Some birds are seemingly in terminal decline whilst others are potentials for increasing their numbers. Little and cattle egrets and parakeets are clearly in the latter category. Unfortunately there are many more in the former and a lot of them are our farmland birds. One in very steep decline is a classic bird of the British Summer, the turtle dove. Their purring call used to be a common sound on warm Summer evenings. Now they have declined by well over 90% and are absent from most of their old sites. Even 10 years ago they bred in Hertfordshire but now only are only passing through, and even then in small numbers. Many reasons are given from habitat loss and altered farming practice in the UK to hunting pressures on migration. As ever, it will be a combination of all of them driving them close to extinction and going the same way as red-backed shrikes.
One site where you can still almost guarantee them is the Oare Marshes in North Kent. This small reserve has had some cracking birds over the years, including the infamous tufted puffin, seen for 20 minutes by 7 lucky birders. Near the entrance though is an area of scrubby bushes next to some cottages where a few pairs of turtle doves return every year. With my usual more local spots such as Fowlmere not delivering the goods this year I set out early for a quick visit.
I got there by 7.30 or so having driven through some torrential rain. Fortunately, the sun was weakly poking through the clouds and it was dry there. I parked up and had a quick coffee and walked the short distance to the cottages. The doves are often seen on the roof or the adjacent telephone wires. After 15 minutes scanning though there was no sign, or sound, of them. I started to walk back towards the car to have a bit of breakfast when I glanced across into the hedgerow. There sitting staring at me was a beautiful turtle dove!
It was no more than 10 yards away, really close for a normally shy bird. We eyeballed each other for just long enough for me to get off a couple of grabbed photos before it fluttered off into the recesses of the bush.
After that they all seemed to wake up a bit and I got good views of two or three chasing each other around the adjacent farmland. They also started calling, their characteristic purring call echoing out from the bushes and trees. One even started calling from a tall tree nearby but was soon moved on by a local pigeon!
Elsewhere the bushes were alive with small passerines many clearly feeding young, as with these common whitethroats.
Normally I would then go round the marsh and the estuary but it felt quite quiet and I had another target to go for and I didn't trust the weather to hold out. I set out for south Kent near Dungeness. Here, a bird which may end up becoming more common had been holding territory for a week or so. This was a serin, a relatively common breeding bird on the Continent but a rare visitor here. It took me about an hour to cross Kent in rush hour and I arrived outside Littlesea golf club just as the heavens opened. I parked by its favourite stand of pine trees and waited for the rain to pass. Almost as soon as it had and I got out of the car I could hear the distinctive rattling song coming from high up in the tree.
It was a male bird, singing and claiming territory but without success as no females were around. If the movement of some birds northwards continues it may be that in years to come it may have more success.
I watched for about 30 minutes and it was singing almost constantly and occasionally came down to the lower branches where you could see it gorgeous lemon-yellow plumage.
Finally with the weather turning again I was driven back into the car and decided to call it a day. The drive back was quite long with the rain slowing everything up but I didn't mind too much. Seeing turtle doves always makes it a good day and a singing serin added the cherry on top. Up to 235 for the year, pretty much in line with my best ever even without Scotland!
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