The weekend garden Olympics were cheered on and cheered up by the return of a (our??) Turtle Dove to the bottom of the garden. With lovely light he let a bit of mid-distance digi-scoping happen. He spent all afternoon and evening purring from the wires and was adding soft drones to todays early morning chorus which now includes Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff and Yellowhammer - most of which use the garden as some point within their current territorial singing circuit.
The Turtle Doves return is made more remarkable considering the gauntlet these gorgeous doves run when moving through the Mediterranean. Chris Packham has been making a self-funded documentary to highlight the issues and has got it onto the front page of BBC website, for today at least.
The Massacre in Malta documentary feeds can be seen here in sequence
Episode 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ehOvfA6hls
Episode 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-sJ2HqXJ8
Episode 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFbkpyuKe6E
Episode 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kts8mfLyB50
Episode 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvxDovYV-ho
Episode 6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbgP1XkFWMc