Birder Miriam al-Sirhan identified the sandpiper on Friday at the Pura reservoir in the northern Negev, a stopover site for many migrating birds. Stopover stations of this type, located on the edge of the desert, are of major international importance for migratory birds.
The first sighting of a buff-breasted sandpiper in Israel was in autumn 2018, at the fields of Kibbutz Ga'ash. That time, the American visitor stayed in the country for just two days.
How did the rare bird reach Israel?
"We'll never know for certain how it got here from its nesting area in northern North America," explains Dr. Yoav Perlman, director of the Ornithology Center at the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. "This is a young individual on its first migration, and it's possible the bird simply made a navigation error."
According to Perlman, there are several possible routes the bird may have taken to reach Israel: "It may have crossed the Atlantic Ocean, arrived in western Europe, and from there made its way to us, to Israel. Supporting this theory is the fact that about a week ago, a buff-breasted sandpiper was spotted for the first time in neighboring Cyprus. This is an extremely rare bird, and it's possible we're talking about the same individual."
Another possibility, he says, is that the bird came from an entirely different direction: "From Alaska and northern Canada it crossed the Bering Strait, traversed all of Asia, and arrived here. There's no doubt the sandpiper has, solutions."
