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Sameh Darawshi
 

I was born in an Arabic village called Iksal. My home was located at the edge of thevillage where lovely nature is found. Due to lack of any environmental/ecological awareness or activity in my sector, I targeted my love to birds at a very early age, exclusively by breeding domestic and wild song birds, as well as primitive bird watching based mainly on enjoying bird sight rather than identifying them, especially song birds and raptors.

The substantial change I went through from being a bird breeder and trapper to a bird researcher and conservationist, was at my first degree in biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I took many courses in ecology. One of the courses I had was in ornithology, through which I have visited the Jerusalem Bird Observatory ringing station (JBO)of the Israeli Birding Center, SPNI,for the first time in my life, there I became fond of the place and started volunteering.

Through my academic studies in biology and through my activities at the JBO I got C-ringing license then B-ringing license, after that I got special license for raptor trapping and ringing after volunteering at the International Birding &Research Center in Eilat, Israel. Having the ability to trap and ring raptors enabled me to fulfill my desire and potential and within less than half a year bringing new aspects on raptor trapping as the case with success in trapping Short-toed Eagles, Red-footed Falcons and Lesser Kestrels, and pin-pointing un-noticed issues such as Short-toed Eagle aggregation.

During my engagement at the birding center I had worked as a ringer, a guide, and a birdwatcher, as well as doing activities on the subject of birds connecting between people of different sectors, the point where I started my contact with Dr.Yossi Leshem, and started working as a connecting bridge between the Palestinians and the Israelis through environmental awareness activities, through scientific work such as ringing and qualifying ringers, and through raptor rehabilitation after these raptors were confiscated from falconers and nest robbers in Palestine.

My maser's research in ecology, supervised by Professor Uzi Motro and Dr.Yossi Leshem, reflects my interest in birds in general and in the ecology and biology of the Short-toed Eagle in particular.