Guest blog by Abraham Shokouhi Bird migration is a remarkable ecological occurrence, and within the realm of birds, raptor migration stands out as a truly magnificent phenomenon. Witnessing the grandeur of an Imperial Eagle, Steppe Eagles, or...
Guest blog by Keramat Hafezi Birgani The Siberian Crane is a critically endangered species of birds. There used to be three populations, of which the ‘central’ population was already extinct by 2002. Omid (in Persian “hope”) is...
Guest blog by Abraham Shokouhi In the first guest blog about our Common Swift Apus apus Conservation Project in Iran in 2020 I mentioned that our work is greatly assisted by citizen science. We aim to continue...
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...
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 Abraham Shokouhi I became very curious about the Common Swift Apus apus pekinensis in 2013 when I attended training courses for eco-tourism guides and birdwatching tour guides. It looked a very interesting and...
Guest blog by Keramat Hafezi Birgani My name is Keramat Hafezi Birgani, I was born in the city of Masjed Soleiman, where the first oil well was discovered in the Middle East. Masjed Soleiman lies in the...
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...
Guest blog by Fardin Naziri I was born in countryside of Talesh county, at the edge of the Hyrcanian forests in the south-west of the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea was just one kilometer from our house and it...
A guest blog by Behrad Farkhondeh from Iran Since childhood, my father was taking me to see nature. He always wanted me to become interested in nature. We were going to climb mountains, valleys and forests near Tehran. When I...
Guest blog by Laith Ali Al-Obeidi of Nature Iraq The Hawizeh Marshes form a large part of the famous Mesopotamian marshlands. They lie in southern Iraq, east of Tigris River on the Iraqi-Iranian border. They make up...
Guest blog from Ibrahim Khader The beginning of each year brings with it optimism, setting of new goals and hopes to achieve them. It also allows time to reflect on the previous year’s achievements and successes and...
Regular readers of this website will be aware that OSME and BirdLife International are working on an assessment of the scale of illegal bird killing across the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran. Data have already been collated...
As previously highlighted, BirdLife International and OSME are undertaking a Review of illegal killing and taking of birds in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran. This project extends the geographic scope of the previous BirdLife Initernational review of...