In his letter No Birds In The Midday Sun (August 8), Ray Azzopardi rightly states that birds find the time chosen for the FKNK press conference as being "too hot to be vigorously flying about".
Indeed this statement is correct. Birds would hide away from "the midday heat at the end of July, you will not find many birds in the countryside throughout the Mediterranean" since they would leave the open countryside to seek shelter in trees.
Buskett, apart from being the largest and only mature forested area in Malta, is also a bird sanctuary. In a country as arid as Malta and with very few wooded areas, one would expect such a setting to be a haven for breeding birds.
Even more so when taking into consideration that the trapping of songbirds has been banned for two consecutive seasons and spring hunting suspended this season.
So what explains the fact that no birds were seen sheltering from "the midday sun" in Malta's largest forested bird sanctuary?
The time of this conference was purposely chosen to demonstrate this fact. It is thanks to people like Mr Azzopardi that the point being made is confirmed and people made to realise that they were not, as he suggests "being taken for a ride" in "a deliberate attempt by the FKNK to fool the public".
As we have often stated, Malta has several limitations when compared to the breeding grounds chosen by several bird species.
Its size, dry climate and lack of forestation and water are determining factors.
This explains why only a few species of birds, that thrive in our sort of climate, regularly breed in our islands, unperturbed by hunting or trapping.
Giving people the impression that birds will eventually start finding Malta's climate ideal for breeding if illegal hunting and trapping is stopped, is false and very misleading.
With or without hunting and trapping, birds have and will always breed in those countries that offer the best conditions for their young.
Strangely enough, those countries are also the hunting areas of millions of fellow hunters, some of which hunt also in spring. The birds seem not to consider this a problem and breed there in their millions.
It is only people like Mr Azzopardi that attempt to blame hunters and trappers for the lack of breeding birds.
His statement "I don't expect millions of birds to breed in these islands in the first year of a spring hunting ban" shows who is really trying to fool the public. Is he ever expecting millions to breed here?