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Red Knot | Calidris canutus
Kanoet | Correlimos gordo
The Red Knot is a medium-sized, stocky sandpiper that breeds in the high Arctic and is among the longest-distance migrants in the world. The American subspecies rufa flies from Arctic Canada to Tierra del Fuego; part of the population winters in the south-eastern United States, the Caribbean and northern Brazil. In the region it is a fairly scarce passage migrant and winter visitor, most numerous on large tidal flats and salt pans.
Voice
A soft, low knut or wut-wut, which gave the species its name; flocks also give a muted twittering.
Recording: Arend Wassink — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–26 cm, larger and heavier than most sandpipers, with a short neck, short greenish-grey legs and a straight black bill about as long as the head. In winter plumage plain pale grey above with fine dark shaft streaks, a white supercilium and a white belly with grey-speckled breast and flanks. Juveniles show a fine scaly pattern on the upperparts from dark and pale feather fringes and a faint buff wash on the breast. In breeding plumage, sometimes seen in spring, face and underparts are rufous. In flight a narrow white wing bar and a pale grey, finely barred rump.
Confusion species
Short-billed and Long-billed Dowitchers Limnodromus griseus and L. scolopaceus have a much longer bill. Sanderling Calidris alba is smaller and whiter, with a black bend of the wing. Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola has a shorter, thicker bill, larger eyes and the typical stop-and-peck feeding of plovers.
Habitat
Tidal flats, mudbanks and sandbars, the shallow edges of salt pans and lagoons, sometimes wide sandy beaches. It feeds in compact flocks, walking head-down and probing rapidly for small bivalves, crustaceans and worms.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Passage migrant and winter visitor, mainly in the Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the ABC Islands (especially Bonaire), Guadeloupe, Barbados and Trinidad; in smaller numbers in the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Cayman Islands, Hispaniola, the Virgin Islands and San Andrés. Rare or irregular on Jamaica and many Lesser Antillean islands. Beyond the region it breeds on high Arctic tundra around the pole and winters along the coasts of every continent.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Large tidal flats and salt pans during migration, such as the salt pans of Bonaire and Puerto Rico. Birds often mix with other shorebirds; look for the compact build, straight bill and short legs.
Conservation status
Near Threatened globally; the subspecies rufa has declined steeply, partly through overharvesting of horseshoe crabs, whose eggs are a key food during spring migration, and is listed as threatened in the United States and Canada. Within the region undisturbed tidal flats and salt pans matter as roosting and feeding sites.
Scientific name
Calidris canutus | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Tringa Canutus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by Merrem. Calidris goes back to Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a name Aristotle used for an unidentified grey waterside bird. canutus is traditionally linked to King Cnut, from the tale of him commanding the tide and the knot's habit of feeding along the tideline, though there is no historical foundation for this. Another explanation is that the name imitates the bird's grunting call. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sweden.