[2.76] BIRDS OF OREGON 



until August, when the southward movement begins. The birds are 

 strong, swift fliers, and on occasion the flocks go through the intricate 

 aerial evolutions so commonly seen among the sandpipers. 



Northern Phalarope: 



Lobipes lobatus (Linnaeus) 



DESCRIPTION. "Bill about as long as head, very slender and sharp; margins of 

 toes scalloped; wing with white bar in all plumages. Male in breeding plumage: 

 upper parts dark plumbeous, striped on back with buff and black; sides of neck 

 rufous; chest gray; upper throat and belly white. Female in breeding plumage: 

 brighter colored rufous extending across throat as well as on sides of neck. Fall 

 and winter plumage: face, line over eye, and under parts white; line under eye, and 

 back of head, dusky; upper parts mainly gray. Young: like winter adults, but upper 

 parts darker, striped with buff and black. Length: 7-8, wing 4.00-4.45, bill .80- 

 .90." (Bailey) Nest: A slight depression, lined with leaves and grass. Eggs: 4, 

 buff to olive, with irregular spots and blotches of dark brown. 



DISTRIBUTION.- General: Arctic regions of both hemispheres. Breeds farther south 

 than Red Phalarope, being found south to western Quebec, northern Manitoba, and 

 Nushagak Island in Alaska. Winters largely at sea, its range at this season (im- 

 perfectly known) extending far south into southern hemisphere. In Oregon: Com- 

 mon migrant along coast. Less common but regular migrant inland. 



THE TINY NORTHERN PHALAROPE, smallest and daintiest of its kind, is also 

 the most widely distributed of the three species and, all things con- 

 sidered, the one the average bird student is most likely to encounter, 

 unless it be Wilson's Phalarope in its eastern Oregon breeding grounds. 

 It may be expected anywhere in the State during the migration periods, 

 often appearing at pools seemingly too small or too remote from any 

 other water to have any possible attraction for a water or shore bird. It 

 is most abundant as a migrant in May and again in July, August, and 

 September. Townsend (1839), who made the first general list of birds 

 from this region, first credited it to Oregon, and Newberry (1857) stated 

 that it was supposed to have nested on the Deschutes River in 1885, on 

 report of Williamson. This record is undoubtedly a confusion with Wil- 

 son's Phalarope and cannot be considered authentic, as there is no exist- 

 ing evidence that the species ever bred so far south. It is interesting, 

 though, that our latest spring record, an adult female, was collected from 

 a roadside pool between Redmond and the Deschutes River by Gabrielson 

 on June 12., 1914. The sex organs, however, showed no signs of breeding. 

 Bendire (1877) saw a flock on April 2.6, 1876, at Malheur Lake, and 

 Mearns (1879) reported it from Klamath. Since that time numerous 

 observers have reported it in migration. Peck (191 la) reported seeing it 

 in northern Malheur County on July 2,1, and our own notes and collec- 

 tions contain records and specimens from the following eastern Oregon 

 counties: Klamath, Harney, Umatilla, Grant, Deschutes, and Morrow. 

 Two of these specimens warrant special mention, as they furnish the two 

 earliest fall records of this little phalarope. One, in the Jewett collec- 



