Birdwatchers of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter will be out in the Maltese countryside next month accompanied by hired security guards and with video cameras fixed to their vehicles.

In a statement announcing its arrival on September 10, CABS president Heinz Schwarze said this was being done to deter potential attacks and prevent the escalation of violence. Last April, when the birdwatchers were monitoring the limited spring hunting season, they came under ambush from five masked men who threw stones at them, on another occasion had a vehicle rear window shattered by a shotgun blast and one of them, an Italian, was knocked to the ground in a third incident.

Spokesman Axel Hirschfeld said that throughout their stay, the conservationists would be monitoring bird migration and roosts using digital cameras and spotting scopes.

Others will also be looking into whether the afternoon hunting ban imposed by the government from September 15 to 30 is complied with, while some will be posing as tourists to identify and report illegal trapping installations.

“All offences will be rigorously documented and the material turned over to the police for use as evidence in prosecutions,” Mr Hirschfeld said.

He insisted that Cabs was only concerned with curbing illegal bird shooting and trapping, and claims that it was seeking a total ban on hunting in Malta were “absolutely false”.

Birdwatchers for the seventh such visit will be arriving from Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK.

Cabs is an international charit-able organisation based in Bonn, Germany. Its focus is bird protection and conservation in Europe.