A Robin for Winter

A Robin for Winter

European robins are charming little birds which never cease to amaze owing to their bobbing, round shape, their dainty, pointed beaks and the deep, black eyes which contrast fully with the plumage surrounding them. However, their most attractive feature is doubtless the red/orange bib which they wear on their breast. This feature is so unique and distinct that it is incorporated in the bird’s name in many languages such as Robin Redbreast in English, Roodborstje (Redbreast) in Dutch, Pettorosso/Petirrojo/ Pitiross (Red Breast) in Italian, Spanish and Maltese, Rotkehlchen and Rouge-gorge (Red throat) in German and French and other similar variations in other Euro-Mediterranean languages. Both males and female adult robins possess similar colouration.

European Robins range across all of Europe and the Mediterranean, all the way east up to Western Siberia and as far south as North Africa. While robins residing in the British Isles are sedentary all year long and do not need to migrate south for the winter due to mild British winters, the robins located further east carry out annual migrations to the south in the autumn and back north in the spring on a regular basis to escape the harsher climates and find food in the sunnier and warmer lands of the Mediterranean.

In 2009, two robins netted and released again by ornithologists in Malta were found to be wearing rings which showed that they had migrated from the Czech Republic and from Russia. The Czech bird had been ringed 27 days before it was caught in Malta after travelling at least 1,100 kilometres while the Russian one had been ringed 42 days before it was caught, and had travelled an astounding 2,200 kilometres to reach its wintering location on Malta.

They are tiny birds ranging between 12.5 and 14 centimetres in dimension and weighing a puny 13 grams. Yet, in spite of its ridiculously small size, this fluffy ball of bone, flesh and feathers manages to achieve some impressive feats of migration travelling up to a couple of thousand of kilometres between its summer and winter homes every year of its healthy adulthood.

Although the average longevity of robins lies at about 18 months due to high juvenile mortality rates, those who survive in adulthood are more likely to have a lifespan of 3 to 5 years with the longest recorded living robin having exceeded 19 years.

Here in Malta, we are graced with large numbers of wintering robins who arrive between October and November and stay on as late as March and April. A few decide to remain here for the summer season in wooded areas which have a water supply but they have never been recorded breeding in the Maltese Islands.

Many of those who arrive winter over here although a few continue on their trip to North African destinations. Those who stay identify a piece of territory and defend it vigorously to keep other robins out so that they can monopolise the supply of spiders, insects, worms, seeds and berries available.

I am privileged to live in an area of Malta where the majority of houses have patches of greenery in their front and back gardens. Although in an urban setting the gardens serve as a magnet to wintering robins which are very visible defending their individual territories in the different houses and gardens.

One such robin annually graces my garden and is so used to humans that it ventures unafraid to within a few metres of me in my garden, as the selection of pictures accompanying this post show. These are not pictures taken furtively from behind some hide but face to face encounters between man, bird and camera.

It is nice to think that the same robin revisits my garden year after year although, given their relatively short lifespan, it is logical to assume that new ones take over unclaimed territory every so often.   I am also familiar with one case in Rabat, Malta, where a robin that had visited the same garden for three years in a row eventually decided to skip the return trip north and has stayed on as a permanent resident in the garden and adjoining house, becoming so tame as to sleep inside the house during the winter and venturing regularly to its humans’ table to eat some food from their plates! This is not a caged robin and is allowed total freedom to come and go as it pleases!

I spend many happy hours tending my tiny but dense city garden and the predictable arrival and stay of my winter robin is an event, which brings warmth and hope during the darker, colder months of the year.

 

 

The Storm of 29 October 1757: Bad Weather or the Fury of Hell?

The Storm of 29 October 1757: Bad Weather or the Fury of Hell?

A huge storm engulfed Malta just before one o’clock in the morning on 29 October 1757. A storm which was so terrifying that an account was written about it and published in a little book, according to the Scottish traveller and writer Patrick Brydone who refers to this event in his account of “A Tour through Sicily and Malta” that took place between May and August 1770.

Brydone says that about forty five minutes after midnight on Saturday 29 October 1757, during the reign of Grandmaster Manuel Pinto de Fonseca, “there appeared to the south-west of the city, a great black cloud”.  Brydone goes on to say that, according to his sources, the billowing black cloud, “…changed its colour, till at last it became like a flame of fire mixed with black smoke”.

As the storm approached the Grand Harbour and Valletta from the direction of Zurrieq, Mqabba and Qrendi, the scary visual spectacle was joined by an ominous din, “a dreadful noise….that alarmed the whole city”

Upon reaching the Grand Harbour, the power of the storm wrought havoc on the numerous sea vessels berthed within its sheltered confines. The destruction was impressive: “It passed over part of the port, and came first upon an English ship, which in an instant was torn to pieces, and nothing left but the hulk; part of the masts, sails and cordage were carried along with the cloud to a considerable distance.”

This unfortunate English ship was not the only vessel which succumbed to the storm. The account also mentions that, “the small boats and fellouques that fell in its way were all broken to pieces, and sunk.”

There were human casualties as well.   A poor sentinel, on guard duty, “terrified at its approach, ran into his box: both he and it were lifted up and carried into the sea, where he perished.” He was not the only victim. In Brydone’s account, it is claimed that, “the number of killed and wounded by the storm amounted to near 200.”

Damage to property was not limited to the sea alone. Once the storm reached Valletta, “it laid in ruins almost everything that stood in its way. Several houses were laid level with the ground, and it did not leave one steeple in its passage. The bells of some of them, together with the spires, were carried to a considerable distance. The roofs of the churches were demolished, and beat down, which, if it happened in the day time, must have had dreadful consequences, as all the world would immediately have run to the churches.”

The storm’s last act on Malta involved the demolishing of the St. Elmo lighthouse, after which it, “passed over the sea to Sicily, where it tore up some trees, and did other damage, but nothing considerable; as its fury had been mostly spent on Malta.”

The storm was very obviously a rare south-easterly electrical weather occurrence. A moisture-laden billowing mass of cloud charged with the electric activity common in the autumn in the Central Mediterranean. It passed low and swift across the most heavily developed part of Malta at the time, leaving disaster and victims in its wake. Or was it?

Brydone reports that of all the unsatisfactory theories he has heard about this “singular hurricane”, the most popular opinion, “of a thousand people in Malta that will take their oath” was that the storm comprised, “a legion of devils, let loose to punish them for their sins.”  The witnesses claimed that, “they saw them (the devils) within the cloud, all as black as pitch, and breathing out fire and brimstone.” The Maltese also claimed, “that if there had not been a few godly people amongst them, their whole city would certainly have been involved in one universal destruction.”

A “libeccio” storm of the type that regularly wreaks havoc in Sicily or a demonic attack? Whatever it was, it is nevertheless an intriguing event from 262 years ago.