OSME Summer meeting and AGM postponed
Given the current global coronavirus crisis, OSME have taken the decision to postpone this year’s Summer Meeting and AGM that was due to be held on the 27th June. We will wait to see what the situation...
Category: News
The OSME Region List of bird taxa v5.2 is now available
Version 5.2 (available here) includes several species not previously recorded in the OSME region, such as African Crake Crex egregia (Eilat, Israel January 2020); its genus may change to Cecropis (Garcia-Ramirez et al 2020). More important, v5.2...
Upcoming talk: The birds of the Arabian Peninsula
On the 18th February, OSME Chairman, Rob Sheldon will be giving a talk on the ‘Birds of the Arabian Peninsula’ for the International Association for the Study of Arabia, at the Institute for Archaeology, UCL (WC1H 0PY)....
Lebanon Bird Camp & Raptor Count Lebanon 2019 – update and project report
OSME have been working with partners in Lebanon, and beyond, to develop youth Bird Camps which have now been held in October 2018, April 2019 and most recently in the autumn of 2019. This autumn’s Bird Camp...
Vulture News from the Middle East
The following short vulture updates from across the Middle East are reproduced with the permission of the IUCN Vulture Specialist Group. They are taken from the Vulture Specialist Group newsletter (issue 11). If you are interested in...
Sandgrouse now available as a Digital Edition
We’re delighted that after a period of significant trials we can now offer a digital edition of Sandgrouse free to all our members. It was enthusiastically welcomed at its Rutland Birdfair launch with many members requesting access....
OSME is delighted to introduce the Trevor Poyser Species Conservation Fund
Trevor Poyser was a giant of ornithological publishing, joint founder of the renowned publishers T & AD Poyser famous for their ground-breaking books, particularly the Species Monograph series. Trevor was also a keen supporter of OSME, as...
The 11th European Bird Curators’ meeting
Photo: the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History The 11th European Bird Curators’ meeting (EBC) will be held between the 24th and the 26th of September, 2019. It will be hosted by the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History...
OSME at the Spurn Migration Festival 2019
For the first time, OSME will be at the Spurn Migration Festival, celebrating the spectacle of autumn migration. Visit the stand for more information on OSME and the region that holds some of the most impressive migration...
A radical change in the sequence of Non-passerine Orders and Families in the OSME Region (For example, sandgrouse move to 9th from the top of 58 from 17th from the bottom)
OSME Region List 5.1 The OSME Region List has recently been updated and is now available on our website: https://osme.org/ORL IOC World Bird List v9.2 presents the difficult resequencing of the Non-passerine Orders, and the resequencing of many...
We Invite You to Join the Sarımazı Raptor Count
Turkey is home to one of the largest breeding populations of Egyptian Vultures in the world! An estimated 2000 pairs are living in Turkey – that’s around 25% of the global Egyptian vulture population. But also the...
OSME Region List Update 4.4 (Available at https://osme.org/orl)
This update incorporates, inter alia, intriguing conclusions from several heavyweight papers on: The Common/Long-legged/Upland/Mountain Buzzard superspecies. Divergence between Middle Spotted Woodpecker populations between Asian Turkey and continental Europe. (I have illustrated my blog post with images of the...
Racing to help declining Vultures
Champions of the Flyway is in its fifth year and the next Flyway Bird Race will be taking place, one again, at the end of March in Israel. So far these races and their sponsorship have raised over...
Martin Woodcock’s book auction
Martin Woodcock’s book collection is being auctioned by Dominic Winter Auctioneers on the 12th December. The collection includes scarce titles on Asian and African birds, and much else, and also a number of extra-illustrated “one-offs”, some with...