Red Knot

Red Knot looks compact and purposeful, with a short neck and a fairly short bill. In flight, the pale wing edges and tail are easy to notice, while in winter it reads as a calm, understated shorebird.

It spends much of its time on mudflats and shallow shores, probing the surface and soft mud for food. Outside the breeding season it gathers in large flocks, and before long migrations it can almost double its weight.

It breeds in the high Arctic of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. Its food is mostly molluscs, and during migration it also feeds heavily on horseshoe crab eggs at stopovers such as Delaware Bay and the Wadden Sea; many populations winter in West Africa or other coastal areas farther south.