ניוזלטרים/Birds eye newsletter 2017 p
A Bird’s Eye View of the Holy Land Newsletter no. 18 Spring 2017
February 2017: Steppe Eagle on migration over the Eilat Mountains (Photo: Noam Weiss)
Jordanian-Israeli cooperation on the subject of “Barn Owls Know No Boundaries”! A surgeon from the Jordanian city of Irbid was wandering through the market on a Friday morning in October 2016. In this market, every Friday, many animals are sold, pets as well as wild animals that were hunted. Suddenly the doctor noticed a Barn Owl with a ring on its leg. It was almost dead. The doctor took pity on the poor bird and bought it. He saw that the ring bore the number GG25532, Tel Aviv University, Israel. The doctor took the bird home and fed it faithfully until it recuperated completely. Then he contacted the Head of the Zoology Department at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Noga Kronfeld-Shor (he found her name on Facebook), who then contacted Prof. Yossi Leshem, the leader of the National Barn Owl Project.
south of the Sea of Galilee and 2 km west of the Jordan River. It had decided to fly to Jordan. On 4 February 2017, a female Barn Owl was found dead in the fields of the village of Fifa, south-east of the Dead Sea, also bearing an Israeli ring. This bird had been ringed as a chick in a nesting box in the fields of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, next to the border with the Gaza Strip on 18 February 2016, and had also flown across the border to Jordan, a distance of 107 km from the nest. The title of our activities ”Birds Know No Boundaries” has been proven by the Barn Owls (and not with the dove of peace...)
Yossi then contacted the doctor and told him about General Mansour Abu Rashid, Chairman of the Amman Center for Peace and Development (ACPD) organization in Jordan, who leads the Barn Owl Project in Jordan. In February 2017 the Barn Owl was released to the wild in the Jordan Valley in Jordan. It appears that the bird was ringed on 9 May 2014 as an adult male from a nesting box on Kibbutz Shluchot in the Bet Shean Valley, about 30 km Yossef Mudchi and friend in the project releasing the Barn Owl that was saved at Irbid (Photo: ACPD)
For the most updated birding news from Israel visit: www.birds.org.il
The Barn Owl that was ringed at the Gaza border and flew to Jordan
A Bird’s Eye View of the Holy Land
“Online Academy” – computerized lesson, Tuesday, 7 February 2017 "…the Griffon Vulture, Bearded Vulture and the Lappet-faced Vulture…" – Deuteronomy 14:12
In memory of the 9th President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres On 7 February, 2017, Prof. Yossi Leshem taught a lesson online, in the framework of the educational program on ornithological research in the science and technology program of the Ministry of Education. This is conducted in 282 primary and junior high schools. Schoolchildren in the “Yes to the Bird” program of Israel’s northern region also participated (100 schools, half of them Arab and Jewish schools). Three years ago President Shimon Peres taught the first lesson in citizenship on the “Online Academy” after the CISCO company launched the long distance educational system in schools. 9,200 schoolchildren watched the lesson of President Peres. The Vice President of the Guinness Book of Records who joined the lesson, stated that it was the lesson with the highest number of schoolchildren viewing at the same time. President Peres’s lesson appears in the Guinness Book of Records. In September 2015, a lesson on bird migration was held by Yossi on the Online Academy and was watched by 230 schools with 8,200 schoolchildren and was well received. In February 2017 a second lesson from the eTeacher Group in Ramat Gan was viewed by 300 schools.
In spite of the fact that it is difficult to give an exact number, we estimate that about 12,000 schoolchildren listened to the lesson, an impressive number, which indicates the high rate of interest shown by the school system on the subject of birds. The lesson appears on YouTube, in Hebrew and can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D71eWiXYQPM It is possible to watch the online lesson as well as 9 fascinating films about birds. The online lesson is dedicated to the memory of President Shimon Peres, who was keenly interested in the subjects of academic excellence, science and technology, space research and the protection of birds and nature. New developments in the field of birding are presented from various aspects – satellite monitoring of migrating birds, joint research with the Israeli Air Force, and the problems facing the protection of endangered raptors.
Richard (Ricky) R. Arnold II – NASA astronaut and keen birder visits Israel
February 2017, Richard birdwatching in the Hula Valley, Israel (Photo: Yuval Dax)
Richard walking in space (Courtesy of NASA);
At the end of January 2017 the week of events which takes place every year in memory of Col. Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who was killed 11 years ago in the Columbia disaster, was held in Israel. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Space in cooperation with the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies organized two days of lectures in memory of the first Israeli astronaut, this time also in cooperation with the Head of the Space Bureau of NASA and the astronaut Richard Arnold II from Houston, Texas. Richard took part in the Space Shuttle Discovery STS 119 flight from the 15-28 March 2009, as an astronaut in space, and spent 12 hours and 34 minutes walking in space. The Discovery orbited the Earth
2
Astronaut Richard Arnold (Courtesy of NASA)
202 times, travelling 5.3 million miles. Before he arrived in Israel, Prof. Yossi Leshem was contacted by Marty Goldberg from Toronto. Marty was a very close friend of Ilan Ramon and he asked Yossi to meet Ricky, who is an ardent birdwatcher. After they met for breakfast, Ricky spent a whole day visiting the Agamon Park in the Hula Valley, watching the 42,000 wintering Cranes and the wide variety of birds. He enjoyed the trip in the mobile hide at sunset when all the Cranes fly overhead to roost in the lake for the night. Yossi and the astronaut agreed that Ricky will return to visit Israel in 2018 with the focus on birdwatching. He will also lecture at the study day of the Hoopoe Foundation, the SPNI, the Israeli Air Force and the Fisher Institute about his experiences in space and his activities around the world.
Newsletter no. 18
Live online streaming of the fascinating life of birds of prey living in the wild in Israel Gilad Friedman, doctoral student and project leader, Tel Aviv University In March 2016 we initiated a unique and fascinating project. With the aid of a webcam, we documented the hidden world of the large and mysterious diurnal raptor that breeds in Israel, the Long-legged Buzzard (Buteo rufinus), as well as an additional species, the Shorttoed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus). The project was followed by five million viewers from 104 different countries! As a result of the success of the project, we decided to reinstall the cameras during this year’s breeding season. During the winter while the Long-legged Buzzards were wintering elsewhere, we installed two cameras on two alternate nests and waited anxiously for the birds to return to Israel. At the end of January we saw the pair of Long-legged Buzzards beginning their courtship ritual but were not sure which of the two nesting sites they would choose, or, if they would perhaps choose a totally different site! We waited and waited until, finally on 22 February 2017 it happened! The female laid her first egg in one of the nests with a webcam (but not the same nest as the previous year), so we sighed with great relief.
With the special online high quality definition (HD) webcams, we will have online streaming of the entire breeding process 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the time the eggs hatch through the development of the chicks Long-legged Buzzard (Photo: Gilad Friedman) until they fledge successfully from the nest. You are invited to follow the broadcast from the nest and enter the fascinating world of these large raptors that breed in Israel throughout the entire season, which should continue until the end of May in our portal: www.birds.org.il We wish the pairs of Long-legged Buzzards and Short-toed Eagles great success!! The online webcam project is a joint project of the Society for the Protection of Nature, the Israel Nature & Parks Authority, the Hoopoe Foundation, the Israel Defense Forces and the researcher, Gilad Freidman.
A big step towards saving the birds of Eilat from the blades of wind turbines Noam Weiss, Director of the International Birding Research Center Eilat There was a proposal by the French electric company EDF and Kibbutz Eilot to build a wind farm between the International Birding Research Center Eilat, the freshwater reservoir and the flamingo saltpans. These are probably the three most important stopover sites for migratory birds within hundreds of kilometers. A very disturbing fact was that this proposed wind farm with 13 turbines, each 120 meters high, was planned to be built under one of the busiest intercontinental flyways on the globe. Due to the danger of wind turbines to these migrating birds, we made every possible effort to stop this development. I think we can safely say that we "left no stone unturned" looking for ways to stop the wind farm. BirdLife International staff sent letters, we published articles in local, national and European media, we created public awareness at local and national level events, went to every discussion of the planning committees and we even made it to the Knesset. We also closely monitored the investors’ surveyors and conducted a shadow survey to highlight and prove their negligence, and we created a coalition against the wind farm with local organizations, NGOs and government ministries. Nevertheless, the planning went forward and it seemed unstoppable. About half a million Steppe Buzzards migrate over the Eilat Mountains every spring (Photo: Hadoram Shirihai)
The turning point was an objection we submitted to the Eilot Regional Council regarding its approval of a wind measurement pylon held by cables that the financing bank required from the investors. We showed that the cables could be harmful to the nocturnal birds that roam the flamingo saltpans and we managed to get a unanimous vote to change the former decision to allow the pylon. The court appeal session that followed just made the decision to ban the pylon even stronger and final. While this alone could not stop the project, the taste of victory and the fact that the local organizations strongly opposed the project created a feeling of hope. The big blow to the project came from our communal work. Meetings with Kibbutz Eilot members, lectures and events at the bird sanctuary, a regional conference, local media and building a coalition against the project within the kibbutz, created an atmosphere that led to a vote being taken in Kibbutz Eilot to back off from the project. Now that the investors have lost the landowner as a partner, the plan to build the wind farm looks more distant than ever. see page 4
From left to right: Prof. Yossi Leshem, General Mansour Abu Rashid, and Prof. Alexandre Roulin, lecturers at the DLD Conference in Munich
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A Bird’s Eye View of the Holy Land
Birds and international cooperation prominent also at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany from 15-17 January 2017 About 1,200 leading people in the fields of hi-tech and economics, CEOs of financial companies and renowned researchers gathered in Munich from 15-17 January for the most important hi-tech conference in the world – “DLD – What’s the plan”, focusing on innovation. This year Prof. Yossi Leshem, General Mansour Abu Rashid from Jordan and Prof. Alexandre Roulin from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, were invited to address this prestigious conference on our joint projects in the Middle East emphasizing the economic aspects of nature protection, education on the Internet and more. The subject of the lecture was “Bird Migration and Peace Keeping” and it was exceptionally well received at the conference. After the
lecture, the greatest compliment received was that on the first day the reporter from the biggest newspaper in Germany, the Frankfurte Algemeine Zeitung, chose to print a half-page article on our lecture, out of all the 150 lectures that were presented at the conference. Leading personalities lectured at the conference, including the President of Lufthansa and others. The conference was organized under the sponsorship of the famous publishing house, Hubert Burda Media and the chairpersons of the conference were the most famous hi-tech personality in Israel, Dr. Yossi Vardi, and Steffi Czerny from Munich. Steffi is the force behind the DLD Conferences that are held all over the world.
Lesser Kestrel project, Be'er Sheba, 2017 Meidad Goren, Director Ramat Hanegev Birding Center Last year, while surveying the Lesser Kestrel colony near Be'er Sheba, Meidad was sent to check on a report of a Kestrel nesting in a family's porch in Ramot, a suburb in the north of the city. Expecting to find the Common Kestrel, he was surprised to find not one, but four pairs of Lesser Kestrels breeding in three nearby buildings. A quick search revealed that Lesser Kestrel nesting in the city of Be'er Sheba in the Negev (Photo: more pairs were raising their chicks in other buildings in the neighborhood. As Meidad Goren)
happy as we were to find that, we were a little bit concerned that the residents would find the Lesser Kestrel disturbing. With the funding of the Hoopoe Foundation and together with the Be'er Sheba SPNI community we started the "Lesser Kestrel in Ramot" Project. The children of "Yefe Nof" Elementary School are learning about the Lesser Kestrel and even went out to the birds' hunting grounds to welcome them as they arrived from Africa. Later on this year the children are going to study the birds and build nesting boxes so that the birds can raise their chicks in the neighborhood without disturbing the residents. We hope that the project will continue for many more years and that more and more of these pretty birds will live side by side with the people of Ramot.
Unique hide for viewing the MacQueen's Bustard The MacQueen's Bustard's population in Israel is in dire straits. Habitat loss and degradation have caused a serious decline in numbers. Every year, between the months of February and May, hundreds of birdwatchers come to watch as the males perform their unique courting display. In order to minimize disturbance and improve observation experience, Ramat Hanegev Birding Center has built a one-of-a kind bird hide. Two train wagons have been placed on the old Turkish train railway and one of them has been renovated into a comfortable birdwatching hide. The hide will be officially opened to the public very soon. This project is part of the national network of birdwatching centers established by the Israeli government. It was initiated and is managed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. The project was
begun in 2013 and will be finalized in 2018. A birding center was established at Ramat Hanegev as well as at two other sites, including the Bustard bird hide.
The MacQueen's Bustard hide in the Negev, Israel (Photo: Meidad Goren)
Editors: Yossi Leshem, Dan Alon, Sorrel Ritter ׀Graphic design: Studio Billet ׀Prof. Yossi Leshem, Director International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, Latrun, Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv • Tel Aviv 6997801 • Tel/Fax: +972 3 640 6010 • [email protected] ׀Dan Alon, Director Israel Ornithological Center (IOC) SPNI • 2 Hanegev St., Tel Aviv 6618602 • Tel: +972 3 638 8750 • [email protected]
4
February 2017: Steppe Eagle on migration over the Eilat Mountains (Photo: Noam Weiss)
Jordanian-Israeli cooperation on the subject of “Barn Owls Know No Boundaries”! A surgeon from the Jordanian city of Irbid was wandering through the market on a Friday morning in October 2016. In this market, every Friday, many animals are sold, pets as well as wild animals that were hunted. Suddenly the doctor noticed a Barn Owl with a ring on its leg. It was almost dead. The doctor took pity on the poor bird and bought it. He saw that the ring bore the number GG25532, Tel Aviv University, Israel. The doctor took the bird home and fed it faithfully until it recuperated completely. Then he contacted the Head of the Zoology Department at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Noga Kronfeld-Shor (he found her name on Facebook), who then contacted Prof. Yossi Leshem, the leader of the National Barn Owl Project.
south of the Sea of Galilee and 2 km west of the Jordan River. It had decided to fly to Jordan. On 4 February 2017, a female Barn Owl was found dead in the fields of the village of Fifa, south-east of the Dead Sea, also bearing an Israeli ring. This bird had been ringed as a chick in a nesting box in the fields of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, next to the border with the Gaza Strip on 18 February 2016, and had also flown across the border to Jordan, a distance of 107 km from the nest. The title of our activities ”Birds Know No Boundaries” has been proven by the Barn Owls (and not with the dove of peace...)
Yossi then contacted the doctor and told him about General Mansour Abu Rashid, Chairman of the Amman Center for Peace and Development (ACPD) organization in Jordan, who leads the Barn Owl Project in Jordan. In February 2017 the Barn Owl was released to the wild in the Jordan Valley in Jordan. It appears that the bird was ringed on 9 May 2014 as an adult male from a nesting box on Kibbutz Shluchot in the Bet Shean Valley, about 30 km Yossef Mudchi and friend in the project releasing the Barn Owl that was saved at Irbid (Photo: ACPD)
For the most updated birding news from Israel visit: www.birds.org.il
The Barn Owl that was ringed at the Gaza border and flew to Jordan
A Bird’s Eye View of the Holy Land
“Online Academy” – computerized lesson, Tuesday, 7 February 2017 "…the Griffon Vulture, Bearded Vulture and the Lappet-faced Vulture…" – Deuteronomy 14:12
In memory of the 9th President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres On 7 February, 2017, Prof. Yossi Leshem taught a lesson online, in the framework of the educational program on ornithological research in the science and technology program of the Ministry of Education. This is conducted in 282 primary and junior high schools. Schoolchildren in the “Yes to the Bird” program of Israel’s northern region also participated (100 schools, half of them Arab and Jewish schools). Three years ago President Shimon Peres taught the first lesson in citizenship on the “Online Academy” after the CISCO company launched the long distance educational system in schools. 9,200 schoolchildren watched the lesson of President Peres. The Vice President of the Guinness Book of Records who joined the lesson, stated that it was the lesson with the highest number of schoolchildren viewing at the same time. President Peres’s lesson appears in the Guinness Book of Records. In September 2015, a lesson on bird migration was held by Yossi on the Online Academy and was watched by 230 schools with 8,200 schoolchildren and was well received. In February 2017 a second lesson from the eTeacher Group in Ramat Gan was viewed by 300 schools.
In spite of the fact that it is difficult to give an exact number, we estimate that about 12,000 schoolchildren listened to the lesson, an impressive number, which indicates the high rate of interest shown by the school system on the subject of birds. The lesson appears on YouTube, in Hebrew and can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D71eWiXYQPM It is possible to watch the online lesson as well as 9 fascinating films about birds. The online lesson is dedicated to the memory of President Shimon Peres, who was keenly interested in the subjects of academic excellence, science and technology, space research and the protection of birds and nature. New developments in the field of birding are presented from various aspects – satellite monitoring of migrating birds, joint research with the Israeli Air Force, and the problems facing the protection of endangered raptors.
Richard (Ricky) R. Arnold II – NASA astronaut and keen birder visits Israel
February 2017, Richard birdwatching in the Hula Valley, Israel (Photo: Yuval Dax)
Richard walking in space (Courtesy of NASA);
At the end of January 2017 the week of events which takes place every year in memory of Col. Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who was killed 11 years ago in the Columbia disaster, was held in Israel. The Ministry of Science, Technology and Space in cooperation with the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies organized two days of lectures in memory of the first Israeli astronaut, this time also in cooperation with the Head of the Space Bureau of NASA and the astronaut Richard Arnold II from Houston, Texas. Richard took part in the Space Shuttle Discovery STS 119 flight from the 15-28 March 2009, as an astronaut in space, and spent 12 hours and 34 minutes walking in space. The Discovery orbited the Earth
2
Astronaut Richard Arnold (Courtesy of NASA)
202 times, travelling 5.3 million miles. Before he arrived in Israel, Prof. Yossi Leshem was contacted by Marty Goldberg from Toronto. Marty was a very close friend of Ilan Ramon and he asked Yossi to meet Ricky, who is an ardent birdwatcher. After they met for breakfast, Ricky spent a whole day visiting the Agamon Park in the Hula Valley, watching the 42,000 wintering Cranes and the wide variety of birds. He enjoyed the trip in the mobile hide at sunset when all the Cranes fly overhead to roost in the lake for the night. Yossi and the astronaut agreed that Ricky will return to visit Israel in 2018 with the focus on birdwatching. He will also lecture at the study day of the Hoopoe Foundation, the SPNI, the Israeli Air Force and the Fisher Institute about his experiences in space and his activities around the world.
Newsletter no. 18
Live online streaming of the fascinating life of birds of prey living in the wild in Israel Gilad Friedman, doctoral student and project leader, Tel Aviv University In March 2016 we initiated a unique and fascinating project. With the aid of a webcam, we documented the hidden world of the large and mysterious diurnal raptor that breeds in Israel, the Long-legged Buzzard (Buteo rufinus), as well as an additional species, the Shorttoed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus). The project was followed by five million viewers from 104 different countries! As a result of the success of the project, we decided to reinstall the cameras during this year’s breeding season. During the winter while the Long-legged Buzzards were wintering elsewhere, we installed two cameras on two alternate nests and waited anxiously for the birds to return to Israel. At the end of January we saw the pair of Long-legged Buzzards beginning their courtship ritual but were not sure which of the two nesting sites they would choose, or, if they would perhaps choose a totally different site! We waited and waited until, finally on 22 February 2017 it happened! The female laid her first egg in one of the nests with a webcam (but not the same nest as the previous year), so we sighed with great relief.
With the special online high quality definition (HD) webcams, we will have online streaming of the entire breeding process 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the time the eggs hatch through the development of the chicks Long-legged Buzzard (Photo: Gilad Friedman) until they fledge successfully from the nest. You are invited to follow the broadcast from the nest and enter the fascinating world of these large raptors that breed in Israel throughout the entire season, which should continue until the end of May in our portal: www.birds.org.il We wish the pairs of Long-legged Buzzards and Short-toed Eagles great success!! The online webcam project is a joint project of the Society for the Protection of Nature, the Israel Nature & Parks Authority, the Hoopoe Foundation, the Israel Defense Forces and the researcher, Gilad Freidman.
A big step towards saving the birds of Eilat from the blades of wind turbines Noam Weiss, Director of the International Birding Research Center Eilat There was a proposal by the French electric company EDF and Kibbutz Eilot to build a wind farm between the International Birding Research Center Eilat, the freshwater reservoir and the flamingo saltpans. These are probably the three most important stopover sites for migratory birds within hundreds of kilometers. A very disturbing fact was that this proposed wind farm with 13 turbines, each 120 meters high, was planned to be built under one of the busiest intercontinental flyways on the globe. Due to the danger of wind turbines to these migrating birds, we made every possible effort to stop this development. I think we can safely say that we "left no stone unturned" looking for ways to stop the wind farm. BirdLife International staff sent letters, we published articles in local, national and European media, we created public awareness at local and national level events, went to every discussion of the planning committees and we even made it to the Knesset. We also closely monitored the investors’ surveyors and conducted a shadow survey to highlight and prove their negligence, and we created a coalition against the wind farm with local organizations, NGOs and government ministries. Nevertheless, the planning went forward and it seemed unstoppable. About half a million Steppe Buzzards migrate over the Eilat Mountains every spring (Photo: Hadoram Shirihai)
The turning point was an objection we submitted to the Eilot Regional Council regarding its approval of a wind measurement pylon held by cables that the financing bank required from the investors. We showed that the cables could be harmful to the nocturnal birds that roam the flamingo saltpans and we managed to get a unanimous vote to change the former decision to allow the pylon. The court appeal session that followed just made the decision to ban the pylon even stronger and final. While this alone could not stop the project, the taste of victory and the fact that the local organizations strongly opposed the project created a feeling of hope. The big blow to the project came from our communal work. Meetings with Kibbutz Eilot members, lectures and events at the bird sanctuary, a regional conference, local media and building a coalition against the project within the kibbutz, created an atmosphere that led to a vote being taken in Kibbutz Eilot to back off from the project. Now that the investors have lost the landowner as a partner, the plan to build the wind farm looks more distant than ever. see page 4
From left to right: Prof. Yossi Leshem, General Mansour Abu Rashid, and Prof. Alexandre Roulin, lecturers at the DLD Conference in Munich
3
A Bird’s Eye View of the Holy Land
Birds and international cooperation prominent also at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany from 15-17 January 2017 About 1,200 leading people in the fields of hi-tech and economics, CEOs of financial companies and renowned researchers gathered in Munich from 15-17 January for the most important hi-tech conference in the world – “DLD – What’s the plan”, focusing on innovation. This year Prof. Yossi Leshem, General Mansour Abu Rashid from Jordan and Prof. Alexandre Roulin from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, were invited to address this prestigious conference on our joint projects in the Middle East emphasizing the economic aspects of nature protection, education on the Internet and more. The subject of the lecture was “Bird Migration and Peace Keeping” and it was exceptionally well received at the conference. After the
lecture, the greatest compliment received was that on the first day the reporter from the biggest newspaper in Germany, the Frankfurte Algemeine Zeitung, chose to print a half-page article on our lecture, out of all the 150 lectures that were presented at the conference. Leading personalities lectured at the conference, including the President of Lufthansa and others. The conference was organized under the sponsorship of the famous publishing house, Hubert Burda Media and the chairpersons of the conference were the most famous hi-tech personality in Israel, Dr. Yossi Vardi, and Steffi Czerny from Munich. Steffi is the force behind the DLD Conferences that are held all over the world.
Lesser Kestrel project, Be'er Sheba, 2017 Meidad Goren, Director Ramat Hanegev Birding Center Last year, while surveying the Lesser Kestrel colony near Be'er Sheba, Meidad was sent to check on a report of a Kestrel nesting in a family's porch in Ramot, a suburb in the north of the city. Expecting to find the Common Kestrel, he was surprised to find not one, but four pairs of Lesser Kestrels breeding in three nearby buildings. A quick search revealed that Lesser Kestrel nesting in the city of Be'er Sheba in the Negev (Photo: more pairs were raising their chicks in other buildings in the neighborhood. As Meidad Goren)
happy as we were to find that, we were a little bit concerned that the residents would find the Lesser Kestrel disturbing. With the funding of the Hoopoe Foundation and together with the Be'er Sheba SPNI community we started the "Lesser Kestrel in Ramot" Project. The children of "Yefe Nof" Elementary School are learning about the Lesser Kestrel and even went out to the birds' hunting grounds to welcome them as they arrived from Africa. Later on this year the children are going to study the birds and build nesting boxes so that the birds can raise their chicks in the neighborhood without disturbing the residents. We hope that the project will continue for many more years and that more and more of these pretty birds will live side by side with the people of Ramot.
Unique hide for viewing the MacQueen's Bustard The MacQueen's Bustard's population in Israel is in dire straits. Habitat loss and degradation have caused a serious decline in numbers. Every year, between the months of February and May, hundreds of birdwatchers come to watch as the males perform their unique courting display. In order to minimize disturbance and improve observation experience, Ramat Hanegev Birding Center has built a one-of-a kind bird hide. Two train wagons have been placed on the old Turkish train railway and one of them has been renovated into a comfortable birdwatching hide. The hide will be officially opened to the public very soon. This project is part of the national network of birdwatching centers established by the Israeli government. It was initiated and is managed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. The project was
begun in 2013 and will be finalized in 2018. A birding center was established at Ramat Hanegev as well as at two other sites, including the Bustard bird hide.
The MacQueen's Bustard hide in the Negev, Israel (Photo: Meidad Goren)
Editors: Yossi Leshem, Dan Alon, Sorrel Ritter ׀Graphic design: Studio Billet ׀Prof. Yossi Leshem, Director International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, Latrun, Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv • Tel Aviv 6997801 • Tel/Fax: +972 3 640 6010 • [email protected] ׀Dan Alon, Director Israel Ornithological Center (IOC) SPNI • 2 Hanegev St., Tel Aviv 6618602 • Tel: +972 3 638 8750 • [email protected]
4
