As the autumn bird migration gets under way, one of the rarest birds in the world has been spotted on the Saadiyat Beach Golf Course in Abu Dhabi by two members of the Emirates Bird Records Committee, EBRC, Oscar Campbell and Simon Lloyd.
The bird, a Steppe Whimbrel, Numenius phaeopus alboaxillaris, is an extremely rare sub-species of the widespread Whimbrel, which regularly passes through the Emirates in spring and autumn.
The bird seen in Abu Dhabi was a juvenile, born this year. It is the first time a juvenile Steppe Whimbrel has been seen anywhere in the world.
Rarest of the five Whimbrel sub-species, Steppe Whimbrels are estimated to have a global population of only around 100 birds.
Steppe Whimbrels were first described in 1921 from a bird collected in Mozambique in 1906, although birds later shown to be of this sub-species had been collected in Russia as far back as the middle of the 19th Century. Never common, it was declared Extinct in 1994. A tiny population was re-discovered in its Southern Russia breeding grounds in 1997, with a few scattered confirmed records there up until 2009, but none since.
No more than 19 breeding pairs have ever been located, at three breeding sites, and the maximum number ever seen together is 11, on migration on the Caspian Sea.