I was doing the washing up today and looked out of the window to see a strange brown shape at the feeders; binned it- a blinking Turtle Dove. The first one at Beddington in a couple of years and resulted in the first obs twitch with Dodge, Frank, Grant, Tank, Johnny, Nick and Gripper all paying a visit to admire this increasingly rare and stunning bird.
Good to see it enjoying the habitat that we've got going in the communal gardens- trying to encourage wild flowers and natural seed food in addition to the feeders. Greenfinches, Linnets, Goldfinches, Starlings, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon and now Turtle Dove have been recently been feeding on the wilder lawns. Good stuff.
Our Turtle Dove has been reported to:
very nice..... still waiting for the first up here Peter.
ReplyDeleteCheers Mark,
ReplyDeletegutted that you've moved out of London but enjoying your great birding up there.
Hope you get your first Turtle Dove up there soon- hope this one isnt the last at Beddington! Bloody sad decline- such a great bird.
Great record, especially after all your hard work with the gardens.
ReplyDeleteFollowed the link from your latest post and only just noticed your reply above Pete! My apologies.... anyhow, just to let you know you're still being followed (in the nicest sense of the phrase) via your always excellent blog, and really hope you get positive results with all the infuriatingly depressing crap that you're coming up against down there.
ReplyDeleteAll good here (as you've probably noticed!) but still feel pangs of longing for the old shitbox of an urban patch....