May issue - Magazine - Page 63
Glenside
News
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HOLIDAY INTEREST
Nature Notes for June
Since we moved to Castle Bytham
16 years ago we have been lucky
only once in seeing a turtle dove.
These birds that were once common
in the British countryside have fallen
victim to the loss of seedy weed
plants in and around our fields,
removal of hedgerows with dense
blackthorn and hawthorn for nesting
places, and unsustainable hunting
practices along their migration routes
from southern Europe killing vast
numbers of birds on their way to their breeding grounds.
One turtle dove, and a tree full of turtle doves!
The one bird we saw, some years ago now, had overcome all
those obstacles to end up
pottering around under one
of our bird feeders for a day.
We have not seen another one
since, in this country, which
is hardly a surprise as their
UK populations have dropped
by 99% since the 1960s.
A recent trip to southern
Spain and the vast wetlands
of Doñana National Park,
between Seville and the straits of Gibraltar, gave us the heartA black kite and the curiously beaked spoonbill
lifting sight of a couple of dozen turtle doves roosting together in a
tree at the side of one of the trails. Their pretty black and caramelcoloured wing feathers, like decorative shingles on a roof, and
their soft grey heads with bold black and white dotted collars were
a delight to see. And the gentle orchestra of purring calls was like
a natural wind instrument solo.
Doñana does birds in numbers. Huge flocks of flamingos and
spoonbills, multiple herons of various varieties, glossy ibis, all three
egrets - great, little and cattle - and black kites in good numbers.
There were white storks nesting just about everywhere there was a
pole, chimney, flat-topped tree or signpost. The park is also dotted
with small, mostly derelict farm houses and barns, perfect for owls,
lesser kestrels and owls, reflecting the way nature has taken back an
area that was once threatened by development. Only the appeal for
White storks were nesting and flamingos wading everywhere
preservation of the unique habitat by one man - biologist Jose
Antonio Valverde after whom the park’s visitor
centre is named - safeguarded it for posterity.
He worked tirelessly to persuade the fascist
dictator General Franco that the wetlands
should not be drained for agriculture. Against
the odds, and the usual inclinations of the
General and his government to promote
business and not nature, his appeals were
successful and the drainage of the important
marshes was stopped in the 1950s.
If you are a wildlife lover and are
holidaying in southern Spain we can’t
recommend highly enough a visit to Doñana.
Aside from the many, many birds you might
even catch sight of a lynx or wild boar - well
worth a trip away from the golden beaches!
Additional images by Victor Suarez Naranjo, Alfredo Garcia Saz, Lukas Vejrik/dreamstime.com
Sheena and Alan Harvey enjoy a rare birdwatching treat in southern Spain
