Tim writes: this was a flock of Knot at high tide at Spurn in East Yorkshire taken in early October. I say Knot, though if you look really carefully there are at least eight Dunlin among them. Most of the Knot are in grey winter plumage but a few of them have orange mottling, remnants from their breeding plumage. These Knot had recently arrived from their breeding grounds in Greenland or Arctic Canada. Though they always stage half way in Iceland to refuel. I’m not usually a fan of changing established English names such as Knot to Red Knot, but at the turn of the Nineteenth Century we had three Knots on the British list. These were Knot, Red Knot and Ash-coloured Sandpiper, which were juvenile, breeding and winter plumaged Knots respectively. If you look at Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds Vol II (1804) on the excellent Biodiversity Heritage Library you can see for yourself. Although George Montagu, of Montagu’s Harrier fame, had published his Ornithological Dictionary two years earlier in 1802, and he sorted all the confusion and reduced the British List considerably in doing so.
The name Knot has been in use since at least 1452 (present spelling since 1622) and is apparently imitative of the bird’s flight call, though they pronounced the silent K until the 18th Century (ker-not). The scientific name canutus might be named after King Canute (reigned 1016-1035), the one who got his feet wet to prove to sycophantic followers that he could not stop the tide. Although the name may be a latinised version of the name Knot, which is onomatopoeic. Nobody really knows though some sources say Canute enjoyed eating them. John Ray in 1676 called them Canutus avis, or Canute’s Bird.
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A local soft fruit grower,when out wildfowling, was known for firing into a flock if more desirable targets were not forthcoming, earning himself the name “Knot “Tinsley, and demonstrating the respect all sportsmen have for their
quarry.