Bird project 9 - Knot

9/101.
Calidris canutus Knot

Location: Mudflats just north of Knott End, on the southern edge of Morecambe Bay, Lancashire.
Conditions: Pure blue skies, sunshine, mild - mid afternoon, just after high tide. Some haze and heat shimmer.
Photograph quality: 3.

Comments: I went up to Knott End to do the Wyre Way walk south along the river estuary to Poulton. However, when I arrived, I walked up to the north shore, just to see what was there. The tide had just turned, and most of the waders were still close to the shore, so I set up my tripod and shot at 1400mm. There were plenty of shelduck and redshanks (the larger birds in the picture above, with bright orange legs) close in, and large flocks of sanderlings further out. But as I looked, I found there were larger grey birds with yellow-grey legs, which I knew were a new species, though I didn't know whether they were knot or dunlin at the time.

Morecambe Bay is a major wintering ground for this species, and the UK as a whole hosts several hundred thousand at this time of year.