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I actually read to the bottom of this sad note
on Malta.
My comment :
What? did someone forget to shoot the Snow
Buntings (finches)!
Friday, January 4, 2002
< Cold spell brings rare
wildfowl >
by Natalino Fenech The cold spell in
December brought a large number of waterfowl to Maltese shores, including some very rare wildfowl.Three red breasted geese, a
species of geese that has never been seen in the Maltese
islands before, were shot on December 20. Two were shot
in Gozo and one in Mellieha bay. The ones in Gozo were taken at Marsalforn and Ghasri valleys. Red breasted geese
breed in the Arctic circle and Russia.
One of the red breasted geese
shot in Gozo was in fact observed with other larger
geese before it was shot. A bean goose and two white fronted geese were
also shot from Malta shortly afterwards on the same day.
Small flocks of geese of up to 40 birds were seen that
day. (What, and not shot!?)
A smew, was seen at the Ghadira
reserve on the same day.
The smew is a very rare visitor,
last recorded in 1910, when three were shot at Ghajn
Tuffieha. Other individual birds were shot in 1864.
"A number of swans" (real
helpful, what number, was it: 0, half, 3, 27, 109, or maybe 247600?) were
also seen. A flock of 13 birds was seen. Unfortunately,
although protected by law, several of the swans were shot both from land as well as from seacraft.
Apart from wildfowl, another rarity was the occurrence of
a small number of snow finches. The only record of snow
finch dates back to October 1970, when a single bird was
trapped in Gozo.
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This article may also be viewed
at
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=84415
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david camilleri
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