23 February, 2022
For many, the turtle dove is most famous for its cameo in ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. But this endangered, small-but-mighty migratory bird has peppered human imagination, myth & culture for aeons.
Named after its “tur tur” call, the turtle dove is the UK’s smallest native dove, and the only migratory dove in Europe. Just half the weight of a woodpigeon, it has suffered drastic decline, its population decreasing by approximately 98% since 1970. This is down to food shortages from changes in farming and agricultural practises, and human hunting, with huge numbers of the birds shot on migration as they pass through countries neighbouring the Mediterranean.
Credit: Tony Cox / WTML
The turtle dove is most famously associated with romance, symbolising immortalised love, fidelity, and perfect union, perhaps due to the fact that these birds tend to mate for life.
In Ancient Greece, turtle doves were believed to pull the chariot of Aphrodite, goddess of love; were the companions of her Roman counterpart Venus; and are found in the myth of the Syrian equivalent, Astarte, who was believed to have hatched from an egg nursed by doves.
In literature, the turtle dove is a recurring symbol of faithfulness and true love, a motif that was especially adopted by Elizabethan poets influenced by the Italian Renaissance, where it was believed that on a turtle dove’s death, its mate would remain in mourning for the rest of its life, never coupling up again.
Chaucer:
“The wedded turtledove with her heart true”, The Parliament of Foules
Sir Philip Sidney:
“Time will work what no man knoweth
Time doth us the subject prove
With time still affection groweth
To the faithful turtledove”
Edmund Spenser:
“Go to the bowre of my beloved love, My truest turtle dove,” Epithalamion
Shakespeare:
King Henry VI: “a pair of loving turtle-doves that could not live asunder day or night”
Troilus and Cressida: “As sun to day, as turtle to her mate”
The Winter’s Tale: “So turtles pair, that never mean to part” and “I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some withered bough and there, My mate, that’s never to be found again, Lament till I am lost.”
Anne Bronte:
“Upon this bough, that stood out in bold relief against the sombre firs, were seated an amorous pair of turtle doves, whose soft sad-coloured plumage afforded a contrast of another nature; and beneath it a young girl was kneeling on the daisy-spangled turf, with head thrown back and masses of fair hair falling on her shoulders, her hands clasped, lips parted, and eyes intently gazing upward in pleased yet earnest contemplation of those feathered lovers – too deeply absorbed in each other to notice her.” The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Even as late as the 20th century, the turtle dove crops up as a term of endearment or synonym for affection in song lyrics:
“I’ll send you red roses by the dozen
I’ll call you sweet little things like turtle dove”
Elvis Presley, ‘Baby, If You’ll Give Me All Of Your Love’
“Coo me, woo me, turtle dove
Can I steal a little love?”
Frank Sinatra, ‘Can I Steal A Little Love’
“Well, you give me all your lovin’ and your turtle dovin’”
Buddy Holly, ‘That’ll Be The Day’
If you’d like to help protect these birds, here’s a couple of ways to help them along, according to the RSPB:
1) Make sure there is seed food available from late April until the end of August. Both adult and chick turtle doves depend on the availability of seeds, especially those of fumitory, knotgrass, chickweed, oilseed rape and cereal grains. They feed on the ground in weedy areas.
2) Maintain tall, thick hedgerows, areas of scrub on the farm and allow the shrub layer to develop along woodland edges for nesting. Most turtle doves nest in hedgerows or scrub over four metres tall. They prefer thorny species such as hawthorn and nests are often associated with climbers such as traveller’s joy (wild clematis), honeysuckle or bramble.
Further info on how you can help, especially if you manage farmland or woodland, can be found on the RSPB’s website.
