[2.7^] BIRDSOFOREGON 



Phalaropes: Family Phalaropodidae 



Red Phalarope: 



Phalaropus fulicarius (Linnaeus) 



DESCRIPTION. "Bill about as long as head, flat, widest toward end. Adult male in 

 summer: back streaked with black and buff; wing bluish and dusky, crossed by a 

 white band; side of head whitish; under parts dark cinnamon brown. Adult female 

 in summer: crown and face plumbeous or blackish, sides of head pure white. Adults 

 in winter: head, neck, and under parts pure white, except for plumbeous on back of 

 head and around eyes; upper parts plain blue gray. Young: upper parts blackish, the 

 feathers edged with yellowish; under parts whitish, with dusky brown across 

 breast. Length: 7.50-8.75, wing 5.15-5.50, bill .80-. 95." (Bailey) Nest: A depres- 

 sion in the ground, lined with bits of grass and leaves or moss of the tundra. Eggs: 

 Almost invariably 4, buff, more or less irregularly spotted and blotched with bright 

 to dark brown. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Breeds in Arctic regions of both Old and New World. 

 Winters on oceans to below equator. In Oregon: Regular and at times abundant 

 migrant along coast, spending much time at sea and appearing on shore in numbers 

 only during severe storms. Casual straggler inland. 



THE BEAUTIFUL little Red Phalarope (Plate 44, A) is a common and at 

 times abundant migrant shore bird off the Oregon coast, but it usually 

 stays well offshore so that the scattered individuals found on the beaches 

 furnish a most unsatisfactory clue to its movements and abundance in 

 our State. During the periods of abundance the birds are found flying 

 low over the water in small flocks or riding the ocean swells like puffs 

 of down. They ride high on the water, and a more incongruous picture 

 can hardly be imagined than these dainty mites riding the waves during 

 rough weather, apparently entirely indifferent to the tumult of the waters. 

 Our earliest spring date is March 2.7 (Lane County); latest, May n 

 (Lincoln County). In the fall migration, July zo (Lincoln County) is our 

 earliest and November 2.2. (Tillamook County) our latest date of their 

 appearance. Inland, the species is known only as a casual straggler. A 

 female taken at Fort Klamath, October 31, 1882., by Bendire and now 

 in the United States National Museum was the only specimen prior to 

 the storm of October 1934, when birds were found as far inland as Carleton. 

 Several times in our experience in Oregon, fall storms have been too 

 much for these little navigators and they have been driven onto the beach 

 by the hundreds and sometimes thousands. When this occurs the birds, 

 weak and usually extremely emaciated, sit on the sand above the breaking 

 waves or crouch among the logs in the drift above the storm tide line. 

 They are frequently so weak that it is almost possible to capture them 

 in the hand, and numbers are killed along the coast highways by passing 

 cars. Jewett first encountered one of these great groups of storm-driven 

 phalaropes at Netarts Bay between September 17 and 2.9, 19x0. The next 



