Flocks of Red Knots
Late in the afternoon on a sunny, warm day, a flock of Red Knots flew to a sandbar emerging as the tide went out, along the beach on Kiawah. They flew in a close, dense flock, moving as one, not directly, but fast and turning often, one way, then another, flashing white, then rosy brown, rising and falling, rippling and dipping, in fluid, symphonic motion that’s a joy to watch. It’s almost like watching thoughts or dreams in flight, showing brightness, shadows, certainty and doubt, fluctuating, settling, and rising again.
They approached from over the water, flew to the sandbar, touched briefly down – and flew back up – touched down – and flew up again, and finally settled on the sand, filtering down like leaves falling out of a wind. I’m not good at estimating numbers, but there were several hundred in the flock – a small flock compared to the huge gatherings of thousands of Red Knots observed in other places, especially in the Delaware Bay area each spring.
Red Knots are plump, rather large sandpipers with dark straight bills. Most of these were still in drab, grayish winter plumage, but a few showed a ruddy rash of red on the upper breast, starting to change into the robin-red breast, throat and face of spring. Maybe because this was near the end of day, they were not feeding as intently as usual. Several began bathing – stepping off the sandbar into shallow wavelets and dipping into the water, shaking, then stepping back onto the sand and preening.
A tapestry in motion, the hundreds of birds were almost dizzying to watch, with both birds and water around them moving. Shallow waves kept lapping in, gently breaking, rippling and flowing, and the knots themselves were in constant motion, some feeding, some bathing, some preening, some walking, some rising restlessly on wings, then settling back down, not flying, but never still.
Four or five Willets fed on the edges of the flock, while two Ring-billed Gulls stood stolidly among them, looking aloof and a little annoyed at all the bustling around them. I’m sure that’s not at all how they felt – who knows? – but that’s how they looked. And off the sandbar, at the edge of the waves near where I stood, a Ruddy Turnstone searched for food.
Red Knots are of particular concern because their population numbers appear to be decreasing dramatically. Known for making one of the longest annual migrations of any bird, Red Knots fly more than 9,000 miles from the Arctic to southern South America – almost 20,000 miles round trip each year. During these migrations, they concentrate in very large, dense flocks and depend heavily on food in traditional stopover areas, such as the Delaware Bay, where they feed on the eggs of horseshoe crabs during spring migration. Over-harvesting of horseshoe crabs is thought to be responsible, in part, for a severe decline in Red Knot populations, though there are also other threats to their survival.
“If recent trends continue, the eastern Red Knot will, by 2020, follow the Passenger Pigeon into the mists of memory,” writes ecologist and author Carl Safina, in his remarkable book, The View from Lazy Point, which I was reading in the evenings during our trip to Kiawah.*
Knowing that Red Knots are in this kind of peril makes seeing a flock like this even more amazing and special, and I watched them for a very long time before turning to go.
Walking back down the beach toward home, I passed several Sanderlings, a few Dunlins, four Semipalmated Plovers and one handsome Black-bellied Plover. Brown Pelicans and Forster’s Terns flew over the water.
Then – I came to one lone, solitary Red Knot, feeding at the edge of the surf, and I stopped to look at it closely and wonder if I was wrong about what it was – why would one Red Knot be alone? Why was it not with a flock? But it was undeniably a Red Knot, off on its own, a small puzzle – though it’s not the first time I’ve seen one alone like this, and maybe it’s really not unusual at all.
*Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point, 2011, page 139.