Great Knot

Big Red Knot in simplicity dress

The Great Knot (Calidris tenuirostris ), also called Anadyrknutt, is a bird of the family of Waders. He is a breeding bird of Siberia, which is occasionally encountered as Irrgast in Western Europe and North America. There are no described subspecies of the species.

Features

Within the genre of beach runners of large red knot with a body length of 28 centimeters, the largest Art is It is significantly larger than the red knot and has a strikingly longer, thinner and stronger downward beak.

The body top is gray, the underside pale with dark spots or stripes. In breeding plumage the breast plumage is dark and on the flanks show dark, well-defined spots. Legs and beak are dark. When the young birds the back plumage is dark and lined with brown and white. From the Big Red Knot Red Knot is distinguished by its size, the longer bill and the splendor of dress in which only a few feathers games are brownish in color.

Dissemination

The species breeds as ground-nesting birds in the Siberian tundra, especially in northeastern Siberia. The nest, which is located in a bottom trough comprises an average of four eggs. The Great Red Knot is a migratory bird, the eastern India, overwinters mainly on the coasts of the Malay Peninsula, especially in the north and west of Australia. A small population also overwinters on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The wintering area ranges from the United Arab Emirates, the East Saudi Arabia, Oman to Pakistan and northwestern India. In January of 2000, also wintering birds on the coast of Iran were observed for the first time. Pull on which migration route of these birds in the area is not known. It is thought that this either Knots breed in the far west of the breeding area or coming from a not yet known breeding area.

The Great Red Knot is a marked long-distance migrant, observed during the train rarely inland and the long distances between the individual resting places travels. The females leave the breeding grounds in the early of July. The males and the young birds follow the end of July. Your train route it seems according to the current state of knowledge to lead directly to the coast, from where they move south over the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan along the coast of eastern China and the Philippines. Pulling Great Knots can be observed from late July to late October in southeastern Siberia and in eastern China, where the main migration fall in August and September. Adult birds reach Australia in late August and early September. The meet this year's young birds usually in October in Australia.

Your wintering areas in the northeast of Australia leave the Great Red Knot from late March to mid-April. Presumably they fly from there directly without the rest up to the rest areas on the coast of southern China. There, Great Knots, from early April to early June are observed. Their breeding areas in northeastern Siberia reach Great Knots in the second half of May or beginning of June. Birds that have not yet completed their first year of life, most likely not return to their breeding areas back, but spend the summer in the tropical regions of their range.

Habitat

The Great Red Knot breeds in subarctic highlands of northeastern Siberia. In the breeding areas is arctic - alpine regions, barren or stony ridge inland at altitudes 300-1000 m. Characteristic of the breeding places are great bald and gritty surfaces that are covered with lichen and some herbs. In appropriate areas 13 breeding pairs were found on 9.5 square kilometers.

Outside the breeding season, he keeps himself to mudflats and sandbanks.

Nutrition

Its food consists mainly of shells and insects, he finds mostly on beaches and in wetlands.

Reproduction

The first breeding areas have been discovered only in 1929, the breeding biology does not always been fully investigated as.

The Great Red Knot is a monogamous bird. They are territorial birds and birds both parents are involved in rearing the young. However, it seems that the females left the nest before it is hatched. So far, only males were observed as they carried young birds. The nest is a depression in the moss on a rocky elevated and degrees. The nest usually consists of four gray-yellow eggs that are spotted very intense red-brown.

Stock

The stock of the population is considered stable, the IUCN lists it as " safely " ( least concern ). Potentially threatened the bird is by hunting and habitat loss in Korea and China, two countries that happens the Great Knot on his train in the wintering areas. In Victoria, this species is " threatened " as the ( endangered ) listed. He is one of the species covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of African- Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds ( AEWA ).