RSPB says songbirds fleeing the cold to Cyprus this year will be illegally killed and served up in restaurants as a local delicacy

As a favourite winter bird they appear on millions of Christmas cards every year, but robins face being illegally killed in enormous numbers this Christmas, conservationists warned today.

Many of the birds escape the freezing cold to spend the winter on Cyprus, only for hundreds of thousands to be illegally killed to provide a Cypriot delicacy – ambelopoulia – for local restaurants.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and its partner organisation BirdLife Cyprus, said one of ...

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