BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme
About the Malta Bird Migration Atlas
An interactive resource bringing together ringing recoveries, bird sightings and tracking data to document bird movements to, from and within the Maltese Islands.
What is a bird migration atlas?
An atlas brings records together to show patterns across places and time. A bird migration atlas uses maps and supporting information to describe where birds occur and how their movements connect different areas. This atlas focuses on birds encountered in the Maltese Islands, presenting the available evidence for each species through maps, seasonal summaries and individual tracking records.
What is bird ringing?
Bird ringing is a scientific method of marking a bird, usually with a lightweight metal ring carrying a unique code. This allows the same bird to be recognised when it is encountered again, sometimes many years later or in another country.
Subsequent encounters may involve recapture, reading a ring in the field, or finding a bird dead. Ringing schemes match these reports to the original ringing record, allowing us to study movement, survival and the use of different sites. International cooperation through EURING helps connect records across national boundaries.
Understanding bird movements
The atlas makes evidence of migration, dispersal and seasonal occurrence accessible to researchers, conservation practitioners, birdwatchers and the wider public. It brings information from different sources together at species level, connecting long-term ringing records with observations and tracking studies.
The BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme has studied birds in the Maltese Islands since 1965. The atlas builds on this work and on the exchange of recovery records with ringing schemes abroad.
A growing resource
First built in 2025, the atlas remains a work in progress. It is kept up to date as new data become available, with historical records being digitised, checked and added progressively. Coverage varies between species and datasets.
EURING & international cooperation
EURING, the European Union for Bird Ringing, coordinates cooperation between European bird ringing schemes, supporting scientific research, common standards and the exchange of ringing and recovery data. The BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme is a EURING member.
The international controls and recoveries shown in this atlas include birds ringed abroad and later encountered in Malta, as well as birds ringed in Malta and encountered abroad. Linking these encounters depends on cooperation between the schemes holding the original ringing details and the subsequent encounter reports. The EURING network helps make these cross-border connections possible.
The EURING Exchange Code provides a common format for sharing records between schemes. The EURING Data Bank brings together records supplied by ringing schemes for research at a wider geographical scale.
Migration beyond Malta
The Eurasian-African Bird Migration Atlas, developed by EURING in collaboration with the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), places ringing recoveries and tracking evidence in a broader geographical context.
Explore it alongside this atlas to relate the movements of birds encountered in Malta to patterns across Europe, Africa and Asia.
The data behind the atlas
Ringing, controls & recoveries
Records from the BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme and collaborating schemes link encounters of individually marked birds. International controls and recoveries are made possible through the exchange of ringing and encounter information, including cooperation within the EURING network.
Bird sightings
Bird observations provide context on seasonal occurrence in Malta, helping describe when different species are recorded during the year.
Tracking studies
GPS and other tracking devices document movements of individual birds through species-specific research projects.
Interpreting the evidence
A ringing recovery identifies an encounter location, rather than the complete route travelled. Tracking records describe the birds studied and may not represent the whole population. Patterns also depend on fieldwork effort, reporting and dataset coverage.
Data sources and references are listed on individual species pages where available. Tracking updates depend on device operation and transmission schedules.
How to use the atlas
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1. Choose a species
Use the search on the homepage or browse all species. Start with a species that interests you; the amount of information available varies.
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2. Read the species overview
Explore its distribution, status in Malta, ecology and conservation. Where sightings data are available, the seasonality chart shows when the species is recorded during the year. The EUR CODE identifies the species using the EURING species coding system.
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3. Explore the movement data
View the ringing and recovery statistics and select records on the interactive map. Where tracking projects are included, open individual birds’ pages to explore their recorded movements.
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4. Check the sources
Read the references, data sources and coverage dates where provided. Use the citation guidance on the species page when referring to it, and contact us if you need data or further detail for a study.
For students & researchers
We welcome enquiries from students and researchers interested in using ringing, sightings or tracking data to study bird migration, seasonal occurrence, movement ecology and conservation. If you are developing a dissertation, research project or potential collaboration, get in touch to discuss your question and the data that may be available.
Tell us which species or topic interests you, your research question and the period or area you would like to study. We can discuss dataset coverage, interpretation and suitable ways to acknowledge the data and contributors.
For studies requiring ringing and recovery records from multiple countries, EURING also welcomes applications to analyse data from the EURING Data Bank.
Terms of use
When using information, maps, text or other material from this atlas in a publication, presentation, student project or other work, please cite BirdLife Malta - Malta Bird Migration Atlas and the relevant species page, following the citation guidance provided. Acknowledge the BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme and the original data sources, research projects and contributors, as appropriate.
Keep photographer and contributor credits with any material you are authorised to reproduce. Photographs, project material and datasets may have separate permissions or conditions of use; citation alone does not grant permission to reproduce them. For data access or reproduction requests, contact the BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme.
Acknowledgements & support
The atlas draws on the work of generations of bird ringers, observers, volunteers and researchers. We acknowledge everyone who has collected, reported, checked or digitised records, EURING and its member schemes for the cooperation and exchange of ringing and recovery information, and the photographers and project partners whose contributions support the species pages.
Website development was supported by the Conservation of Wild Birds Funding Scheme 2023. Individual research projects and their partners are acknowledged on the relevant project pages.
Contact the ringing scheme
For enquiries about the atlas, corrections or information about a ringed bird, contact the BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme.
[email protected]Development & maintenance
This website is built and maintained by BirdLife Malta through its Ringing Scheme. The BirdLife Malta Ringing Committee provides oversight of the atlas and its ongoing development.
Nicholas Galea
Atlas development & maintenance
The atlas is built and maintained by Nicholas Galea for the BirdLife Malta Ringing Scheme. Nicholas Galea is also the head of the scheme and coordinator of data collection surveys for Article 12, Breeding Bird Atlas, PECBMS and other related initiatives.
Matija Krajačić
Website development
Matija Krajačić helped develop the atlas website in 2026 during his placement as a European Solidarity Corps (ESC) volunteer with BirdLife Malta.
Jonas Květ
Digitisation workflows
During his 2026 placement as a European Solidarity Corps (ESC) volunteer with BirdLife Malta, Jonas Květ built automated digitisation workflows that help turn archived bird records into usable datasets feeding the atlas.