Time is running out for turtle doves...
Please support our work to save them from extinction in the UK.
Our turtle doves simply don’t have enough food to raise a family. As the wildflower seeds they feed on have been lost from our fields and farms, turtle doves have disappeared too.
We need to give them back the seeds, hedgerows and ponds they need. You can help put measures in place in key turtle dove friendly areas across southern and eastern England.
Since 1995 we’ve lost 94% of turtle doves in the UK. No UK bird is declining faster. The danger of extinction in the UK is real. Your help is urgently needed.
Please support our work to save turtle doves
94%
51%
Below 5000
Don’t let turtle doves fade away
The unique beauty of the turtle dove could soon disappear from the UK forever. Your donation can help prevent this.
The unique beauty of the turtle dove could soon disappear from the UK forever. Your donation can help prevent this.
How your donation can help turtle doves
-
![]()
Providing places to nest
Fewer overgrown hedgerows and sources of water mean fewer healthy chicks are raised each summer. You’ll be helping work on farms and our reserves to preserve and create nesting sites. This includes letting hedgerows run wild for longer before they are cut and also providing advice on how to create or renovate ponds close to known nesting sites.
-
![]()
Providing food
Food sources have declined dramatically, decreasing their breeding success. Your gift today helps us work with farmers to sow plants that produce the seeds that turtle doves need. If more of our farm field edges are filled with these flowers, then exhausted turtle doves will find seed more easily when they return from migration.
-
![]()
Keeping them safe
As turtle doves migrate they are frequently hunted. Now a moratorium on hunting has recently been agreed in principle across Europe. This gives us an opportunity to boost turtle dove numbers, with hunting now less of an issue. It buys us time to put actions in place to make sure that as many chicks as possible are raised and fledge in the UK.
