....used go and listen to the haunting song of Turtle Dove and to find their nests at Rixton Clay Pits after I had lost them on the Moss....(the sight of 20 plus on in an old farmyard off Rindle Road Astley Moss when I was in my early teens still lives clearly in my aged memory....) the last breeding site at Rixton seemed to be about a garden along Moat Lane...intensive farming in the UIK and the bloodlust of continental 'hunters' who from my experience simply enjoy...killing for its own sake...seem to have set these joyful summer visitors upon the mankind driven relentless path taken by the Dodo....
Just outside GM, I used to see them at Rixton annually, near the ranger's hut
The last I saw in this area was a juv on my back lawn (I lived in Gorse Covert, bordering Risley Moss) about 1998 (not sure about the date). Now that was a surprise! It's about 3km from the breeding site. I've got a blurred photo somewhere
If you wish to listen and sigh with respect to the plight and the demise of the Turtle Dove...go to BBC I-Player for Radio 4
The Turtle Dove Pilgrimage...broadcast in 2019...I was on the Moss at the time and as I moved from one location to another it came on...then for thirty minutes I relived the sounds and sights of these birds on our Moss...if this doesn't stir anyone into realising how much we have lost in but my mere decades of life...then to me nothing will...I can still take you to the last nest site I had for these birds on Chat Moss...I had no idea what I had witnessed...
