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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/29345/full/29345/the-birdmen-of-israel/ <br /><br /> <b>The birdmen of Israel</b> <br /> Friday, May 26, 2006 | by <p>joe eskenazi </p> <br /><br /><p>Yossi Leshem likens the graceful white cranes soaring above Israel to the inhabitants living in the cities and towns below: “They like to congregate, they’re very noisy and they love chickpeas and peanuts.”<br /><br /> Israel’s location on the junction of three continents has led to thousands of years of political difficulties, but as far as bird fanciers like Leshem are concerned, the place is Gan Eden.<br /><br /> Leshem, an internationally renowned expert on bird migration and instructor at Tel Aviv University, was in San Francisco last week, along with colleague Dan Alon, the head of the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel’s birding division.<br /><br /> A tall, frenetic and wildly entertaining professor with bushy gray hair and a passing resemblance to the actor Geoffrey Rush, Leshem made the JCC audience laugh harder than they thought they would during a lecture about migratory patterns and ornithology.<br /><br /> Roughly half a billion birds soar over Israel every year, and if you divide that by the size of the state, the nation boasts the densest bird population on the globe. Leshem flashed a PowerPoint graphic adorned with images of soaring birds to back up his claim: Israel, in fact, hosts 16.9 species of birds for every 1,000 square kilometers of land compared to just two species in Great Britain or .73 in Germany.<br /><br /> So where are the birders? His next graphic, adorned with menacing images of lumbering tanks, answered that question. Per every 1,000 square kilometers, Israel hosts 152.3 tanks, compared to 7.7 for the United States.<br /><br /> Of course, Israel has more than just tanks — it also has a lot of planes. The confluence of half a billion birds and a lower but still significant number of military planes was, of course, a disaster. Cranes, falcons and pelicans often managed to do what Israel’s neighbors cannot — down Israeli aircraft.<br /><br /> Leshem is best known for helping to solve this problem. As a doctoral student in 1983, he convinced the Israeli Air Force to help him tackle a quandry that, over a 20-year span, had downed nine planes, cost three pilots their lives and led to 75 collisions, each requiring between $1 and $10 million in repairs.<br /><br /> Using advanced radar systems, motorized gliders, drone aircrafts and a liberal number of bird-watchers scattered throughout the nation, Leshem pegged the migration patterns, figuring when bird traffic is the heaviest and what elevation birds usually fly, depending upon wind and weather conditions. Following his report, collisions dropped by 76 percent and the IAF has saved more than $700 million.<br /><br /> Leshem now runs the International Center for Bird Migration in Latrun, an expansive campus capped by a massive, mushroom-like radar tower purchased from a former Russian general who made aliyah.<br /><br /> Leshem and Alon see bird watching as a means to unite the Middle East’s disparate populations. Many of Israel’s feathered inhabitants also sport winter homes in Iran, Jordan, Egypt or Syria; the birds, it seems, pay little attention to maps. Also, practical programs to employ barn owls to hunt rodents instead of pesticides have caught on across the border in Jordan.<br /><br /> Following the birds has united scientists and students across the Middle East and beyond. An ambitious electronic monitoring program allowed German, Palestinian and Israeli students to monitor the migrations of a mated pair of storks every year for the past dozen seasons. Leshem and his colleagues gave the birds Jewish, Muslim and Christian names; and storks mate for life, so every year the students can follow the saga of Jonas and his mate, Princess.<br /><br /> Leshem wowed the JCC crowd with a day-by-day time-lapse account of the couple’s matrimonial travails. Red arrows traced the birds’ paths as Princess left Germany, soared through the Middle East, rested in Sudan and eventually spent her winter in Cape Town, South Africa (in the very same tree, every year). Jonas, meanwhile, spent his time in Spain. And yet, on the very same day, they both flew north, with Jonas building the family nest for his wife one day before her arrival.<br /><br /> “This is a very advanced system,” says Leshem with a chuckle. “When people use the term ‘bird-brain,’ I take it personally.”<br /><br /> <br><br /><br /> To follow Leshem’s birds online, visit <a href="http://www.birds.org.il">www.birds.org.il</a>. For information on Israeli bird-watching tours, see <a href="http://www.israel-ecotours.com">www.israel-ecotours.com</a>.</p> <p> </p>

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