Knotty

In winter plumage, small waders are tricky for the uncommitted birder to separate - most of them seem to be pale underneath and darker on top, and more or less streaky or blotchy. I've heard it said quite a few times that if your wader's a bit scruffy and unkempt it's probably a Ruff (I think there's a mnemonic here somewhere), but even though they're a similar size Ruffs are longer-necked and darker than this, so even if this little guy is looking Ruff, he's Knot.

Ahem. Sorry about that...

Anyway, Knots - known in Europe as Red Knots - are long-distance migrants that breed in the Arctic and winter in western Europe. In the UK they're seen in estuaries and on mudflats and saltmarshes around the coast, often in huge flocks that can form spectacular murmurations when forced to move from their feeding sites by changing tides. RSPB Snettisham on the Wash is famous for this spectacle, and there's a nice film here about its wintering waders, which includes quite a lot of footage of an enormous flock of Knot.

Because the Knot is a coastal specialist it's unusual to see one inland, but stray individuals, especially juveniles, sometimes turn up at lakes or reservoirs, and a couple of weeks ago two began to be reported  at Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire. One left again a week later, but the second has stayed, feeding on tiny molluscs and invertebrate larvae along the concrete edge of of the reservoir, near the central causeway. I spent a while following it back and forth this afternoon, and it's what is known in the biz as "confiding" - meaning that it's not overly concerned about people, and you can get pretty close without disturbing it. The only time I saw it fly was when a couple of Crows swooped in close to it, and it only moved far enough to be well out of their reach before landing and starting to hunt again.

Despite the epic migrations they undertake every year, these tough little birds are potentially long-lived. According to the RSPB the oldest known ringed example was over twenty seven years old, which makes me wonder how many miles it had flown in the course of its life.