Young BirdLife Klabb Ħuttaf members yesterday evening took to the sea for a wildlife encounter with one of Malta’s most enigmatic birds, the scopoli’s shearwater.

The scopoli’s shearwater, known as Ċiefa, is the largest of Malta’s shearwater species. During the breeding season these birds raft in batches of 500 to 1,000 on the sea. As darkness falls they begin to leave the water and fly to their burrows in the cliffs to take turns in incubating their egg or to feed their growing chicks.

Setting out just before sunset, the group watched the shearwaters gather in “rafts” on the sea and after dark heading back to their nests in the cliffs.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.