Alibaug (Feb/March 2024) - Red Knot. Not Red. Yet

Waders (or shore birds) are often very difficult to identify, given that members within a particular species look so alike when they're not in breeding plumage (which is usually only for a few months every summer) Also, given that many of these chaps breed somewhere in the far North of the planet and only visit our shores in winter, it makes that job even tougher. And near (if not at the apex) of this list is the Red Knot, a bird that seems to operate at the shadowy periphery of birding existence in this part of the world. Stray individuals are almost always seen somewhere in India every year, but when, where and for how long is a perennial unknown. It's not very easy to tell it apart from it's cousin the Great Knot, with whom it hangs out while on its winter holiday, and that makes the job extra hard. So when confirmed sightings were reported this February from Alibaug's Saaral beach, the Mumbai birding community went into hyperdrive.

It took us a more than a week to jump onto the bandwagon (ship?) and mercifully the bird was still around. So the four of us - (Manoj, Rachna, Sriram and I) set out one Saturday to Saaral. Getting there was easy, we took the Ro-ro ferry early one morning and got there around 8:30. And even as we drove alongside the beach towards the parking spot, we spotted a bunch of people with camera and binoculars. Red Knot spotted, we all thought. The hypothesis was right, but it didn't apply to us! We got our gear and hurried to the spot, taking care not to spook the little flock. As soon as we got there, I took a few photos of the flock in front of me. But before we could settle in, the flock took off! It was time for the tide to come in perhaps, a clear validation of the old adage - time and tide wait for no birder! They flew off into the distance and we had no option but to wait for them to return when the tide rose. So we headed for breakfast at the little restaurant on the beach.

An hour or so later, the tide had come in substantially, so we got on with the job of looking for the Knots. But while we found almost every other wader species - Whimbrel, Curlew, Plovers, Turnstones, Sandpipers... there was not a single Knot - Great or otherwise. We spent the next couple of hours walking up and down the beach, combing through every flock but no juice. Apart from boosting our step count for the day, it did diddly-squat. We were on the verge of giving up when we saw two young gents walk into the beach. And when they took out their binoculars, we knew they were birders. We walked up to them and they turned out to be Vaibhav and Ashish, the ones who originally saw the Red Knot first, a couple of weeks ago. They assured us that the bird would be around somewhere and promised to let us know when they sighted it.

We were in the middle of a quick lunch when Ashish called, they'd seen the bird a few kilometres down on another stretch of beach. We quickly took the directions and arrived there a few minutes later. And there it was, in a flock of Grey Plovers and Great Knots. We took a few photos and gave a ton of thanks to Vaibhav and Ashish for the wonderfully helpful people they were. And set back for home, feeling quite sated with the day's work. What could have become a near miss became a great sighting because of two members of the birding fraternity. And that's the wonderful part of birders in and around Mumbai, the sense of camaraderie and collaboration is seriously next level.

This bird was also important for other people within my birding family, and a week or so later, I managed to coax Manjunath to advance his work trip by a day. We set out early on Holi morning, via the same routine - Ro-ro to Mandwa and then the short drive to Saaral. This time we'd arrived early and the tide was still far out. We saw a flock of Knots in the distance but they were too far and the muck was too pervasive for us to walk any further. So we contented ourselves with photographing what was at hand - a Broad-billed Sandpiper (lifer for Manju) and Brown-headed Gulls assuming breeding plumage. Manju even managed to snag a lovely flying shot of a Peregrine Falcon. But even as the tide came in, there was no sign of the knots. And just like the last time, another wonderful set of birders became our saviours this time.

We met Prathamesh Desai and his friends on the beach, all excellent and deeply knowledgeable birders. Realising that the knots were awol, we agreed to split forces and inform each other when a sighting happened. And a half hour later, Prathamesh called. They'd sighted the bird, almost exactly where we'd seen it last time. Once again, we headed there. And once again, as soon as we got there, the flock decided to take flight, much to our dismay. Luckily, they came back and settled at the same spot on the shore and we took a few decent photos. We could see the slight colour change in the bird, definitely a little more red than when we saw it a few weeks earlier. And it hopefully wasn't because it was blushing on being Manju's muse!

The birds then decided that our date was over; they flew over to another faraway stretch of beach for their next appointment. We were happy, Manju got his lifer and we'd got our photos. Thanks again to the immensely collaborative birders of our region. We were hoping that the bird stays till it becomes fully red and at the time of writing, it is certainly doing its best to oblige. If it does stay for a few more weeks, maybe we can get a hat-trick of Red Knot sightings. And fully red the final time around.

Alibaug trip guide

Alibaug lies due south-east of Mumbai and has several beaches which attract birds. Before Saaral beach made waves this year, the go-to place was Akshi beach, further south of Alibaug. Akshi still plays host to a number of waders in winter and many of my lifers actually happened there. In addition to the beaches, Alibaug is also great for raptors (Ramdharneshwar hill) and the nearby Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary, home to species like the Malabar Trogon and Sri Lanka Frogmouth.

Getting there

Mumbai is the nearest big city, airport and major railhead. From Mumbai, you can either drive there via the new Atal Setu (87kms, 2 hours) to Saaral, take the regular ferry  to Mandwa Jetty from the Gateway of India (1 hour, regular service through the day) or the M2M ferries Ro-ro, were you can take your car on board. From Mandwa, Saaral is 6kms away while Akshi beach is 23kms (45 mins) away

Stay and Food

Alibaug, Kihim, Kashid and the nearby areas have a lot of homestays, villas and some hotels to stay in. Food is also available in and around Alibaug; Saaral and Akshi have a couple of smaller restaurants/food stalls. But it's also good to carry some food and water because you might have to walk a fair distance to search for birds.