The ritual massacre claims thousands every year: finches, quails and turtle doves, as well as kestrels, owls, marsh harriers and lesser spotted eagles - rare birds whose feathered beauty enchants millions in their native habitats. Each spring, as they undertake the long migration to their northern nesting places, they fly into the merciless gunfire of men who kill for sport - “hunters” who claim the slaughter as cultural observance.

Key migration routes across the southern Mediterranean have long posed the greatest threat to some of the rarest and loveliest species as marksmen in Italy, Cyprus and Lebanon compete each spring to bag the greatest number of migrating birds. Ornithologists and environmentalists have gradually succeeded in tightening European Union laws to force a halt to this pointless sport, though resistance in France and Italy remains strong. But Malta, one of the newest EU members, remains a blackspot. With more than 16,000 registered hunters out of a population of 400,000, the spring shoot is so ingrained that Malta pressed, disgracefully, for an opt-out in 2004. This is now being challenged in the European Court of Justice on the ground that hunters still shoot birds in the autumn on their way back from breeding - when not only quails but also swallows, warblers, osprey, purple herons and bitterns stand a chance of being gunned down.

A total ban is essential. Whatever the national culture, the fowls of the air belong to all nations. Urbanisation, loss of habitat and modern farming threaten millions of birds. Diversity must not be reduced further by gratuitous gunfire.