Reference: Phalarope

The shorebird that spins to eat.
BY RICK BURKMAN

“Red-necked phalaropes are famous, as are the other two species of phalarope,
for lifting aquatic prey within reach by rapidly spinning in tight circles in a manner
reminiscent of a slightly demented toy.”—Birds of the World

Phalaropes are funny things. They are part of the order of shorebirds, but they act a little differently than most sandpipers and other close relatives. Like most shorebirds, phalaropes walk shorelines snapping at bugs, pecking the ground with sewing-machine precision. However, they much prefer to stay in slightly deeper water, where they “vortex feed” by spinning rapidly to create a reverse whirlpool that sucks tiny food items from the bed to the surface, where they are easily grabbed. Seeing one or two birds do this is an interesting sight; watching dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of them doing it at the same time is breathtaking.

There are three species of phalaropes in the world: the red, the red-necked, and the Wilson’s phalaropes. These me-dium-sized shorebirds are gently colored in shades of cinnamon, black, gray, and white, with enough variation to make them unique. The red phalarope and the red-necked phalarope are more ocean-go-ing, while the Wilson’s phalarope prefers staying inland, but still along shorelines.

Spinning to eat is not the only twist that makes this group special. In the phalarope world, the females are bigger, stronger, and more colorful than the males. On their breeding grounds, it’s the females that strut, posture, and per-form aerial displays with the hope of attracting a mate, a trait that is shared with their cousin, the spotted sandpiper.

Once mated, the couple looks for a suitable nest site in the sedges and other low-growing grass-es along shorelines and in marshes. When a spot is chosen, they kick away a little soil and scrape a small depression in the dirt. The male may toss in a few sedges, lichens, or a leaf or two as an after-thought, but they don’t spend a lot of time building a fancy one-use home.

The hen lays a single egg per day until a clutch of four pyriform-shaped eggs is complete. This is a huge energy expense for the female—a single clutch of four eggs can equal half of her body weight.

Red phalaropes and red-necked phalaropes are mostly monogamous. Wilson’s phalaropes, on the other hand, are more energetic. The female can lay up to four clutches of four eggs with four different males per year, so she spends every minute of her long spring days fending off other females, displaying to attract males, laying eggs, and eating vast amounts of food to keep up the daily routine. Like the other phalaropes, her role in chick rearing is done when the last egg is laid—incubating and caring for the young is strictly a male’s job.

Males form a brood patch and start incubating the clutch when the third egg is laid. Until then, the first two eggs are exposed to the elements, including temperatures that can hover around the freezing mark, without apparent harm. He covers the eggs for almost three weeks with only short breaks to stretch, eat, or lure predators away. Lots of things like to eat shorebirds and their eggs, such as foxes, gulls, snakes, weasels, and owls, so the male relies on his camouflage to stay hidden, but if he feels too threatened, he leaves the nest, dragging a wing and acting wounded to tempt the predator with what looks like an easy meal. However, he miraculously recovers and flies off once the hunter has been led far enough away from the nest.

Nestlings stay in the nest for about a day after hatching, resting and gathering strength as their downy feathers dry. After a day of hanging out around the nest, the male walks away, calling to his family and encouraging them to follow. The young birds are ready to go, and they immediately start eating bugs that get kicked up as they walk along. The family never returns to the nest, but the male continues to keep the chicks warm at night wherever they happen to stop. They grow quickly on their high-pro-tein diet, so in just a few days, they sprout new juve-nile feathers to replace the fluffy down that they no longer need, and they stop huddling with the adult. In a few weeks, they will take their first awkward test flights and, before long, match their parents in flight formation, speed, and endurance.

When the juvenile birds start to fly, the family finishes breaking up. The female leaves shortly af-ter egg laying, and the male leaves when the young birds are making short practice flights. Their juve-nile flight muscles continue growing for a couple more days, and then they are off to follow the adults.

Phalaropes are social birds that stage in large numbers along waterways, mud flats, and sometimes farm fields as they prepare for their fall migration. Wilson’s phalaropes are homebodies, preferring to spend their winters on the lakes in the central Unit-ed States and South America, but their cousins the red and red-necked phalaropes are voyagers, spend-ing their winters on the oceans of North and South America, Africa, and Indonesia.

Red Phalaropes

Red phalaropes love the sea, and many of these birds spend up to 11 months living on the open ocean, sometimes hundreds of miles from the near-est shoreline. They hang out with flocks of long-tailed ducks and other ocean-going birds, and they are especially fond of associating with both gray and bowhead whales. (They were once called “bow-head birds.”) Whales feeding on the bottom disrupt tons of sediment, leading to mud plumes shooting to the surface that are filled with zooplankton, krill, and other smorgasbord foods for the birds. For a change of pace, these two-ounce birds will ride the backs of the 80,000-pound whales to pick at the tiny creatures that live there.

Red-Necked Phalaropes

This species has the largest circumpolar breeding range of the three phalarope species, but like the red phalarope, it spends most of its time rolling on the open ocean. Millions of red-necked phalaropes used to stage on the Bay of Fundy at the intersection of the state of Maine and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but that gathering has gone missing in recent years. Similar gatherings off the coast of Japan have also disap-peared without explanation, raising concerns about the health of this species.

Wilson’s Phalaropes

Wilson’s phalaropes aren’t as fond of the ocean as their cousins. They are the largest of the phal-aropes and prefer to nest in shallow wetlands in western Canada and the United States. They aren’t ocean-going birds, but they do prefer salt lakes over freshwater bodies of water. Prior to heading south for the winter, hundreds of thousands of these birds will stage at the Great Salt Lake in Utah and oth-er saline lakes in the West. Their winters are spent basking in saltwater lakes and ponds in the United States and South and Central America.

Phalaropes truly are funny things. They twist, they turn, and the way they spin in the water like a “slightly demented toy” brings a smile to everyone’s face.

MEASUREMENTS (in mm)

	Wing	Tarsus	Culmen	Tail
Red Phalarope	F=133.5	F=21.5	F=22.7	F=66.5
	M=125	M=21	M=21.9	M=63
Red-Necked Phalarope	F=111	F=20	F=22.3	F=50
	M=106.5	M=19.5	M=21.6	M=48
Wilson’s Phalarope	F=132	F=33.3	F=33.1	F=56.5
	M=120	M=31.5	M=30.2	M=50.5

*Adapted from Pyle, P. (2008). Identification Guide to North American Birds. Part 2. Slate Creek Press.

 

REFERENCES

Carle, R.D., M. Castellino, K. Tarr, A.E. McKellar, S.M. Miller, R.J. Larson, P. Gigy Gregoret, N.D. Van Schmidt, A.J. Lesterhuis, R.P. Clay, B.W. Abbott, M.A. Colwell, J.R. Jehl Jr., and P. Pyle (2026). Wilson’s Phalarope (Phalaropus tricolor), version 2.0. in Birds of the World (N.D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.wilpha.02

Pyle, P. (2008). Identification Guide to North American Birds. Part 2. Slate Creek Press.

Rubega, M.A., D. Schamel, and D.M. Tracy (2020). Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus), version 1.0. in Birds of the World (S.M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.renpha.01

Tracy, D.M., D. Schamel, and J. Dale (2020). Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius), version 1.0. in Birds of the World (S.M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.redpha1.01