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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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