Reference is made to the item entitled ‘First record of the Levant Sparrowhawk for Malta’ (October 1). The item is incorrect as this is not the first record.

It is the first confirmed sight record as the Levant Sparrowhawk has been recorded before and a number of birds have been identified in localcollections. This information has been published in thebook A complete guide to thebirds of Malta (Midseabooks 2010, p.245-6).

While a number of collections have birds imported from around the world, not all Levant Sparrowhawks in local collections have been imported and careful examination and analysis of information can often lead one to determine whether a species is imported or not.

The published records are the following: an immature taken in the early 1980s near Mqabba; adult male shot in May sometime between 1990 and 1992 at Il-Bidni, Marsascala – the bird was very badly mutilated, but being rare, was still preserved; a female was taken at Mġarr, Malta in early October 2009. There are probably other records that we do not know about, because since this bird is protected, it is now not so easy to gain access to specimens.

But the publication of known genuine records is important not just for the local ornithological scene but for the international one as well.

Though the main migration route of the Levant Sparrowhawk is further east, it has also been recorded several times in Sicily and Tunisia.

So it is not incomprehensible that it would occur in Malta too.