Birdwatching

Efforts to save the Middle East's rarest bird have been boosted by two chance sightings of the species 1.500 miles apart.

Nother Bald Ibises ware seen last in the Jordan Vally for the first time in 13 years, and in Djibouti, east Africa, for the first time ever, raising hopes that numbers of this species are NOT as low as scientists fear.

The bird was thought in the Middle East in the 1990s before an colony of just six birds was found in Palmyra, Syria in 2002. Since then, adult and young birds have been fitted with satellite tags , to try to discover and protect their migration routes and wintering sites. The tagged adult birds are currently in Ethiopia for the winter.

These sightings are great news.They were entirely unexpected and in some ways deepen the mystery of where they go on migration. The fact that the birds are in three different sites away from their breeding grounds reflectes the little we know of their numbers and where they go. It also shows how assential it is that we keep tracking the birds so that we can protect them throughout their range.


We are gradually piecing the jigsaw together but it is a long process fraught with problems. How we alert hunters in remote areas to just how rare this bird is, its something we must urgently resolve........