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Red knot        Images © Mark A. Chappell

Red knots are medium-sized shorebirds with epic migrations that take them from their high Arctic breeding grounds to South American beaches.   They pass through Southern California during a few weeks in spring and again in late summer and fall, but a few spend the winter.   The birds on this page -- photographed in April at the Salton Sea and Bolsa Chica wetlands, both in southern California -- are in various stages of transition between the gray winter plumage and the bright rusty-bellied breeding plumage.  One photo shows a knot with a breeding-plumage short-billed dowitcher (another plump shorebird with a rusty underside).  Some red knots also winter in Australia, along with their larger relative the great knot.
            Pictures of (mostly) winter-plumage red knots are on this page, breeding-plumage birds are here and here, and more images of flying knots are here.

  • Canon 1D4, 800 mm IS lens, sitting birds with 1.4X converter, a few with fill-in flash (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)