Map of the Month - August 2023

August 2023’s Map of the Month is from the North Yorkshire Turtle Dove Project!

A map showing the North Yorkshire Turtle Dove project area overlaid on a backdrop of North Yorkshire. The map shows records of Turtle Doves mapped as 1km squares for formal records between 2016 - 2021 (formal records), as well as the 1km squares surveyed (purple).

NEYEDC was contracted to collate and manage the data for this project, that ran as a pilot in 2016 before receiving funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, North York Moors National Park (@NorthYorkMoors), Forestry Commission and Howardian Hills AONB between 2017-2020. The project involved volunteer surveyors visiting allocated 1km squares across the North York Moors and Howardian Hills AONB looking and listening for the charismatic Turtle Dove. NEYEDC mapped both the 1km distribution of turtle doves based on the dedicated surveys as well as casual sightings. A follow-up project (Birds on the Edge) is now underway, not only looking at turtle doves, but other key farmland birds.

You can find out more about the North Yorkshire Turtle Dove Project here: https://www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/looking-after/our-projects-and-partnerships/natural-heritage-and-land-management/north-yorkshire-turtle-dove-project and on Twitter, and learn about Birds on the Edge: https://www.northyorkmoorstrust.uk/our-projects/. Richard Baines of Wold Ecology also authored one of our 100 Species blogs on the Turtle Dove, which you can read here: #15 Hawks and Doves by Richard Baines — neyedc.