Turtle Dove - 1994

Passage migrant, has bred. Not recorded from December to March

Mathew (1894) recorded Turtle Doves breeding at Orielton, and Congreve suggested that eggs had been taken from Pembrokeshire, according to Lockley et al. (1949).

It is now a regular passage migrant in small numbers, arriving from 15 April but mostly in May. Singing birds sometimes linger through June and into July but there have been no recent breeding records.

Fewer Turtle Doves are seen in the autumn than in spring. Those that do occur are mostly in September and early October, but some have been noted up to 23 October, with a late bird feeding with Collared Doves at Stackpole on 4 November 1983. One ringed on Skokholm in April 1969 was recovered the next month in Galway, Ireland.

Donovan J.W. & Rees G.H (1994), Birds of Pembrokeshire