With all of last week’s rain and this week’s family get-together it was beginning to look like I was going to miss the annual migration of Red Knots, a bird I’d never heard of until recently. To complicate matters, high tide wasn’t until 7 PM, necessitating a late trip with less than perfect lighting. Still, Leslie and I took the chance and drove to Bottle Beach Sunday. With perfect weather we could hardly miss.
Here’s my favorite shot of the Red Knots, my first sighting ever.
There were so many that it would have been impossible to miss them, particularly when they lined up like this.
What really caught my attention, though, was the small number of Black-Bellied Plovers in the background. Even though I’ve seen them my previous two trips, I hadn’t managed to get a decent shot. I think this one is my favorite from Saturday, though it looks much better on a 24” monitor.
When we stopped for dinner in Westport I even managed to get a shot of this Ruddy Turnstone, another bird I’ve never seen before.
Although it looks like its dramatic coloring would make it easy prey, when I moved to another place to get a better angle, I couldn’t see it at all as it blended in perfectly with the rocks, seaweed and kelp.