Red knots (Calidris canutus) are plump sandpipers, smaller than willets and larger than sanderlings, that in the summer have striking terracotta-orange underparts. According to the Cornell Ornithology Lab, "Red Knots from eastern North America have declined sharply in recent decades owing in part to unsustainable harvest of horseshoe crab eggs, and they have become a flagship species for shorebird conservation in the twenty-first century."
Red knots, Nickerson Beach, Long Island, August 16, 2019
These red knots were filmed August 16, 2019, at Nickerson Beach on Long Island, foraging for aquatic invertebrates. Again according to Cornell, "When Red Knots eat mollusks, they swallow the shells whole and crush them up in the muscular part of their stomach, known as the gizzard. Recent studies indicate that knots have the largest gizzards, relatively to body mass, of any shorebird."
The music is Georg Friedrich Händel's Flute Sonata in E minor, HWV 359b, Allegro, performed by Martha Goldstein and obtained from MusOpen.org, a royalty-free music source.
The photos in the following grid were all taken August 16, 2019, at Nickerson Beach, Long Island.
Red knots, Nickerson Beach, Long Island, August 16, 2019