A wonderful surprise in the dawn chorus

 

In May I always enjoy the dawn chorus and this year I decided to sleep in the wood so that I could hear it in full. Frankly, I didn't sleep that well as it sounded like the owls had decided to share the clearing where my hammock tent was with me, they were that loud. But the dawn chorus lived up to expectations and in this little video you can hear robins and blackbirds getting the show off the ground with tawny owls still in the background. Over the next hour or so, every one else chimed in - blackcaps, song thrush, wrens, pheasant, crows, chiffchaffs and the owls kept going for some time after the sun was risen. 

But towards the end I was thrilled to hear a turtle dove. You can just about hear it towards the end of the movie - alongside the photo of the timber stack. 

This bird has sadly had a catastrophic decline in population, the fastest in the UK in fact. Locally, there are groups and individuals doing what they can to slow or reverse the decline, including the turtle dove project at Marden https://mardenwildlife.org.uk/turtle-dove-research/ and in the wood, Martin Garwood working to establish habitat and feeding areas for them. Last year I saw a turtle dove about a mile away, while fishing, but have never heard or seen one in our wood.  

Wonderfully, this particular bird is one that has been tracked by the Marden group. He was named Joe, and here you can see some of its activity exactly where I heard, and then saw him

And here he is, having had his tracker backpack fitted. 

He is quite beautiful and I could not have been more thrilled to have him with us over this summer. We have spent a lot of time and some effort in managing the wood so that it has a range of habitat - opening and scalloping some of the rides and re-establishing a coppice cycle so there is a range of ages of the trees providing different types of habitat for nesting and feeding. See some of this here https://silverwoodkent.blogspot.com/2018/05/ and here https://silverwoodkent.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-have-you-chopped-all-trees-down.html for example

Joe and the other turtle doves tracked by the wonderful Marden team will soon be off back to their home in Africa if they havent gone already. Lets hope they come back next year!

Very many thanks to Ray Morris for his photos and even more for the work that he does with Marden Wildlife to support these lovely birds and more