Tracking loggerhead turtles to their death in the Eastern Mediterranean

The Marine Turtle Conservation Project in North Cyprus is a collaboration between the Society for Protection of Turtles, The North Cyprus Environmental Protection Department and the University of Exeter’s Marine Turtle Research Group. Since 1992 the group have undertaken monitoring and protection of loggerhead and green turtle nesting sites across the North Cyprus coast and in recent years, green turtle nesting numbers have increased . . .

An Azerbaijan interlude with young naturalists

During 25-30 October 2015 the youth committee of BirdLife Sweden visited Azerbaijan to study bird migration at Besh Barmag but also to meet with local young naturalists and initiate further co-operation. The trip was a great success – we counted a quarter of a million migrating birds of 150 species in just three field days, as well as visiting a national park visit and having dinner with Nature Friends Azerbaijan.

Birding in Oman – guest blog by Bart de Schutter

In November/December 2012 a friend of mine visited Oman on a birding and photographing trip. Looked like a nice country for birding to me, but I was not really inspired. Not yet. My friend's first trip was that good that he decided to return in the same period in 2013. By then, I had informed myself a bit more about this Middle East country, about which we receive hardly any news here in West-Europe.

Monitoring Yelkouan Shearwaters in the Bosphorus

Guest blog post by Dilek Sahin

The Yelkouan Shearwater (Puffinus yelkouan) is a globally threatened seabird species endemic to the Mediterranean. Its threat status is precautionarily assessed as Vulnerable. It is thought to be undergoing a rapid population decline, caused by extremely low breeding success and adult survival owing to fisheries bycatch

Turkish Breeding Bird Atlas: Call for Volunteers

Turkey is one of the most fascinating countries in the Western Palearctic for birdwatchers. The location of the country at the crossroads of continents resulted in diverse habitat and bird species. Specialties and rarities include Yelkouan Shearwater, White-headed Duck, Purple Swamphen, Caucasian Black Grouse, Caspian Snowcock, See-see Partridge, Audouin's gull, Great spotted cuckoo, Brown fish-owl, Pallid Scops Owl, four species of Vulture, Rüppell’s Warbler, White-throated Robin

OSME Region List version 3.2 – a precis of changes

There have been numerous taxonomic and related developments since v3.1.

Several former Puffinus taxa have been transferred to a restored genus, Ardenna, making most groups monophyletic (Christides & Boles 2008).
Purple Swamphen has been split (IOC5.3) pretty well as ORL3.1 had forecast.
From the thesis of Cohen 2011, we have revised most of the Sandgrouse, enlarging Syrrhaptes at the expense of Pterocles, but Cohen 2011 did not sample all taxa, and so further revision may occur.