23 
On the way back to the Bedouin's encampment, we saw another group of 
Cranes silhouetted against the skyline, again in a barren looking area. 
This second group got up while we were still a long way off and contained 
at least 200 birds. I have never before seen flocks of any birds so large 
in such an arid area. 
I am concerned about the degree of disturbance to which these birds are 
evidently subject. The birds are pursued by people in vehicles who try to 
shoot them and I learnt from Ali Hamdy that Abdul Kader has had many 
enquiries from English, Germans and others about the Cranes. Some of 
these may have been ornithologists, but others may not. 
More significantly, I gather that some of the area east of the 
Cairo-Alexandria desert road formerly used regularly by the Cranes is now 
being developed for irrigation. In the area west of the desert road where 
we drove we came across curious lines ploughed across the desert which Ali 
thought were probably the boundaries of parcels of land recently sold. It 
appears that, with the recent successful extension of irrigation into 
areas that were previously barren, wealthy individuals and companies are 
buying up substantial tracts of desert, just in case they may some day be 
irrigable . 
I cannot at the moment think of any practical and effective way of 
safeguarding these birds using what must, presumably, be a 
long-established staging area. The area in which we saw the birds to the 
west of the desert road was exceedingly unpromising as a feeding ground. 
Indeed, my reaction on seeing the arid scrub on which the birds had 
evidently fed was that they must have been very hungry. Clearly, this 
area is a significant staging post for Cranes migrating through Egypt and 
some kind of protection against disturbance and hunting is essential. 
The Coach House, Capenor, Coopers Hill Road, Nutfield, Surrey, RH1 4HS, 
Great Britain. 
XVII ICBP EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL SECTION CONFERENCE 
Adana, Turkey 15-20 May 1989 Hilary Welch 
OSME's decision to send a representative to this international conference 
was opportune and exciting. I felt privileged to have been asked to 
represent the Society, and made sure that in amongst the melee of other 
European organisations promoting themselves, OSME remained in the 
forefront. Thus the OSME displays were taken, along with copies of 
Sandgrouse and the Bulletin , and T shirts were available for sale; OSME 
stickers were stuck on most visitors. The stand generated a lot of 
interest - it was well patronised (or should I say plundered?) by Turkish 
students of the university, with various items disappearing when the stand 
was left unattended. Lt's consoling to think that the Turks are 
sufficiently interested in OSME, no other stand appeared to suffer from 
their attention! 
