A community's plan to restore turtle doves in Kent

But there are great efforts being made to try and reverse that trend - across the whole of the continent. France, Spain, and Portugal have banned hunting of turtle doves for the last three years. That's likely to have saved the lives of a million birds a year as they migrate to and from West Africa. And in Kent, lots of landowners are now making the effort to try and encourage them back by creating spaces that they like. People like Lou Carpenter and Christine Cox, for instance, who are farmers in Marden.  

Now, Lou is in the process of creating a haven for turtle doves on around forty acres of land that she's calling ‘Dovetropolis’ on what was, until last year, an uneconomic apple orchard.  

Lou Carpenter: Bramley apples. Yes, they've been a Bramley orchard for thirty plus years, coming to the end of its economic life. And so we needed a new plan for it. And this is what we've created here, which is the start of Dovetropolis. 

Rob: OK so Dove Tropolis, this is a this is a brilliant concept. You're basically hoping to create the perfect habitat for turtle doves.  

Lou: Yes, that's the plan and that's what it's specifically designed to do. And there's a range of countryside stewardship options which are designed to complement each other. And we hope that we can bring doves in and give a model for other landowners to follow if they want to increase the population of the bird. 

Rob: OK so I'll come onto the why in a minute. But firstly the, the, the what of what you've actually done here. So you've left a couple of bits of sort of two stands of Bramley apple trees in the middle. And then the rest of it you've grubbed out. And then at the moment just let it get on with it.  

Lou: Yes, we're great fans of natural regen for of plant and plant material. We have got to provide a mix of different sward heights and we have areas of Dovetropolis which will be specifically cultivated to generate and grow on the arable weed that brings in the seeds that the birds like to eat. And in this low place just over there, we're going to be digging a small scrape to provide the water they need because they're seed eating birds and they need water to take in with the seeds. 

Rob: And so looking across the field here, I can see thistles and buttercups and nettles and all sorts of other bits and pieces. Is this, this is just the sort of like the first year are you going to actively plant different stuff in here or are you going to just let it do it completely of its own will? 

Lou: I think we'll see how it develops. The trees are left there so that scrub forms around these trees because you want to end up with these patches of impenetrable scrub that the birds like to nest into. They like to have an impenetrable, thorny mass that they can hide in and away from predators, because obviously there's a lot of predators around that want to eat up a turtle dove. 

Rob: And the why. Why are you doing this? 

Lou: Because if we don't do it, the bird may become extinct, and not just in the UK but internationally, it's internationally threatened. And because it's such an iconic Marden bird that we all grew up hearing call, it seems the right thing to do to try and protect it, to encourage it, to help it so that it can go back and repopulate other areas of the country. 

Rob: Because this, this piece of land here, this area around here, this is your whole life, isn't it? You've, you've grown up... 

Lou: Yes, somebody said to me, I was hefted like a sheep in the Lake District. The Low Weald is such a fantastic place, so under-recognised by naturalists and by the general public as being an absolute haven for biodiversity, which it is. And to me it just seems ridiculous that people don't understand how important this landscape is. 

Rob: So just give me a little kind of a picture, if you like, of what your life was like when you were a little girl when you were growing up round here. 

Lou: I was a very untidy little girl, very interested in being outside. I would frequently fall in ponds and I did fall in a pond deliberately when I had to go to a ballet class when I was four. But it was a mix. It was a very farming, very much a farming community. And we've got a lot of family that are farmers. And I think the small farms around here were ideal in the old days for biodiversity because of the diversity of crops and livestock we had. As we grew up, the push for mass food and mass arable meant that we started losing these things. And some of what drives me is to recapture some of the wildflowers that we've lost and I remember as a child. 

Rob: So that's really the thing, isn't it, that you've, you've kind of lived through that whole revolution, I guess in the 70s and 80s when hedgerows were being grubbed up left, right and centre. 

Lou: We were being paid to take them out. And, and our fathers, my father started farming. He had to come home, left school in the war to come back and be their economic miracle, the farming miracle to feed a starving continent. So they all grew up with “the more food we could get out of the land, the better”. And that's what we got better at doing in the 60s and 70s. We got better at producing food and then suddenly we had too much food and we'd lost a lot of our biodiversity. So we're trying to sort of reset things and recover things and restore things.  

Rob: So it's a genuinely personal mission for you.  

Lou: Yeah, of course it is. Otherwise, why would I spend so much time and do it in such a nuanced way? Because I can see the results because we have the naturalists on the farm to show us that it is working. What we're doing works and it works quite quickly. And that's quite, that's quite potent. 

Rob: So, Christine, let's bring you into it. You're a neighbouring farmer. Lou's neighbour, and you already have turtle doves on your land? 

Christine Cox: Yes, we do. Yes, we have Trevor the turtle dove who comes back every year. 

Rob: Are you, I mean, what's your, your story? You know, we were just hearing from from Lou there about how she lived through that kind of farming revolution. Have you got a, a similar experience? What's your motivations for doing stuff? 

Christine: Yeah, well, we're, we're a big arable farm. So our main thing is providing food, but we're very much locating the options that are available to us under the countryside stewardship schemes. And we think sensibly, but we're looking at it as a whole ecosystem as well. So we're trying to get the pollinators there, we're trying to get the good bugs, that'll eat the bad bugs that are in our crops. We're trying to use less pesticides, insecticides, so we can. So we are encouraging things on the farm that will help with that. Yes. And I think we're trying to be slightly less intensive maybe. 

Rob: Because you, you've got what sort of 1500, 1600 acres of arable land? 

Christine: Yes, that's right.  

Rob: OK and so the pressures that you're under then have you still got that, that pressure to maximise yield on everything and that's you've got to kind of push back against it to let a bit of nature in or is it, has the balance shifted at all? 

Christine: I think the balance has shifted a bit. We are still trying to maximise our yields. But what we've done is taken our best bits of producing land and use them for the food production. And we've taken the more marginal land and we're using that in a better way. We've got buffer strips everywhere. Every part of our every watercourse on our farm is protected in some way. They go from six metre margins to a 24-metre margin in some bits. That's on the letter T 's which goes into the belt, which is an SSSI. So we've, we've put them all very strategic places. We protect all our hedges, wewprotect our Woodlands. And we're allowing woodland - so we've had grass margins for 25 years actually - so now we've made them into, next to a wood, they've become our woodland margins and so they will hopefully scrub up a bit. Lou’s been doing a lot of natural woodland regeneration and so then we've moved our grass margins out a bit. It's also good farming-wise because where are you next to a wood you get a lot of shade. And you get a lot of rabbits. You don't actually get the good crop there. So we're moving it all into the middle of it. So we're growing the food in the middle. We're doing more sensible things on the on the outside where most of the sensitive habitats are. And it just makes sense to us.  

Rob: And you, I mean, you've mentioned Trevor. Trevor your pet turtle dove. He keeps coming back and he, what, just sit on the wires outside the house? 

Christine: Yeah. Yeah. Sits on wires or he perches on bare branches. They like bare trees too. So we've got a, an oak which is half dead and he loves that. Yeah. Perches there or run the wire. Yes.  

Rob: And what is it about turtle doves that you love? 

Christine: Well, I think it's cool. As you said, it's a real... They're in here in the summer, so it's a real summertime thing you remember from childhood.  

Rob: And I guess they're kind of an indicator, aren't they, that if you've got turtle doves, if they can get a foothold here, all sorts of other stuff, we'll be able to as well? 

Christine: Yes, we recently went on a walk over in Shadoxhurst and they've got nightingales and we discussed their habitat for the nightingales and what they like and then they came to us and saw turtle doves like. So the idea also... as we are successful in Marden, hopefully they will spread and spread. And so it the neighbouring farmers have to provide the habitat for the, if they're successful and more turtle doves come back, they are each going to need their own territory. The male has a territory about 300 metres they say. So he doesn't like other males in that territory so he'll chase them off. So then the newcomers or the successful breedings will need a new territory. So we need that habitat. And the same with the nightingales, they've got a successful nightingale thing. So they're saying if you provide the habitat now, hopefully it will start spreading out so we'll have more strongholds.  

Rob: And what do you think about what Lou is doing here with this field creating Dovetropolis? 

Christine: Yeah, that's no, it's, it's great. And she's gone about it this way. And we do more with our arable options. So we have a lot of arable options on at Moatlands, where we have Trev and his mate is Tallulah, and things like the pollen and nectar... we have lots of different options there to help all birds, all farmland birds. We have a lot of Red List farmland birds around Marden.  

Lou: Yeah, yeah, loads of them. 

Christine: Yeah. I think skylarks and yellow hammers.  

Lou: Yeah, yellow hammers is really common. Yeah. I mean, it's we, we kind of, it's, we're all on the same page, you know, there's, there's more than one way to skin a cat, isn't there? And, and we're, we're using our farms and our businesses to a common sort of goal. And that's the fascination because learning from Christine, I'm not sure she's got much to learn from me, but you know, learning from other farmers. And you think, “Oh, of course, why didn't I think of that?”. 

Christine: Yeah, some of it is experimenting, isn't it? Yeah, we're using the options available and experimenting, see what works. 

Lou: Because we're using the options, you know, and, and Natural England are sort of like the godfathers saying, “Well, Christine's doing this, so why don't you do that?”. So there's a lot of coordination happening with them as well, isn't there? 

Christine: Ohh, yeah, that makes total sense now with our Marden cluster that we're trying to coordinate more. Because we're all being individual farmers and Lou has badgered us all into talking to one another a bit more and seeing what's going on because there's, well, it's great to provide the habitat, but you know, at some point it's pointless feeding birds on one side of a hedge of your neighbour is also feeding them on the other side. You know, they're getting too much and it's kind of a waste of the taxpayer's money in that case, you know, but so we, we try and do things on a more of a landscape recovery now.  

Lou: Yeah, we are, yes, it's sort of various different things happening in a complementary way over the landscape. And what suits one business won't suit another. And we're all family businesses. 

Rob: And as a final thing then, how does it make you feel when you start seeing those wildflowers, those birds and animals that you remember from your childhood actually coming back? 

Lou: Ohh, the first orchid, first green winged orchids on the farm, which popped up really unexpectedly, made me feel God-like because I'd caused it to happen – accidentally! And then it was, “Right. Where do we go from here?”. So it... every new species is, well... 

Christine: No, it's absolutely great. And it's not just the new species either, it's the success of the species that are there. We were saying earlier about the barn owls. For instance, we've all seen more barn owls now, we've got them several farms, you know, and you see them using the options they fly along our buffer strips on our arable fields, you know, collecting the shrews and the mouse and stuff. So it's, it's really nice. Yeah. It is lovely to see it happening and working. 

Rob: Now, just down the road in Marden is a lovely garden at Stone Pit Farmhouse, which has become the temporary centre of scientific operations to monitor turtle dove numbers and hopefully gain new evidence on where they migrate to and from and how they breed and feed and so on. Kirsty Swinnerton is head of the Species Recovery and Evidence team with Kent Wildlife Trust.  

Kirsty Swinnerton: We are here to trap and fit GPS trackers to turtle doves. The reason we're sitting in this garden is because this is the primary place where Marden’s turtle doves come to feed at a supplemental feeding station, which is just behind us. And these supplemental feeding stations are part of a national programme to provide food primarily to turtle doves just after they've arrived from Africa on migration. 

The theory behind it is that there is not enough food left in our countryside for turtle doves. So when they arrive and they've lost a lot of weight and they're extremely hungry, there's not enough food for them to build up their condition to get into breeding condition. So by providing them with food, we're also helping them get into breeding condition, which means they can start to nest. And they have they have multiple broods through the season. Without that food, they may only rear one or two broods at most, but with the food, they can rear two or three, and those extra broods make a big difference. 

Rob: And why does this matter? Why should we be bothered about turtle doves? 

Kirsty: Well, turtle doves are very culturally significant in Britain. The Christmas song, obviously. It's also been a very much a symbol for the farming community. It is actually sort of called the farmland bird. And in the past, before our agriculture became very, very intensive, turtle doves have been very common around the sort of buildings on the farm because that's where the slightly sort of rougher land was. There would have been spilt grain in the yard that would have been left there and they would have come and fed on that. But these days with our intensive agriculture and our sort of rules and regulations so to speak, the farms have to be kept incredibly clean and there is no food left for turtle doves and other birds like sparrows and things that would fed on that too. 

Rob: And the, the population of turtle doves in the UK has absolutely crashed, hasn't it? 

Kirsty: Yes. So we know approximately and about the 1970s it was estimated we had about a 125,000 pairs and that would have been across not just the southeast, not just Kent, but across even to Devon, Somerset, and even up into some of the Midlands and north. Now the recent estimate is probably less than 2000 pairs.  

Rob: That's like 99% plus has gone. 

Kirsty: Yes 99% decline, the decline... and much of that has been only in the last twenty or thirty years. So it's been very recent. 

Rob: Does anybody have any particular ideas why? Because obviously, you know, hedgerows were grubbed out in their 60s and 70s and there's been all sorts of changes in the way that pesticides are applied and all sorts of changes in the way that nitrates are put on fields. And yet still that population has crashed in the last twenty years. So what's actually - do we know what's causing it? 

Kirsty: Well, the decline started in the 60s which is when a lot of our agriculture started become much more intensive. And like you said, the hedgerows were ripped out to create larger fields. Big bushy hedgerows would have been a nesting habitat for turtle doves. So we've lost some of that. Some of the edge habitats like scrub, they would have all been pulled out to create bigger fields, more farmland. So that's also nesting habitat. We've lost that. So generally there's much less habitat and much less food in the UK and in in other countries where we have intensive agriculture. 

So that would have certainly played a part. But the other reason is because turtle doves are hunted on their migration route and this is a cultural, traditional sort of sport primarily and that probably was responsible for reducing the population by a million birds a year. So about a million birds would have been hunted on migration route every year up until recently. 

Rob: So and this - because people might not know what turtle doves do... They don't just live in Marden for their life, do they? They do migrate. They live in Africa most of the time.  

Kirsty: They live in Africa for the winter. They migrate... from Marden, in the autumn they'll migrate South and it'll take them two to three weeks and they spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa. And our turtle doves migrate down the western side of Europe. and then about April the following year they will migrate back here to the UK where they will breed where they're young and then they're young and adults will all migrate back again in September.  

Rob: And so when they migrate down through what, France, Spain, Portugal, and then they sort of cross into Morocco and head down to what, to Nigeria? 

Kirsty: It’s sort of the Mali, Mauritania, sort of Sahel area. Yeah. It's not quite as far South as Nigeria. It's really it's just South of the desert.  

Rob: And so this this colossal number, a million birds a year being lost to hunting. Is that mostly in Europe or is that mostly in Africa? 

Kirsty: No, it's mostly in Europe. It's on the migration route, so it is hunting, legal hunting. It was legal in Spain, France and a certain amount in Portugal as well. 

Rob: But that's changing a little bit. In the last couple of years that's started to change? 

Kirsty: That's changed significantly, just not a little bit. So in 2018 there was a huge number of organisations and countries came together to declare a sort of a species action plan for the turtle because they're declining in Europe as well. And at that point, it was the recommendation was made by the European Commission to have a moratorium on hunting in European countries to allow the population to recover – and that was agreed. 

So in the last three years now I think since about 2021 there has been no legal hunting in those countries. And from what our little study here, what we're seeing is maybe a benefit to that because we're being able to, we've seen birds come back to Marden now three years in a row, which suggests that they're not getting hunted on route.  

Rob: Yes, if they're still alive after three years, they're still alive, aren't they – it's a good thing. 

Kirsty: You’re good, yes. 

Rob: OK, so, specifically, we're sat here at the table, you've got a kind of radio antenna, you've got a laptop, you've got various kinds of walkie talkie looking kind of thing. What are you actually doing with the birds then? 

Kirsty: So we are fitting GPS trackers onto the birds. And this is a temporary fitting, so it only lasts for a couple of months. We glue it on it so it'll fall off before the migration.  

Rob: So we’ve got a GPS tracker here. And it's quite a it's, it's like a, I don't know. It's like a pebble, isn't it really. Like a little pebble with a couple of wires coming off it, a long one. and a short one. And you physically stick that onto the feathers of the bird... What, sort of on its chest, on its back? Where does it go? 

Kirsty: On its back. Yes. Yeah. So it weighs about three grams and it has to be small because it has to be less than about three percent of the body weight. Otherwise it'll impact the bird's flight. So we glue it on to a little piece of cotton gauze and then the cotton gauze is glued onto the feathers and it'll stay there for two to three months and eventually it'll be molted off.  

Rob: And the bird doesn't mind having this thing blobbed on? 

Kirsty: It doesn't seem to, no. I mean, eventually they, they just seem to get used to it, used to it. T long antenna like you said, the back just sort of slots in amongst the tail. It's about tail length. And so they end up just sort of preening it with the tail. So they seem to get used to them. 

Rob: And what have you learnt by sticking things on turtle doves? 

Kirsty: We've learned a lot. So this is, there's only one other group, the RSPB, who are doing this sort of study and we are very much, you know, working with them on this. But it's pretty unique for Britain. So, we know very little about our turtle doves. They used to be very common. So it wasn't really thought worth it. We didn't need to know. Now, of course, they're very rare, so we need to know. 

So we are, what we're learning is how they're using the landscape around Marden. We really didn't know that if a bird... if we saw a bird up in a tree from this garden and we walked a kilometre down the road and saw another bird, we didn't know if it was the same bird or a different bird. And so we need to understand that to be able to understand how many birds live in this area and how many birds the feeding strips and all the other sort of benefits that farmers are creating how the how turtle doves are benefiting from those. 

So really what we're trying to do is provide the evidence for a lot of the management for turtle doves that's going on in Marden.  

Rob: And so I've been having a look this morning in what will be Dovetropolis... Has it been dubbed, I mean, presumably you think that's a great thing? 

Kirsty: Yes, I mean, that is, that is commitment, you know 100% commitment to trying to make a difference for Marden’s wildlife and turtle doves in particular. And it's, it's a bespoke, bespoke condo, I think for turtle doves in this area. So they, and this is the sort of thing we're trying to help with to inform farms like that. What does the scrub look like that they want to nest in? Where should the food be placed? How big a pond do they need? What does the pond need to look like? And so we can provide that by studying the wild birds with our GPS trackers.

Rob: Now, as well as the professional scientists, there's backup from a super keen group of amateurs from a group called Marden Wildlife, which really came into its own during lockdown when people were casting around for interesting things to do on their own doorstep. Lindsey Whitby and Karen Latchford are volunteers who, amongst other things, monitor camera traps to see how many turtle doves are currently in the area.  

Lindsey Whitby: So I got involved because I knew some of the people that set up Marden Wildlife. My son, who is now eleven from the age of five was really, really interested in birds and we went along to ringing sessions. As he's got older that interest has waned and he's now into cricket rather than birds. But I found out an awful lot of things about birds. I was already interested in wildlife. And I'm kind of a busy mum of two. If I hadn't had children, I'd have probably done something in conservation. So this is just one way that I can do something that fits around all my other responsibilities. But I feel like it's having an impact.  

Rob: Talk me through the trail cams then. What are you actually doing? 

Lindsey: So my role is to... the trail cams go out at the beginning of the season when we're expecting turtle doves to arrive and they record everything. So they go off every time there's any kind of motion detected. 

And then I come and check them as frequently as I can and look to see whether we have any turtle doves spotted. So part of what I'm looking for is to see whether we've got any of our colour ringed doves that we can identify them, see, you know, when they're using the strips. But the other part is because we need to know how the strips are being used and when so that we can trap the doves to colouring more doves and to put the trackers on.  

Rob: And have you spotted any turtle doves? 

Lindsey: So I, we're at Stone Pit now and this is the, the most popular habitat, for turtle doves. I check the camera every other day. I don't actually live in Marden anymore and I regularly have about 2000 photos of which anything from 100 to 400/500 pictures might be of turtle doves. Now we don't know if that's the same doves coming back, you know, frequently throughout the day.  

Rob: So that's the point of the ringing project, isn't it? So you can actually tell apart the individual birds.  

Lindsey: So where we've seen colouring doves, which we have this year, we know when they're using them. So one interesting thing is that at one point we've seen a pair of colouring doves, they feed together, so we're almost certain that they're a pair they fed on the strip repeatedly for, you know, for the whole day. We haven't seen them since. So it's really interesting to find out how doves are using the strips. 

Rob: And why do you like turtle doves? What do you think of them? You know, when you actually do get to see them in real life. 

Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, they're, they're beautiful. So for years I lived in Marden. When I first heard them, I had no idea what I was hearing. I was walking around and just heard this strange sound and thought it sounded like a cat. And I went home and Googled and thought, “I wonder if that's a turtle dove”. But they're obviously very rare. And I didn't think we'd have them. When I met Ray, I realised that we do have them. I love them because they, I mean, they're beautiful and they're incredibly rare. And I feel we're really lucky to have them here. We're one of the only places in the country that still do have them. And I think it's important to try and conserve that so that when my kids are older, they're not saying to me, “Oh I remember when we had turtle doves, and now we don't”. So I would love it to be something that becomes more and more common. And they can say, “Yeah, that used to be quite rare. And now it's, you know, it's, it's growing”. So yeah, absolutely. 

Karen Latchford: At the moment involved with the turtle project, so similar to Lindsey, on another farm, monitoring the trail cam, checking the photos and submitting all the photos for Ray and Kirsty to go through and check the rings. Not quite as busy as Stone Pit, I have to say, but they're up there. Frustrating thing is you can hear them purring in the morning and go through the card and there isn't one in front of the camera.  

Rob: So they're shyly hiding in a bush somewhere.  

Karen: Hiding in a bush somewhere, laughing, I think. But yeah, they're definitely showing up. 

Rob: How did you get involved in the volunteering? 

Karen: Through Facebook, started seeing the posts that the wildlife group were putting up about various things. Starting to post photos of my own from the garden. I'm quite limited in the amount of field work I can do, so it was nice to be able to get involved at that level and then gradually as time's gone on, got more and more involved with different things. We, we did winter farmland birds where we're looking at yellowhammers. So that was on a, a different farm again. So it's a way of getting out in the countryside as well, even briefly, the sounds, the sights, you know, it, it's just lovely. And to be able to do it very close to home as well. So, and then the bulk of the time is actually spent at home going through the photos.  

Rob: And so you, you really are getting something out of it personally from doing this? 

Karen: Yeah, most definitely. I mean, the wildlife group as a whole, as it's grown and grown and grown since lockdown. So there's all sorts of projects we're getting involved in. My, my particular interest is moths. It's not, not really birds as well. I mean, obviously all wildlife, all nature, but a couple of weeks ago we went and did some surveying of a new site that's not open to the public. So it's just this lovely pristine site that hadn't been surveyed for months, for about 25 years. And we had the opportunity to go and do a survey there this weekend.  

Rob: What did you, did you find anything? 

Karen: Ohh, we did, yes, we, we found... we surveyed a couple of sites in their woodland, a couple of sites in the meadows. It was actually not a great night weather-wise and moon-wise for moths, but we certainly found enough that we want to go back when it's a bit warmer and a better night and see what's there. And then we can let the - the family that manage it - we can let them know what's there. We can go back and see what's happened sort of over the intervening months, make recommendations for things they can do to maintain the moths they’ve got and maybe encourage some more.  

Rob: And this is the thing, isn't it? That if you have a habitat that turtle doves like or that nightingales like or that any other headlines... it means all the stuff, all the moths will be there.  

Karen: That's it. There's all sorts of stuff out there. You just don't know, especially with moths, because I mean, they're so tiny and can hide anywhere that you don't know they're there until you draw them in. Another site where we're going to this weekend, coming weekend, is a new site that has never been surveyed for moths. And again, it's a private, private house with a particularly large garden, a couple of acres of meadow. So we're going to go there and see what's there. And then again, we can keep an eye then on what's happening as time goes on. 

Rob: So you’re a moth detectorist! 

Karen: Sort of, yes, which - we try, but yeah. And that... before I joined the wildlife group, they were just annoying things that came in the window at night. But the whole interest has grown through being part of the group and learning from other people in the group, so it's great. 

Rob: And one of the leading lights and organisers of Marden Wildlife is Ray Morris.  

Ray Morris: We're trying to find the perfect way to accommodate turtle doves on modern farms with modern farming methods, which would seem quite difficult on the face of it. But there's space on every farm to provide the sort of habitat that they actually need, which is sort of bare soil, some unkempt corners, hedgerows and bramble-y bits where they can hide nests and so on. And also water, because being seed eaters, they get no water in their food, so they've got to have water to be able to process those seeds and to feed the young as well. 

Rob: And is it working are you, are you seeing any success in your efforts? 

Ray: Yes, I've been involved with the project in Marden since 2015 when the RSPB thought they'd come up with an idea to help stem the decline, which was to provide food for the settlers when they arrived back from their migration in Africa. They need to have two broods a year because they only lay two eggs at a time, so they need two broods, ideally three but because of the lack of wildflower seeds which they depend on, they were only managing one, perhaps two broods and that was one of the principal reasons for their decline. 

And so the idea was that if farmers could provide some supplementary feed for them when they first arrived back at the beginning of May, they can get into condition quite quickly and then have two broods and even three perhaps in a good year.  

Rob: And so in terms of the way that this is working as a kind of a project, that you've got yourselves as volunteers, you've got the Wildlife Trusts, you've got local farmers, and everybody's having to kind of talk to each other, aren't they? 

Ray: Yes, we are. And I suppose that's one of the motivating things about it for me, you know, being a birder I'm keen on birds and I want everyone to listen. And it's good to have commercial or landowners and the general public actually listening and saying, “Yeah, that's interesting, what can we do? You know, how can we make a difference?”. So that's been very positive. It's very difficult to promote a minority species if you like, if people aren't interested. And if we want to conserve turtle doves or anything else, if people aren't interested in them, there's not going to be the motivation there for society to do it. 

Rob: And this is one of the things that the volunteering thing it, it's one of the few upsides of COVID, isn't it? That actually the lockdowns helped really kick things off. 

Ray: Yes. So I suppose it was the making of Marden Wildlife because when we started it, it was lockdown just starting. We'd put something on the village Facebook group about what two or three of us were doing with some nice pictures and said, “Would anybody like to join us?”. And all of a sudden all people could do was to go for a half hour walk in the countryside each day. So they said, “Yes, we'd like to”. So quite a few people sort of signed up and we had a WhatsApp group to start with and we started our own Facebook group and we've now got nearly 1000 people signed up through Facebook. But the important thing is they... we're a broad church. We range from absolute beginners who literally will put a photo onto Facebook of a sparrow in the garden and say, “What is it?” through to people with PHDs who are professionally qualified ecologists and so on. And so everyone could help everybody else because the experts can find from an obscure garden somewhere there's a rare plant, “Wow, we better go and have a look at that”. And the other way round, the person with the garden and a aparrow in it and say, “What's this?” and get a sensible answer. Nobody's gonna say, “Well, it's a sparrow”. Of course it is, “Well, it's a sparrow, did you know, et cetera, et cetera.”  

Rob: And so for you personally, why the turtle doves? Why are you excited about this as a project? 

Ray: Well, first of all, they're rare birds and it's satisfying to be able to do something to make a difference. 

Secondly, they are beautiful birds and just holding them in the hand when you look at them, the different colours and so on. But I feel the same about sparrows, incidentally, because when you get a brown sparrow in your hand and look closely, it is very interesting. And thirdly, it's the challenge of having to do it and the opportunity to work with people whose job it is, like Kirsty, you know, a professional scientist. I'm learning from her all the time and it's the challenge of trying to catch A) a scarce bird. So that's hard to start with, but also a very timid bird. And we literally, I spend hours in a camouflage tent trying to trap them or sitting in my car with a camouflage net over it trying to do the same. A tiny move and they're off. They're very shy birds. So there's a lot of challenge there as well, 

Rob: And Marden really is a kind of genuine hotspot for turtle doves? 

Ray: It is, the last national survey in 2021 came down to the fact that there were 2100 pairs left in the country. That's from hundreds of thousands previously. A third of those - 700 - are in Kent and Marden’s got a fair number of that 700 and we know that because we have mapped them on Google Earth. We have people going out and that's an advantage as well because the local people are interested enough to say “Ohh, turtle doves. Yeah, there's this bloke that talks about turtle doves on Facebook. I'll just tell him that there's one here so he can go and have a look”. And we're finding out where more of them are all the time. And because we're engaging people's interests, they're telling us more as well. So it's working both ways. 

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Rob: Ray Morris from Marden Wildlife there now if you want to find out more about them, they've got a great website. Just do a search for Marden Wildlife. And as always, there's loads more information on the Kent Wildlife Trust website as well. This has been a Wild Rover Media production for Kent Wildlife Trust. I'm Rob Smith, and until next time, do go wild in the country.