Guest blog by Gregory Askew Prior to November 2017, when I first moved to Saudi Arabia, only six observations of Asir Magpie Pica asirensis, a range-restricted corvid species found in the highlands of southwest Saudi, had been...
Guest blog by Laith Jawad with support from Mudhafar Salim and Salwan Abed This guest blog is by Laith Jawad, editor of a new book: “Southern Iraq’s Marshes Their Environment and Conservation”, published by Springer, Switzerland in...
The East African-Eurasian flyway represents one of the most important routes for migratory soaring birds in the world. Each spring and autumn, 37 species of migratory soaring birds (MSBs) routinely navigate this flyway, with over a million...
Guest blog by Keramat Hafezi Birgani This is a rather different blog to those normally published on the OSME website. Such a delightful, comprehensive account of the wildlife of a very special and little-known region of the...
A guest blog by Gregory Askew On January 15, my daughter and I were out at Al Asfar Lake in Al Ahsa, in eastern Saudi Arabia conducting the first of a series of shorebird surveys for 2021....
A guest blog by Maïa Sarrouf Willson about Oman’s efforts to conserve raptors The Sultanate of Oman is home to 39 species of raptors that occur as passage migrants, winter visitors or resident breeders. These include 21...
A guest blog by Nabegh Ghazal Asswad on behalf of the Syrian Society for the Conservation of Wildlife The Syrian Society for the Conservation of Wildlife (SSCW) is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), concerned with the conservation of...
Guest blog by Fouad Itani Lebanon has been in the news a lot in the past few years, a refugee crisis following the war in Syria, on-going economic crises and the depreciation of the Lebanese pound, a...
Guest blog by Şafak Arslan of Doga The Egyptian Vulture is globally threatened and among the species in most rapid decline across its range including the Eastern Europe populations. Previous studies by Doga (the BirdLife Partner in...
Guest blog by Oscar Campbell – with thanks to Simon Lloyd The start of it all. It was this image that really got us thinking seriously that we might, at last, have got the cigar. The underwing...
Guest blog by Chris Bowden The opportunity to spend two months in the field in North Yemen (as it was at the time) was something that I had no hesitation in applying to join… and what an...
Guest blog by Ali Yahya Ali Bin Mahrous and Nasser Abdulrahman Ahmed of the Socotra Wildlife Association The Socotra Wildlife Association is a non-governmental, voluntary, environmental organization established in November 2014 and officially registered at the local branch...
A guest blog by Amie Wheeldon on encouraging the re-establishment of European Rollers at breeding grounds in Northern Cyprus The European Roller Coracias garrulus is a charismatic species that was once more abundant in Cyprus, where it...
Guest blog by Matteo Sebastianelli Crossing the Mediterranean Sea represents a crucial step for migrant birds every year as they travel between Africa and Eurasia. Mediterranean islands are the first landmasses sighted after hours of uninterrupted flight...