Red knotHuahou

The huahou gets its name from the rich reddish breeding plumage they have during February and March. They only get dressed up in the late summer as the rest of the year they have serious business to attend to – migrating between Aotearoa and Russia (no big deal). After all that hard mahi, they deserve to put on a little rouge.

The New Zealand population has declined from almost 60,000 in the early 1990s to about 30,000 in the 2010s.