeding season habitats available will be critical, especially in countries like the UK where changes to the way we farmed our land in the 20th century deprived Turtle Doves of much of their seed food. Thankfully, with the project working hand in hand with farmers, land managers and local communities, these key habitats are being restored.

As Dr Guy Anderson, the RSPB's Migratory Birds Programme Manager, describes: “This good news for the whole Western European breeding population of Turtle Doves does not diminish the need to ensure that unsustainable levels of hunting do not return, but it can and should strengthen our resolve to ensure that more of the UK’s countryside is ‘Turtle Dove ready’. We know that nature recovery, for Turtle Doves and other much-loved farmland wildlife, will not be possible without farmers and other land managers, and the efforts of those involved in Operation Turtle Dove so far have been amazing in installing the necessary habitat features to aid their breeding success when they reach our shores again this spring.”

Creating and protecting farmland habitat features, from seed-rich flowering areas and ponds to patches of thorny scrub, and tall wide hedgerows - even in gardens and local greenspaces - can benefit Turtle Doves on their return to the UK, ensuring these spaces are Turtle Dove ready. Having travelled 3,000 miles on migration from sub-Saharan Africa across southern Europe, the birds can refuel quickly and start breeding here in the UK thanks to this work, with pairs raising multiple broods over the summer when conditions are good for them.

As a result of the good news from across their flyway, it is predicted that more Turtle Doves will be reaching the UK to take advantage of these habitats and in turn raise more chicks of their own. Therefore, to ramp up efforts for the bird here in the UK, the RSPB is working together with Tesco to reach hundreds of farmers in East Anglia, a key breeding stronghold for the birds. Through the partnership, farmers will be supported to adopt nature and Turtle Dove-friendly farming measures which will also benefit wildlife such as Grey Partridge, Nightingale and Yellowhammer.
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Dr Guy Anderson continues: “The UK sits at the northern edge of the Western European breeding population of Turtle Doves, and so while we should certainly celebrate the rapid start to the birds’ recovery in the core of this continental scale population, the ‘recovery wave’ is expected to take slightly longer to reach us here in the UK. Nonetheless, an army of willing farmers, land managers, communities and volunteers are exactly what’s needed to harness this opportunity for Turtle Doves. But we also badly need the support of UK Government in funding well designed and adequately resourced agri-environment schemes for the future so that farmers and land managers can be fairly rewarded for their efforts. Species like the Turtle Dove can be brought back from the brink and offer us all hope that when we can align the right science, collaborations and resources, we can restore nature together.”
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