The flight of the red knot

by Brian A. Harrington

The flight of the red knot is one of the most spectacular long-distance migrations in the world. A member of the sandpiper family, the red knot is barely ten inches long and weighs about twenty ounces. Each year, these small russet-colored birds breed in the Arctic, then migrate to the tip of South America and back again in their quest for food. Why and how they travel more than 18,000 miles each year, often as much as 2500 miles nonstop (and at speeds averaging between thirty and forty miles per hour), is the subject of this captivating and beautifully illustrated book. Aided by hundreds of volunteers along a vast flight path, author Brian Harrington has been tracking shorebirds like the red knot since 1972 to determine whether conservation measures are needed to protect their rich stopover sites. His findings are surprisingly simple, and shocking: of the many sites where birds stop to feed in their journeys north and south, a handful are crucial to the survival of ninety percent of t