The Introduction Article is just the first of 11 articles in each species account that provide life history information for the species. The remaining articles provide detailed information regarding distribution, migration, habitat, diet, sounds, behavior, breeding, current population status and conservation.
Written and continually updated by acknowledged experts on each species, Birds of North America accounts include a comprehensive bibliography of published research on the species. This species also winters in South America and breeds in Europe and Asia.
See text for details. Subspecies C. It is the largest and longest billed of the six forms. The largest calidridine sandpiper of North America, and in the genus Calidris exceeded in size only by the Great Knot C. This species is a Holarctic breeder, mainly in middle- and high-arctic zones, with 3 subspecies islandica , rufa , and roselaari distributed in the Nearctic from Greenland to northern Alaska.
The nominate subspecies nests in central Russia e. This account focuses largely on the Western Hemisphere subspecies. Red Knots are noted for their extraordinary long-distance migrations -- up to 15, km between circumpolar breeding habitats and marine wintering habitats in southern latitudes of South America, Africa, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Population sizes for knots are in decline around the world, especially C. This is a monogamous and single-brooded species, and like most other northern shorebirds typically lays a 4-egg clutch. Courtship is accompanied by elaborate flight, ground, and vocal displays. For nesting, this knot prefers drier tundra and sparsely vegetated gravel ridges. Red Knots are principally marine shorebirds in the non-breeding season, when they feed on polychaete worms, small crabs, and marine mollusks, especially bivalves that they swallow whole and crush in their muscular gizzard.
