Kamchatka Great Knot reaches as far west as the Arabian Gulf

Kamchatka Great Knot reaches the Arabian Gulf!

The largest known wader stopover on the Western coast of Kamchatka peninsula attracts up to 28,000 waders annually during peack migration. With Black tailed-godwit, Great knot are among the most common species which stopover there from the end of June until the middle of September.

Readers of  Wader Study and those who have been to an IWSG conference may be familiar with the work of Dmitry Dorofeev (All-Russian Research Institute for Environmental Protection) and his colleagues who work on the estuary Khairusova-Belogolovaya river, Last year Dmitry and his team colour-markeded approximately 320 Great Knots and 60 Black-tailed Godwits. This has already produced valuable results, including 30 re-sightings from Japan, Korea and Australia. Perhaps the most interesting and unexpected re-sighting is one that was recently submitted from an estuary on Arabian Gulf coast of the United Arab Emirates, some 8300km away from the Kamchatka ringing location, as Dmitry & Oscar Campbell tell us in an article published on the Ornithological Society of the Middle East’s website. This re-sighting is of particular interest as it is the first confirmation obtained that Great Knots staging in Kamchatka reach as far west as the Arabian Gulf.

Continue to read the full article of Dmitry & Oscar there: https://www.osme.org/content/russia-love-or-least-ring-kamchatka-great-knot-reaches-arabian-gulf

This picture shows an E1 Great Knot with Bar-tailed Godwits and Crab Plovers, at at Khor al Beida, United Arab Emirates, on 20 January 2017:

 

 

You can also view this interesting MBZ film about their work and this resighting: https://youtu.be/ucTMKBdUxAo

Learn more about Dmitry’s research on the Global Flyaway ecology – Team Piersma website: https://teampiersma.org/about/dmitry-dorofeev/

 

Related Dmitry’s publications & communications:

Dorofeev, D.S. & Kazansky, F.V. (2013) Post-breeding stopover sites of waders in the estuaries of the Khairusovo, Belogolovaya and Moroshechnaya rivers, western Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, 2010–2012. Wader Study Group Bull. 120(2): 119–123. https://www.waderstudygroup.org/publications/bulletin/bulletin-vol-120/bulletin-vol-120-issue-2/

Dorofeev, D. S., Crighton, P. & Dobrynin, D. (2016) Migration ecology of waders in the Khairusova-Belogolovaya estuary (Western Kamchatka, Russia) with a focus on Great Knots Calidris tenuirostris – species composition, seasonal dynamics, resighting data and food availability. International Wader Study Group Conference 2016 9–12 September 2016 Trabolgan, Cork, Ireland. https://www.waderstudygroup.org/article/8942/