LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN SHORE BIRDS 



ORDER LIMICOLAE (PART 1) 



By Arthur Cleveland Bent 

 Of Taunton, Massachusetts 



Family PHALAROPODIDAE, Phalaropes 



PHALAROPUS FULICARIUS (Linnaeus) 



RED PHALAROPE 

 HABITS 



The female red phalarope in her full nuptial plumage is, to my 

 mind, the handsomest, certainly the most richly colored, of the three 

 known species of phalaropes. The species is cosmopolitan, with a 

 circumpolar breeding range; it is apparently homogeneous through- 

 out its wide range except for a local race, breeding in Spitsbergen, 

 which has been separated and named Phalaropus fulicarius jour- 

 daini Iredale; this race is said to have paler edgings on the back, 

 scapulars, and tertials. The species is commonly known abroad as 

 the gray phalarope, an appropriate name for the bird in its winter 

 plumage, in which it is most often seen. 



It is less often seen in the United States than the other two species ; 

 its summer home is so far north that it is beyond the reach of most 

 of us; and at other seasons it is much more pelagic than the other 

 species, migrating and apparently spending the winter far out on 

 the open sea, often a hundred miles or more from land. It seldom 

 comes ashore on the mainland except when driven in by thick weather 

 or a severe storm. Hence it is an apparently rare bird to most of 

 us. But in its arctic summer home it is exceedingly abundant. 

 Alfred M. Bailey (1925) says that "this was the most abundant of 

 the shore birds at Wales, as at Wainwright, Alaska. As a person 

 walks over the tundra there is a continual string of those handsome 

 birds rising from the grass." Again he writes : 



At Whalen, near East Cape, Siberia, we saw thousands of these beautiful 

 little fellows on July 11. The day was very disagreeable, with a strong 



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