Cutting the Waves

A few evenings ago I joined a BirdLife Malta boat trip to watch the Cory's shearwaters. The boat left from Ċirkewwa sailing towards the southern coast of Gozo. Just to visit this area and seeing the majestic Ta' Ċenċ Cliffs lit by the reddish sun as it is about to dip below the horizon is already a beautiful experience. The shearwaters are an added bonus.
Shearwaters are medium-sized long-winged seabirds that fly on stiff wings by utilising the air currents formed above the waves with minimum active flight. They spend most of their lives at sea visiting land only to breed. Two species breed in the Maltese islands. The Cory's Shearwater (ċiefa) and Yelkouan shearwater (garnija). These two species of seabird have managed to survive in the Maltese islands because they nest in crevices in inaccessible cliff faces. They approach land only during the breeding season and when they do, they do so under cover of darkness. They start approaching land at sunset. They conglomerate in rafts on the water a few hundred metres from the cliffs. When it is completely dark they take off to search for the exact crevice in which their partner is brooding the egg or young bird. They spend a long time flying opposite the cliff face crying like a baby. A haunting cry like that of a lost souls or evil spirit.
We saw them coming when we were about one kilometre off the coast. They came in one by one flying straight to a spot on the water close to the cliffs. There they settled down in groups floating like ducks on the water. While flying in several birds flew very close to our boat eliciting several muted oohs and aahs from the other people on the boat.
What an experience to watch these superb fliers. They seem to cut the air effortlessly as if balancing on an invisible tightrope moving smoothly just above the surface of te sea.
A few decades ago this was a very dangerous time for them. Fishermen used to shoot them from boats just to take a few feathers from their underwing to use then to make a special fishing lure known in Maltese as rixa. These lures were replaced by plastic ones and the fishermen had no more excuses for shooting at these birds but there were others who were shooting at the shearwaters just for fun. Sometimes veritable massacres took place. These hunters (at the time nobody called them poachers) chased the shearwaters from fast dingies and after shooting them did not even bothering to pick them up. As far as I know these massacres have now stopped but the shearwaters are still at risk. The biggest threat probably comes from artificial light which forces them to abandon their colonies and desert them. Many breeding sites have been lost because of this.
These magnificent birds have survived for thousands of years in the Maltese islands and I just hope that they will be here for several thousand more.