Winged visitors at Salina

A small number of waders were noted flying over the Salina Salt pans yesterday. Curlew Sandpipers and two Little Egrets stopped to rest and replenish their fat fuel before they could continue with their long, gruelling flight to their breeding grounds in Europe.

Curlew Sandpipers are fairly common visitors here and can be seen from mid-April to mid-May. They also visit in autumn but are very scarce then.

The birds' plumage can range from silver grey when the birds are donning their winter plumage to reddish brown, the breeding plumage in summer.

Curlew Sandpipers travel long distances to reach these shores. Birds ringed in Mauritania, in north west Africa, and in South Africa have been recovered here. They would have flown between 3,000 to 6,000 kilometres. Others ringed in Sweden were also recovered here.

Curlew Sandpipers breed in northern Siberia, which means that the birds often fly distances of over 10,000 km in spring and again in autumn to get to their breeding and wintering grounds.

Little Egrets too are fairly common migrants in both spring and autumn. Some spend a few days at the Ghadira reserve each spring. Birds ringed in the former USSR, former Yugoslavia and Tunisia have been recovered in Malta.

Both Little Egrets and Curlew Sandpipers are protected species, but waders as well as egrets have been reported shot from several localities. Several injured waders were seen at Ghadira reserve over the past weeks.

BirdLife Malta and Nature Trust maintain that hunters are not observing laws and spring hunting should be stopped. The Belgian Bird Protection Society, backed by the Swedish, German and Greek ornithological societies, is placing pressure on the EU to lift the derogation Malta has on hunting in spring. A petition signed by over 160,000 people is shortly expected to be presented to the European Parliament about this matter.

Jan Rodts, one of the two chairmen of the society, said they had received an overwhelming response to their campaign.

"The Maltese are by nature warm and fun-loving people and it is such a shame that a minority who hunt manage to spoil the image of their country for thousands of potential tourists who are already spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing a Mediterranean island destination for a holiday," one of those reacting to the campaign said.

A family who signed the petition expressed their appreciation for support to the campaign.

"A glance at the Maltese papers shows that there are many organisations and individuals who cannot take this cruelty any longer. The hunters are hijacking our countryside and the government seems powerless to stop them.

"It is encouraging when societies like your own support the cause on behalf of birds."

The Belgian Bird Protection Society may be contacted on Info@vogelbescherming.be.