RED PHALAROPE 9 



or rarely are seen on the sandy beaches or mud flats feeding with 

 other shore birds. Outlying rocky islands are often favorite feeding 

 places. Ludwig Kumlien (1879) writes: 



Whalemen always watch these birds while they are wheeling around high 

 in the air in graceful and rapid circles, for they know that as soon as they 

 sight a whale blowing they start for him, and from their elevated position 

 they can, of course, discern one at a much greater distance than the men in 

 the boat. I doubt if it be altogether the marine animals brought to the surface 

 by the whale that they are after, for if the whale remains above the surface 

 any length of time they always settle on his back and hunt parasites. One 

 specimen was brought me by an Eskimo that he had killed on the back of an 

 Orca gladiator; the esophagus was fairly crammed with Laernodipodian crus- 

 taceans, still alive, although the bird had been killed some hours ; they looked 

 to me like Caprella phasma and Cyamus ceti. According to the Eskimo who 

 killed it, the birds were picking something from the whale's back. I have 

 often seen them dart down among a school of Dclphinapterous leucas and fol- 

 low them as far as I could see. On one occasion a pair suddenly alighted 

 astern of my boat and were not 3 feet from me at times ; they followed directly 

 in the wake of the boat, and seemed so intent on picking up food that they 

 paid no attention whatever to us. They had probably mistaken the boat for 

 a whale. 



In northeastern Greenland, Manniche (1910) saw them hunt flying 

 insects on land ; he also says : 



Some 20 analyses of stomachs proved that the phalaropes in the breeding 

 season chiefly feed on small insects, principally gnats and larvae of these. The 

 esophagus and stomachs of several birds killed were filled with larvae of gnats, 

 which in vast multitudes live in the fresh-water ponds. In a few stomachs 

 I also found fine indeterminable remnants of plants (Algae?). 



W. Leon Dawson (1923) describes their feeding habits at the 

 Farallones, as follows: 



Three red phalaropes, al! female I take it, although none of them in highest 

 plumage, and one northern, also a female, just under " high," are pasturing 

 at my feet in a brackish pool some 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. 

 The waters of the pool teem with a minute reddish crustacean (?) shaped like 

 an ant, less than a thirty-second of an inch in length and incredibly nimble. 

 The insects progress by leaps, and are visible only at the moment of arrival. 

 Yet these birds gobble them up one at a time with unerring accuracy and with 

 a rapidity which is nothing short of marvelous. The reds work habitually 

 at the rate of five dabs per second, i. e., 300 a minute, while the northern, 

 with a longer beak and a much daintier motion, works only half as fast. 



The following observation was made on a California beach by 

 Roland C. Ross (1922) : 



Kelp flies seemed to satisfy its sporting instincts and hunger, and the bird 

 stalked them slowly and pointedly one by one. With bill and neck outstretched 

 and lowered in line with a fly on the sand, a slow advance was made until 

 with a pounce the hunt closed. If the fly escaped, the phalarope sometimes 

 ran after it, bill out. Another pose interested me. On finding a kelp mass 

 decaying and drawing flies, the phalarope approached closely and so low that 

 his breast touched the ground, but the rear of the bird was high up. At times 



