Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The dove from above

Juvenile Turtle Dove
Juvenile Turtle Dove
In a few weeks time, I hope this fellow will be heading south through Europe to spend winter in Africa. He's a young Turtle Dove and he was ringed yesterday (by me, as it happens) as part of a project to find out what's going wrong for Turtle Doves - their population dropped by 77% between 1970-2001!

We had a productive morning, catching about 120 birds in total - not all Turtle Doves, unfortunately, but lots of Greenfinches, Blue and Great Tits, a smattering of Whitethroats, Blackbirds, Reed Buntings and Yellowhammers, Goldfinches, House Sparrows and a Wren.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D
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brought to you from Knapwell, Cambridge CB23, UK

3 comments:

  1. Chris3:53 pm

    Hi Katie,
    Beautiful picture you got of the turtle dove.... It is quite depressive to see all these bird populations declining! We can see that everywhere on blogs of different countries... Let's hope it will be better in the coming years!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4:09 pm

    Hi Katie, hopefully the young TD will avoid the led shot and you can re- ring it next year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Katie8:31 pm

    Yes, it would be a big result if this dove is retrapped next year. Miracles do happen...

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