Valuable Resightings: Turtle Doves 'Koen' (AT) and 'Amy' (AF) Photographed on Walcheren

We have great news from the field! We have recently received two public sightings of color-ringed European Turtle Doves. Since public observations with clearly readable ring combinations are rare, these reports are extremely valuable for our research.

'Koen' (AT) and 'Amy' (AF) Captured on Camera

The first report concerns Turtle Dove 'Koen', recognizable by the black code AT on his yellow color ring - spotted and photographed by Kris de Rouck.

In addition, we received a sighting of Turtle Dove 'Amy' (code AF), observed and photographed by Corstiaan Beeke. Corstiaan has already supported us with multiple valuable observations throughout this breeding season — a big thank you for that!

The Monitoring Project on Walcheren

As summer comes to an end, we are wrapping up the 2nd breeding season of our population monitoring project on Walcheren, which will span at least a 5-year period. Through this long-term study, we aim to answer key ecological questions, such as site fidelity: how many individual European Turtle Doves return to breed on Walcheren each year?

Spotted a Ringed Turtle Dove? Report It!

To get as complete a picture of the population as possible, the eyes and ears of attentive birdwatchers and local residents are essential. Have you seen a European Turtle Dove with a yellow color ring and a black 2-letter code? Report the sighting by...

• Sending us a direct message/photo with the code, date and location the dove was seen. In return we can tell you more about the bird you've seen.

• registering your observation on waarneming.nl - make sure to register the dove as wearing a colour ring!

  
  

The Turtle Dove Walcheren project is commissioned by the Province of Zeeland.

Special thanks to Corstiaan Beeke (photo 'Amy' / AF) and Kris de Rouck (photo 'Koen' / AT) for their vigilance and contribution!

Photo: Corstiaan Beeke, 2026

Photo: Kris de Rouck, 2026

Summer 2025: new insights, projects, and how you can help

It’s been a while since the last update, but a lot has happened since then!

The project on Walcheren – a collaboration with local farmers – to test food plots for turtle doves has now finished. The project was a follow up from research in the UK, which showed that a lack of food (seed) in spring could be one of the main issues for turtle doves during the breeding season.

While we were not able to confirm this during our project in Zeeland, and we were ultimatly unable to find the 'perfect recipe' for turtle dove food plots, the results were still very valuable. We learned a lot about creating suitable food plots and how to manage them, and about how the tagged turtle doves use the landscape on a daily basis. Their use of supplementary feeding areas and of stored/spilled grain earlier in the season stood out once again, alongside their clear preference for areas where the 'small-scale landscape' of pre-agricultural intensification (areas with smaller fields, hedgerows, scrub, field margins, and semi-paved farm tracks).

So, the search for a (simple!) and reliable food-related conservation measure continues. But with the knowledge we’ve gained, we’re a step further along.

👉 Curious about the results? The full report is available on the Downloads page.

At the end of the project, we also created a practical guidance document on how to create and manage turtle dove food plots. It is still a work in progress, and will change as we continue to learn more, but it’s a great starting point for anyone who wants to try boosting food availability for turtle doves. You can find it on the Downloads page too.

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With the support of the Province, two new projects have started in Zeeland

1. Tailored advice for landowners (Walcheren and Beveland) Whether you're a private landowner, a charity, or a business... if you’d like to do more for turtle doves and biodiversity in your area, feel free to get in touch. Together with Stichting Landschapsbeheer Zeeland, we are offering free, tailored advice and support. It doesn’t matter whether you manage a campsite, farm, sports park, business terrein or just have a large garden – we can look at the whole site and provide advice for both small and large-scale improvements you can make to your landscaping and/or management. While we specifically tailor changes to suit turtle doves, many other animals, insects and plants will benefit from them as well.

2. Monitoring the local turtle dove population on Walcheren and Noord-Beveland

Provincie Zeeland wants to know more about the turtle dove population on Walcheren - how many return from Africa each year to breed, and whether the population is growing. In recent years, a hunting ban in southern Europe has led to strong population growth in France and Spain. The question is when the Netherlands will also begin to see population growth. With the (unfortunate) reopening of turtle dove hunting this year in parts of southern Europe (albeit in lower numbers than before), this makes it even more important to keep a close eye on the breeding population.

To do this, a colour ringing project has been started, marking turtle doves with yellow colour rings, each with two large black letters. This makes it possible for birdwatchers, photographers, and members of the public to recognise individuals from a distance.

📩 If you spot a colour-ringed turtle dove, send me an email with the details, location and date. I’ll reply with more info about the dove – its name, where and when it was ringed, and other interesting facts.

🙌 Want to get more involved? We’re always looking for good spots to feed and ring turtle doves from April to June. If you have turtle doves in your garden or nearby, and you’d like to help, get in touch.

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With the summer drawing to a close, turtle doves are busy fattening up and startig their journey back to Africa. So I’ll end this update by saying:

✨ Please leave your stubble fields standing until the end of the month – it gives the birds the fuel they need for their long migration south.

Four Tagged Turtledoves

In 2021, our pilot year, the first 'foraging fields for turtle doves' were set up by participating landowners and farmers. A total of 6 small fields were created around our study areas near Westkapelle and Oostkapelle.

These fields were visited every week during the growing season, to see if they were suitable for hungry turtle doves. Farmers have been hard at work, hoeing, milling, and mowing the fields in an effort to create suitable feeding habitat for the doves. It's been a steep learning curve, and has resulted in a number of changes in our sowing and field management.

This year marks the second phase of the project: additional farmers have joined the project, the seed mix and sowing methods have been adapted, and we're testing different management strategies... but is all the effort worth it? Are the feeding fields of any use? What wildlife come to the fields?

With the help of camera traps and field observations, we've found the fields to be excellent habitats for insects and birds. This spring the fields abuzz with insects visiting the early blooming flowers, and atwitter with goldfinches and linnets coming to feed on early seeding mustard. Some birds, such as barn swallows, come for the insects, while other species, such as European quail and stock dove, come to feed on the seed.

In 2021, turtle doves were seen and heard around 4 of the 6 fields, though very few were observed on the fields themselves. This led to changes in field sowing and management, but also highlights the need for more detailed information on turtle dove movements.

This June, four European turtle doves have been caught and tagged with accurate, lightweight (4.6g) transmitters which will record their location at fixed intervals. Since being tagged (between 8th and 17th June), the doves have given us nearly 500 coordinates from areas they have visited, and they all seem to be doing well. All this information will be analysed to identify where the doves find their food; we want to know more about what they need at a foraging site, so we're better able to tailor the foraging fields to their specific needs.

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More information:

• The Research Project

• Meet the Doves

• Get Involved