A favourite summer adventure is on again
BirdLife Malta invites the public to join its LIFE Arċipelagu Garnija boat trips to Ta’ Ċenċ to observe one of Malta’s spectacular nature phenomena... the Scopoli’s Shearwaters rafting on the water before they return to their nests in the cliffs
One of the favourite summer adventures for nature and bird lovers in Malta is on again!
BirdLife Malta has just launched its annual sunset boat rides during which the general public is invited to join the eNGO’s LIFE Arċipelagu Garnija project team and observe one of Malta’s most spectacular nature phenomena – hundreds of Scopoli’s Shearwater rafting on the water before returning to their nests in Ta’ Ċenċ cliffs in Gozo.
This bird, known as Ċiefa in Maltese, is the largest of Malta’s shearwater species and during the breeding season Scopoli’s Shearwaters can be seen congregating in large numbers on the sea after they return from their foraging trips, a behaviour known as ‘rafting’. Adult shearwaters spend all day at sea, searching for food to bring back to their single chick, and only return to their nest under cover of darkness.
Malta is home to 3% of the global population of Scopoli’s Shearwater (4,000-5,000 pairs), with around 1,000 pairs nesting at Ta’ Ċenċ alone. At the end of June and the beginning of July – which is the peak of this seabird’s breeding season – at dusk hundreds of these birds may be seen gathering at sea. As darkness falls they begin to leave the water and fly to their burrows in the cliffs of Ta’ Ċenċ to take their turn in incubating their egg.
This year BirdLife Malta is organising four such trips, two at the end of June and another two at the beginning of July. The first two boat trips will take place on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th June and another two are planned for Friday 6th and Saturday 7th July. All the trips depart from Marfa Jetty (opposite the Riviera Hotel) at 19:00 except for the 6th July trip which will be a special trip for Gozitans, thus departing from and returning to Gozo’s Mġarr Harbour. This however will be dependent on the number of bookings received and this arrangement will only go ahead if the boat is full. Should this trip not be fullybooked, it will instead leave from Marfa Jetty like the other three trips.
For more details and to book a place on one of these boat trips, one should visit the event webpage on BirdLife Malta’s website here: https://birdlifemalta.org/2018/05/lifearcipelagu-garnija-shearwater-boat-trips. Bookings and payments are being accepted directly on the website through an online payment facility which has been created specifically for this popular event. Booking for all trips except for the last one closes on June 17th, unless taken up before. For the final 7th July trip, booking closes on 24th June.
Along with the Yelkouan Shearwater (Garnija) and the European Storm-petrel (Kanġu ta’ Filfla), the Scopoli’s Shearwater has been for more than 12 years the subject of ongoing studies by BirdLife Malta through several EU LIFE-funded projects which have been researching the lives of these secretive birds with the aim of creating marine protected areas to safeguard Malta’s seabirds. This in fact became a reality in the past years when thanks to BirdLife Malta and its partners an inventory of eight marine Important Bird Areas (IBAs) where these seabirds breed was created, and these areas were designated as marine Special Protection Areas (SPAs) within the Natura 2000 network by the Maltese Government, supported by the European Commission. This gives Malta’s seabirds full protection on land and at sea.
BirdLife Malta’s annual LIFE Arċipelagu Garnija Shearwater Boat Trips take place within the waters of one of these marine SPAs designated in 2016.