Research slowed during the pandemic for non-COVID matters as sputtering supply chains and closed labs made work difficult. But for a pair of amateur bird enthusiasts in the UAE, the skies were open and delivered an unexpected discovery.

The pair, then-chemistry teacher Oscar Campbell and physics teacher Simon Lloyd, made the outdoors their lab and discovered at an Abu Dhabi golf course a bird previously thought to be extinct and unknown in the UAE.

The steppe whimbrel is native to the Russian plains, remote areas of Kazakhstan and central Asia and is one of four whimbrel subspecies. It was declared extinct in 1994 and rediscovered in 1997, but its wintering grounds, in Mozambique, were not discovered until 2016. The UAE is a mid-way stop.

Campbell has been observing birds for many years, but spotting the juvenile steppe whimbrel was noteworthy.

Getting a look under the wing is crucial to identifying a steppe whimbrel. It was tricky, Campbell says.

“Part of the problem of course is most of the time you can’t see the underwings of a bird. And when you can see them, it’s flying so it’s moving fast. We took hundreds of pictures. There are a bunch of features but the precise details of the underwing pattern are definitely the most diagnostic, critical ones,” Campbell tells KUST Review.

The then-science teacher – now environmental scientist and ornithologist at Nautica Environmental Associates – regularly spent time out exploring and surveying birds as an amateur scientist for several other properties around the Emirates. He is currently working with a team on the third edition of Field Guide to Birds of the Middle East. The book is scheduled to be published in 2024.

Amateur scientists around the world are becoming more involved in research in a process growing in popularity known as citizen science. Amateurs work in collaboration with scientists to contribute data, analyze the data collaboratively or otherwise participate in projects.