BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme

The BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme has been carrying out bird ringing studies in the Maltese Islands since 1965. Due to its location, Malta is an ideal place to study migration of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea on their bi-annual migration. A large quantity of migrants use Malta as a stop-over site during their Mediterranean crossings. The scheme has put a lot of effort into studying such behaviour through ringing, in particular of passerines, including recording a number of controls from different EURING schemes, contributing to the studies of bird migration along the central European flyway.

Apart from migrating birds, the most significant group of birds the scheme studies in the Maltese Islands is the breeding sea-birds. The 3 tube-nose species; European Storm Petrel, the endangered Yelkoaun Shearwater and the Scopoli's Shearwater, that visit the cliffs at night to breed, have been subject to extensive studies by the scheme leading to numerous conservation actions along the years. Studies of the movement of such species, using different telemetry techniques are regularly published.

Given the history of extensive hunting and trapping occurring on the islands, the scheme has also contributed by studying the impact such activities have on migrating birds. A significant number of controls of particular species groups in fact originated through the scheme's efforts of collecting information from hunted and poached birds. The scheme also participates in regional studies through ringing and tracking to learn more on the ecology of red listed species such as the European Turtle Dove, a heavily hunted bird in Malta that used to be a common migrant but has suffered huge declines.