Review pre-Bird Fair

This is like a book, but it’s a supplement to a journal: Sandgrouse, the journal of OSME, the Ornithological Society of the Middle East.  This is the 50th anniversary issue.

I have spent about four days of my life in the OSME region which stretches from Egypt to Kazakhstan and from quite large chunks of the Indian Ocean south of Yemen and Oman (and including the gem of Socotra) to Turkey. Although I don’t know the area at all first hand I’ve always felt that it is an area that I would love to get to know much better – that probably won’t happen now, I guess.

OSME have a stand at the Bird Fair and you could go and chat to them and acquire a copy of this interesting booklet if you offer them a donation at Marquee 5, stands 6-7.

I enjoyed Richard Porter’s ‘A History of OSME’ which covers some of the ground that he did in his Guest Blog here – but there’s lots of engaging new material.  Also, I loved Ian Wallace’s ‘Azraq blues: a brief history of a Jordanian oasis drunk dry’ because there is no-one who writes like Ian about birds.

I also found that I was interested in Rob Sheldon’s (the current OSME Chair’s) country by country guide to birds of the region.  New birds in new places with new cultures is quite a heady mix.

And just look at that Pharaoh Eagle Owl on the cover, photographed in a sand storm in Saudi Arabia Jem Babbington!

[registration_form]