Nature Iraq – 20 years on
Guest blog by Azzam Alwash Nature Iraq began as EDEN AGAIN, a project that focused the world’s attention on the drying of the marshes of southern Iraq. Our work was focused on informing the world that the...
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Hiding in plain sight – new perspectives on the separation of Saunders’s from Little Terns in winter and juvenile plumages
Guest blog by Killian Mullarney and Oscar Campbell Introduction The OSME region is not short of bird species that present those of us who like an identification challenge with something to get our teeth into, ranging from...
South West Iran – more about this Middle East wildlife paradise
Guest blog by Keramat Hafezi Birgani In my previous blog, I wrote about diverse habitats in southwestern Iran making it a hotspot of biodiversity in the Middle East. Since then, my friends and I in the Khuzestan...
Call for Proposals: Small Grant for the Conservation of the Great Bustard in the OSME region
OSME, in collaboration with the Eurasian Bustard Alliance, announces a special grant competition focused on projects supporting the conservation of the Great Bustard within the OSME region. Project Criteria Projects must take place inside the OSME region....
Galala Raptor Count
Guest blog by Steffen Oppel Over the past years a lot of effort has been invested to protect migratory raptors along the eastern Mediterranean flyway – but are those efforts yielding results? Breeding territories of Egyptian Vultures...
Falcon-trapping in a neglected Syrian displacement camp
Guest blog by Lyse Mauvais Deep inside the southeastern Syrian Badia, next to the border with Jordan, lies Rukban: a forgotten camp home to 10,000 men, women, and children displaced to the desert by war. Over its...
Batumi Raptor Count – call for volunteers
After a successful crowdfunding campaign earlier this year, the Batumi Raptor Count team have confirmed they will continue their world-leading monitoring programme this autumn. Counters are required for a minimum of two weeks between August 12th and October...
Conference of the Birds
Guest blog by Joumana Medlej The hoopoe symbolises the spiritual guide nudging the other birds to set out. The “Conference of the Birds” is a 12th-century Sufi poem by Attar of Nishapur, that is a timeless parable of...
Decreasing the mortality rate of Egyptian Vultures during migration in Turkey
Guest blog by Safak Arslan Mersin Study Area (Photo: Mahmut Koyaş) The Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus is globally threatened and one of the species which is in most rapid decline across its range including the Eastern Europe...
Trevor Poyser Species Conservation Fund supports Saker Falcon and Egyptian Vulture project
The 2022 Trevor Poyser Species Conservation Fund grant has been awarded to the Biodiversity Research and Conservation Center Community Trust (BRCC) in Kazakhstan for the “protection of Saker Falcon and Egyptian Vulture in the Karatau Mountains, South...
A future for Birds in Lebanon
Guest blog by Fouad Itani Lebanon lies on one of the most important migration routes for birds, the Eastern Mediterranean Flyway. Thus a significant number and variety of birds pass through the country, or winter in it...
Worlds Collide – Migration through the Bottleneck
Guest blog by Nicholas Rodd About the film: Batumi, Georgia is home to one of the world’s greatest natural spectacles. Over a million birds of prey pass through a narrow bottleneck. Below them, scientists and birders eagerly...
Satellite tagging and tracking Egyptian Vultures in Uzbekistan
A guest blog by Anna Ten and Valentin Soldatov The idea of tagging Egyptian Vultures was hatched a long time ago by our team, Dr Vladimir Dobrev (BSPB), Dr John Burnside (University of East Anglia), and us...
29th January 2022 – OSME’s next online Winter Meeting
The OSME online Winter Meeting: 29th January 2022 We’ll be holding an online Winter Meeting on Saturday 29th January. The meeting is free, and all members and non-members are invited to attend. The full programme is now...