Having just returned from a fortnight’s holiday in Malta, Jimmy Graham thought he would take the opportunity to thank all the fanciers and the “Boss” of The Blue Bar Café for the most enjoyable time he and his friends had in their company.

Particular mention goes to Eddie Newcombe and his grandson Aaron who both turned up at Jimmy’s hotel and drove them back to Eddie’s villa in Mellieha Bay for drinks and to admire the marvellous birds that Eddie races.

Jimmy had a look at Eddie’s champion Blue Pied Cock (Eclipse). This fine cock is only two years old and is the best long distance bird in Malta for 2007. He flew 1,380 miles in the four races to win this trophy.

In the 2007 season, 173,920 birds were flown in Eddie’s club. Throughout this season Eclipse won three Gold Rings and Best Long Distance Bird, Best Overall Distance in Four Races, Third Longest Distance Bird in Federation and National, Fifth Overall Distance Federation and National. He was 6th Club Metaponto, 4th Club Manfredonia, 4th Club Catanzaro, 1st Club, 5th Federation and National Bari, Best Long Distance Section A, 2nd Best Bird Overall Section A, 2nd Best Bird Overall Section A and B 5th.

The Federation is made up of 23 clubs – 21 in Malta and two in Gozo. These clubs are divided in two sections, named Section A and Section B.

The federation owns and takes care of two transporters, schedules a racing programme from Sicily and Italy, organises all the races, produces a federation result for each race and gives Aggregate prizes.

The federation committee is made up of three officials, the president, secretary and treasurer, and a maximum of eight members.

Jimmy wrote: “Visiting Malta from the UK what strikes you immediately is the absence of any birds! You look around and there are no crows, starlings, wild pigeons (apart from the feral pigeons notably in the capital Valletta). In our hotel at the very utmost northern point of the island we only ever saw four sparrows. Towards the end of our fortnight we managed to see a few baskets of racing pigeons being let off from the Gozo ferry terminal (training tosses from fanciers at the southern end of the island).

“This absence of wild birds is apparently down to the indiscriminate hunting and shooting of all types of birds. So acute is the problem of indiscriminate hunting in Malta that there are almost no resident species of wild birds on the islands. The few that manage to survive usually share most if not all of the following characteristics: they are either so small that they do not provide an adequate target to hunters, or have an unattractive plumage and call which do not attract the attention of hunters or trappers, or are insectivores which cannot survive out of their habitat.

These include the Spanish sparrow, tree sparrow, Sardinian warbler, spectacled warbler, cetti’s warbler and zitting cisticola. Yet a few other birds such as the Cory’s shearwater, European storm petrel and blue rock thrush inhabit and nest in almost inaccessible places such as the tops of sea cliffs.

“If given a chance, a number of other birds would certainly breed in Malta on a regular basis, as these have already been recorded breeding over there. Among such birds are the peregrine falcon, starling, quail, turtledove, barn swallow, house martin, short-toed lark, moorhen and little ringed plover.

“Hunting and trapping is a very big problem in Malta. Hundreds of thousands of birds are shot and trapped every year. They are shot both from land and from powerboats out at sea, (this is where the larger number is shot).”