My lake is rich with a whole menu of natural, free bird food; insect larvae, water insects, fresh water shrimps and several kinds of fish. Fish spawn are believed to be carried by water birds. Certainly I didn’t put them there.

My hole in the ground soon filled up with water (10 megalitres). Weeds and insects soon became the bottom of the food chain for other sea and land creatures. In a couple of years it became a food source and this attracts birds such as pelicans, herons, shags, ducks, geese, swans, and cormorants especially when shrimp and fish populations explode. My lake is a self-sufficient system in perfect natural equilibrium. I do not feed the birds or interfere with their lives or life cycles.

Shooting with cameras is delightfully indiscriminate.

I was concentrating on these two magnificent large birds but the lens saw also a pair of wood ducks in the foreground and a pair of brown ducks near the far bank. Not far from the brown ducks just to the left there’s a golden plover, at the edge of one of two islands. Between the front pelican and the island there’s a common coot and on the far bank there’s a family of seven Cape Barren geese.

I am confident that resident populations of wild ducks, turtle-doves, coots, plovers, dotterels, finches, spoonbills, herons, ibis and many other birds would be viable in quite a few parts of Malta.

It all started with a big hole in the ground. Would there be the odd stone quarry that can serve as a lake? Some shallow muddy beaches would be ideal if they are declared a sanctuary.

Please don’t kill or trap birds. Shoot skeets (you might win a medal at the games); eat poultry; buy a camera.