KATHMANDU — On a bright morning in the hills of Nepal, among the green needles and brown cones of a chir pine tree (Pinus roxburghii) a pair of white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) is busy building their nest. They choose a sturdy trunk, high enough to avoid predators and low enough to catch the warm breeze. […]
Tag: Egyptian Vulture
Help Needed in Saudi: The Saudi Birding Community’s Effort to Track Down a Tagged Egyptian Vulture
The weekend before last, Yoav Perlman forwarded the following email from Ron Efrat, a researcher in the wider region studying Egyptian Vultures, to Jem Babbington and me and asked if we might use our contacts here in Saudi to track down the missing vulture. I opened the link in Google Maps and realized that the […]
Last chance for the Persian leopard: the fight to save Iraqi Kurdistan’s forests
In the spring, the Pirmagrun mountain, one of the world’s last refuges for the endangered Persian leopard, towers over the surrounding countryside in Iraqi Kurdistan, its rocky snow-capped peaks fading into an ancient oak forest that starts out sparsely before running into narrow, densely-wooded valleys. As recently as the 1980s, the forest covered the slopes […]
21 hours
Yesterday was extremely long. I left home very early, met up with Piki and together we sailed down towards the Dead Sea. Despite the dire state of the shrinking Dead Sea, Climate Change, Sixth Extinction, Donald Trump etc., I find the view of the sun rising over the Edom Mountains of Jordan, above the Dead […]
Top 25 Birds that Scavenge
Scavenging birds play a vital role in our ecosystems, they clean up carcasses before they have time to rot. Without scavengers, rotting carcasses would become hubs for harmful pathogens. Vultures specialise in eating carrion and are highly efficient at cleaning up a carcass. But many other birds, like crows and eagles, will also scavenge if […]
Video: Power lines killing the last remaining Great Indian Bustards in India
On Dec. 9, researchers discovered the remains of an extremely rare bird in India’s Thar Desert, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. All that remained was a pile of bones, and large, brown feathers, fluttering beneath a power line. The dead bird, one of the last remaining wild individuals of the critically endangered great Indian […]
POLL: Should the design and positioning of windfarms be better researched?
A new study has revealed which bird and bat species are most at risk of collision with wind turbines, with birds of prey and migratory birds coming top of the list. This research is the first to take a global view of the problem, and pinpoints some possible solutions to allow birds, bats and wind […]
Saving the Egyptian Vulture – Have your say!
As part of the EU LIFE+ project ‘The Return of the Neophron’, a public consultation exercise on its proposed ‘Flyway Action Plan’ (EVFAP) has been launched to save the Egyptian Vulture. Stoyan Nikolov explains how – and why – citizens should take this opportunity to participate and have their say. There was a time when […]