Re-Establishing a Breeding Bird Monitoring Scheme in Malta

At the same time, BirdLife Malta continued growing into the only strong voice against the mass killing and trapping of birds, including highly protected species. This fight, unfortunately, remains extremely relevant and necessary today, despite Malta’s 20 years of EU membership. For many years, it absorbed most of the organisation’s resources and energy, also at the expense of maintaining standardised breeding bird surveys. Following the 2008 Breeding Bird Atlas, a Farmland Bird Index methodology was established, producing indices from 2008 to 2010 and again in 2013. In 2018, a second breeding bird atlas was published, with BirdLife Malta contributing to both the fieldwork and the publication itself. However, data collection was not conducted on a consistent annual basis.

Fast forward to 2022, BirdLife Malta took the strategic decision to re-establish a long-term breeding bird monitoring scheme and to join PECBMS finally. This was made possible thanks to collaboration with Ecoserv Malta, a local environmental consultancy which secured government contracts to implement such studies and produce reports.

The methodology, based on 2008, divides the Maltese Islands into 384 one-kilometre squares. Of these, 72 were selected as key squares by stratified random sampling, while the remaining 312 serve as basic squares. Key squares are surveyed twice each season using line-transects and distance sampling, once between 15 March and 15 April and again between 15 May and 15 June. Basic squares are surveyed once during the same period using point counts. Data from key squares provide population estimates, while basic squares provide information on distribution and relative abundance.

In 2023, all 72 key squares were surveyed for the atlas; however, for ongoing monitoring, the number was reduced to 55 to ensure that annual coverage remains feasible. Since 2023, 66 trained counters have participated in this work, and the programme has now been running successfully for three years. A significant innovation has been the development of Malta Bird Sightings, BirdLife Malta’s online birding portal, launched in 2021. Special monitoring features were integrated to allow fieldworkers to enter data directly in the field, track transects and distance bands visually via GPS, and even book their squares. This system has eliminated paperwork, reduced administrative workload, and made data immediately available for analysis at the end of the season. Since 2023, 677 standardised surveys, comprising 25,340 observations, have been submitted through the system, representing over 1,400 hours in the field.

MaltaBirdSightings.com, BirdLife Malta’s online birding portal

The number of regular breeding species in Malta is currently only 27, reflecting the island’s small size, restricted habitats and the pressure of persecution. Raptors are particularly scarce, with fewer than 10 pairs of Common Kestrel and one or two pairs of Peregrine Falcon, once known as the Maltese Falcon. Breeding waterbirds are also almost absent, with just a handful of species surviving in low numbers, mainly in the three small wetland reserves managed by BirdLife Malta.

One striking trend is the spread of the Blue Rock Thrush, Malta’s national bird. Once mainly restricted to cliffs, it has recently expanded into urban areas, with 220 squares recorded in 2023–2024, compared to 139 and 121 in the 2018 and 2008 atlases, respectively.

Monitoring in Malta presents challenges unique to Europe. The presence of hunters and trappers makes it risky to walk the countryside in spring with binoculars, and surveyors must take precautions to avoid confrontation. Some rely on bird calls rather than optics, choose their parking carefully, or disguise their surveys as casual walks. Matters are complicated by the fact that the spring hunting season overlaps with the monitoring season: in 2026, hunting for Common Quail and European Turtle-dove will run from April 14 to May 4, falling directly between the two survey periods.

Still, we are motivated by the songs of Spectacled Warblers in our Garrigue and Greater Short-toed Lark over our agricultural land. With 2023 treated as a pilot year, Malta’s data will feature in PECBMS outputs in the following years, ensuring indices are robust and based on sufficient data. This will mark the beginning of Malta’s long-term contribution to European breeding bird monitoring. BirdLife Malta looks forward to this new chapter and warmly thanks the PECBMS team—Eva, Alena, Petr, Javi, and Jana of the Czech Society for Ornithology—for their continuous support.