The robin may be the obvious Christmas bird but the turtle dove has its claim too. As we sing of them again, we should take time to think of how endangered they now are in the UK

Among the many carols whose melodies are now beginning to creep once more into our minds, hymning the sacred story, one is rather different, as it has no mention of the Nativity tale: “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.

We love it for its jaunty tune, and for the fact that it is a cumulative song – its verses grow with progressive additions, in this case of fantastical Christmas presents given to the singer by his true love, from a partridge in a pear tree, of course, through five gold rings – pause – and eight maids a-milking, to 11 pipers piping – what would you do with those?

But when I hear it, there is one present from the lover that no longer raises a smile with me, and that is the second one: two turtle doves. Sing it: “Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree”. For these exquisite birds, lovely to look at, prominent in our folklore and abundant in our summer countryside a generation ago, are rapidly vanishing, and are likely soon to be extinct in Britain.

Their disappearance will represent a lamentable loss of meaning as well as of wildlife, since Streptopelia turtur is a bird not only of great beauty, but of substantial symbolic significance. It has long been emblematic in two ways: as a particularly pleasing indicator of the seasons and as a symbol of fidelity.