Birding in Iraq

From The Columbus Dispatch, an article about Major Randel Rogers, an Ohio Army National Guard member who became a birder in his Galloway, Ohio, back yard and shares his natural bent via an online newsletter:

Rogers, a logistics officer with the 371st Sustainment Brigade, was sent to the largest air base in Iraq in July. Although the country is only a war zone to many people, it represents something else to Rogers. He sees it as an opportunity to study species he's never seen.

Within a month, he had published the first of his online newsletters to educate (and entertain) fellow troops and people back in the United States about the plants, animals and insects he and others spot in Anbar province.

Rogers publishes "Al Asad au Natural" every few weeks.

From the base northwest of Baghdad and near the town Khan Al Baghdadi, Rogers works with Nature Iraq, a nongovernmental environmental group. Back in Ohio, the Ohio Ornithological Society is raising funds for cameras, binoculars and books about birds, plants, trees and flowers for Nature Iraq.