Bird-spotting is a hobby many in Malta seem to have inadvertently taken up recently thanks to social media and great phone photography, but one particular sighting over the weekend lead to some worrying (and telling) comments.

Taking to Facebook, one user shared a photo of “a rare sighting for us Maltese”, an Ibis. Known by many unflattering names such as the ‘bin chicken’, ‘dumpster chook’ or even ‘rubbish raptor’, the Ibis is actually considered a dirty pest in countries like Australia. Back in Europe, however, the wading bird is quite rare.

The photo quickly amassed nearly 200 likes and dozens of comments… but some of these revealed the dark reality many locals feel surrounds us in moments like these.

One comment highlighted this by offering the uploader a sad but vital “word of advice”

“Never post the name of the place you see these beautiful creatures,” the person said. “Lots of people out there waiting to pull the trigger”. Another person, agreeing, actually went one step further. “Please remove the location tag, for this beautiful bird’s own safety,” the comment pleaded.

One other person even asked the uploader to personally tag BirdLife Malta in a bid to inform the NGO and protect the bird.

Other comments followed the same sentiment, agreeing that, while “very sad”, the precaution felt like a necessary one to take… even if some people recognised the bird as the popular pest others know it to be.

Lovin Malta has chosen to hide the names of the uploader and the commentators… along with the location of photo in question.

Do you agree with these comments?

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).