Turtle Dove Call MP3s
Get authentic Turtle Dove vocalisations as ready-to-play audio files, useful for calling, scouting or simply learning the species' distinctive purring song.
Also known as
Recordings (5)
About this species
The Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur) is a member of the Columbidae (pigeons and doves) of around 27 cm — delicately marked with chequered orange-and-black wing coverts and a black-and-white neck patch. It favours warm, bushy farmland, vineyards, hedges and scrubby slopes.
Its gentle, slumberous purring 'turr-turr' is the very sound of a Mediterranean summer. It gleans seeds, buds and shoots, and in towns almost any scraps it can find. Unusually among its relatives it is a summer visitor, wintering deep in Africa. Autumn flocks on the move are a familiar feature of the European hunting calendar, especially along Mediterranean flyways.
Legal use
European Turtle Dove hunting was placed under an EU-wide moratorium from 2021, and in April 2025 the European Commission approved a limited, quota-based reopening (about 1.5% of the post-breeding population) in the Western Flyway (Spain, France, Portugal, north-west Italy) starting with the 2025/26 season, following a measured population recovery since the moratorium began. The Central-Eastern Flyway (Greece, Italy south-east, Malta, Cyprus, Balkans) has generally remained closed given the species' continued poor status there, and conservation groups have flagged weak enforcement of the new Western Flyway quota as an ongoing concern. Because the population is still vulnerable and rules change season to season and country to country, hunting use of this call should only be considered where a current, confirmed open season and quota exist. See our full country-by-country disclaimer before using this recording for anything beyond identification, birdwatching or decoy scouting.