Guide to Boreal Birds
Sandpiper-like Birds Overview
In breeding plumage, with their rich rufous underparts, set off by marbled gray backs, Red Knots are among the handsomest of shorebirds. Those that winter in southern South America may make a round trip of nearly 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) each year.
Description
10.5" (27 cm). A robin-sized shorebird. Breeding adults have pinkish-rufous face and underparts, dark brown upperparts with pale feather edgings. Fall birds gray above, whitish below. Rump dark; wing stripe faint; bill straight and slightly tapered; legs greenish.
Voice
A soft quer-wer; also a soft knut.
Nesting
4 olive-buff eggs, spotted wit brown, in a slight depression lined with lichens, often among rocks.
Habitat
Breeds on tundra; during migration, on tidal flats, rocky shores and beaches.
Range/Migration
Breeds on islands in high Arctic of Canada. Winters on coasts from California and Massachusetts southward to southern South America. Also in Eurasia.