The first day of this year’s spring hunting season went by without any “significant reports” of illegalities, a Birdlife spokesman confirmed, insisting however that it was still “too early for migration”.

A spokesman for the organisation said that apart from some cases of electronic bird callers – an illegal hunting tool – there were no significant reports of illegalities made.

The three-week spring hunting season for quail opened on Sunday.

Hunters are allowed to shoot from two hours before sunrise until noon and they may not shoot more than five quail a day and not more than 10 birds during the entire season. A national bag limit of 5,000 quail has been set.

According to the Birdlife spokesman, however, while there were no reports on Sunday, it was important to keep in mind that it was still too early and the birds coming here at this time of year were “very low” in numbers.

Only 2,167 hunters declared their catch last autumn

“It must be noted that it is still very early in the season and so the number of birds migrating is not yet high,” the spokesman said.

While the season is only open for quail hunting, as this year’s dates have been changed, coinciding with the peak migration of the turtle dove, concerns have been raised over the safety of the protected species.

The government, backed by the main hunters’ organisations, had declared a spring moratorium after the bird was declared a vulnerable species internationally.

This year, 6,754 licences were issued for the spring hunting season, up from 6,653 hunters registered last year.

By law every hunter must report, via text message, each catch made every day.

A report published recently by the Wild Birds Regulation Unit showed, however, that last autumn, while there were more than 15,000 registered hunters and trappers, only 2,167 sent messages declaring their catch.

This raised concerns that despite being obliged by law to do so, very few hunters were actually logging their reports.