Gifts from the east

The stretch of coast from Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq to Pembroke might not look like much of a prospect. It is elbowed by roads, buildings and a so-called camping site where year-round huts send out shameless delegations of elaborate front porches to encroach on the shore. While all of this does take its toll, it does not quite make the place a write-off. Nature is not limited to ‘wild’ places; on the contrary, it can thrive in densely populated ones. I’ve spent many a morning snorkelling along that shore, and there were times when the sea and marine life felt pristine and endlessly giving.

Like much of the east coast of Malta, the shore is gently sloping and easily accessible. The first couple of metres tend to consist of very shallow and well-lit rocky platforms which generations of wave action and burrowing animals have shaped into an alveolar micro-landscape of ridges, crevices and overhangs. Not much of it is lifeless. Look closely and you will see limpets, chitons and barnacles: animals that citadel themselves against the waves and graze on the fine algae or filter-feed on whatever the sea brings.

This habitat, known in Maltese as il-ħâfa, shelters scores of other invertebrate species that are too small to easily spot, or that hide among the fronds of algae. It is also home to many types of fish. Blennies in particular are confiding and easy to observe at close range, as are gobies, scorpionfish and triplefins. While some are brightly coloured, others are cryptic. So confident in their camouflage are the latter, that they will tolerate an observer, or a camera lens, a few centimetres away.

The list of fish species grows longer as the rocky platform gives way to deeper water within a couple of metres from shore. The seagrass known in Maltese as alka is not an alga at all but rather a flowering plant that has adapted to life in the sea. It grows all along this coast and forms very dense patches on sand or sediment. It attracts sea breams such as the Salema, which gathers in large and impressive shoals, as well as many types of colourful wrasses. Combers and groupers hover motionlessly along its fringes to ambush prey, and above it columns of shoaling Damselfish constantly protrude their jaws to hoover up plankton. The bare patches among the Posidonia are home to sand-dwelling species such as stingrays, flatfishes, weevers and the charismatic Flying Gurnard (not a flying fish at all but more likely to be seen using its modified fins to ‘walk’ on the bottom and sift the sand for prey). The area known as White Rocks is an excellent place to observe all of these.

While fish will be the star attraction to most, it is worth taking some time to look closely at invertebrates. It helps that most are slow-moving or attached to rocks or stones. The Snakelocks Anemone is possibly the commonest species of anemone, and gets its green colour from the microscopic algae that it houses in its body. Starfish are frequent in the area, as are urchins and many types of sponges. Molluscs are a large and diverse group which includes snails, limpets, clams and slugs, among many others. It also includes cephalopods such as octopus and cuttlefish. Both are common but not easy to spot – which, given the constant persecution by humans, is just as well.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS Mark-Anthony Falzon Anthropologist with a passion for nature

Fishes and other Marine Animals of the Maltese Islands, written by Mark-Anthony Falzon & Patrick J Schembri and published in 2021, is a photographic guide for snorkellers. It is available in bookshops and online at BDL.

Salema (Xilpa)

Black Scorpionfish (Skorfna Sewda) Common Starfish (Stilla Ħamra) Flying Gurnard (Bies)

Snakelocks Anemone (Artikla Ħadra)