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Filfla's Storm Petrels
As our dinghy brushed the rocks handfuls of crabs as large as a fist eyed us with amused curiosity. I jumped on the rocky boulders yet the crabs hardly shifted from where they perched at the crest of rocks; rather than scurry away they trod, slowly, out of the way. A black lizard crawled in the open, tilting its head to take me in with guarded curiosity. I leaned close to observe the green-and-blue spotted endemic lizard. The lizard stood still, tilting its head further.
That the crabs and lizard did not scurry into hiding attests to their life in isolation. To them we were visitors from an unknown land, and they seemed as curious about us as we were about them.
Except for the occasional plane rambling by or the sound of a fishing-boat's throttle the animals have no experience of humans. They live on Filfla, an isle that rises out of the sea 5 km off Ghar Lapsi on the south east coast of Malta. It's a pinnacle rising as high as a small church and surrounded by loose boulders around its feet that shield it from the blasting waves.
With a surface area of perhaps 2 tennis courts put together, Filfla is home to the largest concentration of sea birds on the islands: 5,000-8,000 pairs of Storm Petrels, 70 pairs of Cory's Shearwaters, and 120 pairs of Yellow-legged Gulls. Leading secretive lives out at sea and visiting their nests only at night, they are out of reach of hunters and ornithologists alike. Little is known about them. The few people who spot them may describe them as black shadows darting across the sea at night.
On a late August afternoon I joined ornithologists Joe Sultana, 56, and John Borg, 33. Sultana has visited Filfla 65 times since 1968, when he discovered and documented Filfla's birdlife. Borg has studied sea-birds since 1981, spending up to one-third of each summer's nights scrounging the seacliffs for nesting birds. He says: "When I started we hardly knew anything about sea-birds, now we know a bit more about their lives."
The aim of their expedition was to catch a few Storm Petrels and inspect the moulting pattern of their feathers, to gain clues about the healthiness of their population and growth.
Then they ring the birds and record the number engraved on the ring. If retrapped or found dead with their rings on, ornithologists can tell how long that individual has lived and, if found elsewhere, where it flew to and what's the fly-to range of the population. One Storm Petrel ringed in 1969 landed in another net 21 years later - proving that these birds can live at least 21 years. Since 1968, ornithologists associated with Birdlife Malta have ringed almost 17,000 Storm Petrels.
Dusk was falling when we scrambled over the boulders at Filfla. We made it to a ledge of loose rocks and debris halfway from the top, where patches of shrubs and seeding wild garlic covered the ground. Putting up two mist-nets, we waited in silence.
A full moon dusted the off-white rockface with light and threw our shadows against the cliff. Two Cory's Shearwaters tore through the air overhead, their black shadows double the size of pigeons. Normally the shearwaters meow like babies sobbing, but when it is a full moon they remain tight-lipped. Above the sound of water lapping the shoreline below, we occasionally heard the faint cries of baby Storm Petrels in the cracks among the rocks. The air was heavy and salty, and I almost dozed off as my head nodded forward.
Storm Petrels and Cory's Shearwaters nest deep in the crevices among the heaps of rocks. After a day fishing on small fish like sardines and mackerel and plankton they visit their nest at night, regurgitating the half-digested fish to feed their young. They raise one child every summer. When it fledges and flies the whole family abandon the nest to spend winter far out at sea. Many of the Storm Petrels disperse as far as the Atlantic.
The Yellow-legged Gulls, which are day-birds unlike their neighbours, nest on top of the isle, weaving nests with straw on the open ground. They raise two young per year. From where
we stood it's a 3-storey climb to the top where the gulls huddled in their nests. But it's the Storm Petrels that are linked with Filfla. In Maltese they're called Il-Kangu to Filfla, literally meaning The Storm Petrels Of Filfla. Until a few years ago ornithologists thought these birds only nested on Filfla, because rats prey on the young birds on the mainland. But recently John Borg discovered a pair nesting in Gozo. He says the find was the climax of his studies. "I wanted to jump with joy when I found them nesting in Gozo."
Sultana and Borg's eyes lit up when a Storm Petrel dived into the net. It's a funny bird as large as a thrush, with black eyes and black feathers except for a white band crossing its tail. Inspecting its emerging feathers that replaced the old ones and ringing it, Sultana was happy to see it healthy. "Great," he said, "it's brooding its young." Then he opened his hand and the bird fluttered into the night. During his first trip to Filfla 28 years ago Sultana witnessed a baby Storm Petrel hatch. "That was something special," he recalls. "Life is so beautiful when it is forming."
Yet it is evident that the yearly expedition to Filfla has always remained special for Sultana. When he first set foot on the isle with Charles Gauci in 1968 they spent days researching and recording the isle's birds. Their studies are compiled in a book printed by the Malta Ornithological Society (today Birdlife Malta) in 1970, entitled "Bird Studies On Filfla". At the time the army, who bombed Fifla for target practice, warned Sultana and Gauci that their research is "considered to be extremely dangerous" because Filfla was littered with unexploded bombs. Undeterred they pressed ahead, and later wrote: "During daytime we searched diligently one-third of the area below the cliffs and at night we stayed on the eastern side to net Storm Petrels for ringing. Moving about for two days in such a maze of rocks with a sleepless night in between left us bruised and exhausted; but it was rewarding."
Filfla had been bombed for a century, each bomb blowing off a chunk of rock and killing birds. "During our visits we found no fewer than 50 dead birds, mostly Cory's Shearwaters and Storm
Petrels, squashed by boulders. Other unmutilated dead birds were apparently killed by blast," wrote Sultana and Gauci in their book. Yet the bombing also shaped Filfla's slopes into heaps of loose boulders that suited Storm Petrels. Later in the book Sultana and Gauci wrote: "Bombing has created more adequate habitat for the Storm Petrel, which otherwise would not
be able to burrow in the hard rock. The large amount of debris that has accumulated under the cliffs suits perfectly the Storm Petrel's breeding requirements. But now the continuous bombing is destroying this habitat which it itself has formed."
In 1971 Sultana appealed to the Rear Admiral D. G. Kent to halt the bombing. The Admiral replied: "Many of us in Her Majesty's Services are keen ornithologists. We share your society's concern over anything that hinders the safe breeding of bird life. Nevertheless, we also have Defence responsibilities which sometimes necessitate unpalatable decisions. Thus I note you proposals and will give them serious consideration but cannot make any commitment." In the same year, however, the Rear Admiral stopped the bombing.
In 1987 the government protected Filfla as a Nature Reserve. Visiting it is illegal unless you have a permit from the Department of Environment; they give permits only to people on research expeditions.
Since 1968 Storm Petrels numbers have shrinked mainly because Filfla is crumbling, while the gulls' population swelled. The birds are safe today, although many, especially Cory's Shearwaters, are still shot at sea by hunters shooting from boats - a habit that has persisted for over a century. The naturalist C. A. Wright wrote in 1863 that fishermen used to shoot Cory's Shearwaters for fun, but also to use their meat and feathers to bait their fishing lines. On a visit to Filfla Wright stumbled into nets loaded with several Cory's Shearwaters struggling to break loose.
Today Filfla looks fragile and crumbling. Cracks zigzag up the rockface. And when we arrived Sultana and Borg noted that another chunk had collapsed over the winter. This is hardly surprising considering the decades of battering by the waves, bombs, and, in 1856, an earthquake that sank half of the isle. The bombs also buried a natural spring that old fishermen still remember.
I sat on a defused and rusting bomb as large as a small wine barrel. Storm Petrels dashed one or two feet over my head, weaving through the air like oversized bats and heading out to
sea over the silver-white band of reflected moonlight. On the way back home I watched Filfla's silhouette until it melted into the night like a phantom fading away. It's a funny island with funny birds, lizards, and crabs. Cory's Shearwaters, equally phantom-like, cut ahead of us just above the sea's surface. Joe Sultana broke the silence, his voice strummed with excitement: "Look John, look, they're on their way to feed their young."
© Victor Paul Borg
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