A pair of rare migrating birds lured to a new home in Kent to avoid disruption from refurbishment works have become parents.<\/p>\n
When the Environment Agency needed to upgrade its equipment in Minster, near Ramsgate, staff were concerned that the noise would disturb the turtle doves that spend the summer on the site.<\/p>\n
The birds migrate to Europe during the summer. Picture: Southern Water<\/p>\n
A plan was created with Southern Water and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to entice them to the neighbouring wastewater treatment works by using a trail of seeds.<\/p>\n
The utility firm\u2019s field performance manager, Mike Thomas, said: \u201cDiverting rare turtle doves on their migrating course is not part of my job description, but I always help if I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuring the birds away from their usual foraging route with just seeds worked really well, and we get to see these beautiful birds, who have travelled all the way from Africa, every day during the summer, which is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the endangered truelove of turtle doves are setting up a potential breeding ground within the trees of the site, and a squad has already been born.<\/p>\n
They are being monitored by the RSPB to ensure they are protected throughout the improvement works.<\/p>\n
A juvenile \u2013\u00a0known as a squab \u2013 has been born. Picture: Southern Water
The turtle doves have been moved to a new home. Picture: Southern Water<\/p>\n
Conservation officer at the RSPB, Nicole Khan, said: \u201cThe collaborative work of Southern Water and Operation Turtle Dove at the site has been a success.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurtle doves are Europe\u2019s only migratory dove and spend the winter south of the Sahara, so we are keen to encourage them to the UK whenever we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Environment Agency has been working with the charity for several years on Operation Turtle Dove on its own site, including setting up feeding stations to provide a supplementary food source for the migratory birds on arrival in the country.<\/p>\n
UK turtle dove numbers declined by 99% between 1967 and 2020, due to hunting and lack of seed-rich food in foraging habitats.<\/p>\n
However, from 2021 to 2024, there has been a 40% increase in numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of rare migrating birds lured to a new home in Kent to avoid disruption from refurbishment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2851,191,649,90,2555,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-151225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-kent","10":"tag-quirky","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-thanet","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}