Rethinking its route: A documented visit, only the second of its kind in Israel, was recorded over the weekend by the buff-breasted sandpiper, a bird from the Scolopacidae family. This bird typically breeds in the Arctic Circle in northern North America, northern Alaska, and northern Canada, with its regular migration route leading to the shores of Argentina. It is classified as globally endangered, in the third most severe category (VU), due to habitat destruction, hunting, and climate change.
Birdwatcher Miriam Al-Sirhan observed the bird on Friday at the Pora Reservoir in the northern Negev, a reservoir that serves as a staging post for many migratory birds. Such staging posts are of great international importance to migratory birds at the edge of the desert.
The first sighting in Israel of the buff-breasted sandpiper was in the autumn of 2018 in the fields of Kibbutz Ga'ash, when the American visitor stayed in the country for two days.
"We will never know for sure how it got here from the breeding area in North America," says Dr. Yoav Perlman, director of the Ornithology Center at the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. "This is a juvenile individual on its first migration in its life, and it is possible that the bird simply made a navigational error. There is a possibility that it crossed the Atlantic Ocean, reached Western Europe, and from there rolled over to us, to Israel. This theory is supported by the fact that about a week ago, a buff-breasted sandpiper was spotted for the first time in neighboring Cyprus. This is a very rare bird, and it is possible that this is the same individual. Another possibility is that from Alaska and northern Canada it cut across the Bering Strait, crossed all of Asia, and reached us. There is no doubt that the sandpiper holds the answers."