RED OR GREY PHALAROPE. 
Downy young. Head buffy, deepening to cinnamon-buff on the fore-head and crown ; a broad 
stripe on each side of the crown and a narrow one from the bill to the eye, black ; centre 
of crown mixed black and cinnamon-buff ; sides of nape also cinnamon-buff ; a blackish 
patch on the ear-coverts ; the middle of the nape black ; the back has a mixed pattern of 
black, cinnamon-buff and buffy-white ; rump with a median stripe of black, bordered on 
each side by a stripe of buffy-white ; cheeks, chin, throat, sides of neck and breast light 
buffy ; rest of under-plumage greyish-white (id.). 
Nest. Always a depression in the grass and lined with dried grass ; well concealed, and usually 
placed in wet situations. 
Eggs. Clutch four. In shape from ovate-pyriform to subpyriform and have a slight gloss. The 
prevailing ground-colours range from pale olive-buff to dark olive-buff. The markings are 
bold, sharply defined and irregular in shape ; they are most numerous and often confluent 
at the larger end, but some eggs are finely speckled over the entire surface. The prevailing 
colour of the markings are dark brown, from warm sepia to clove-brown. Some eggs are 
marked with lighter browns. The drab under-mar kings are hardly noticeable. The 
average measurements of 148 eggs are 31*5 mm. by 22. 
Breeding-season. May to July (Alaska). 
The following lias all been taken from Bent’s Life Histories, as given in the 
synonymy. 
“ This bird 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.’ 
“ The migrations of the Red Phalarope are mainly at sea, usually far out 
from land. During the month of May enormous flocks may be seen on the 
ocean off the coasts of New England, but it is only during stress of weather 
that they are driven inshore. In pleasant weather these birds are well at home 
on the heaving bosom of the ocean, flying about in flocks, twisting, turning and 
wheeling like flocks of Sandpipers, or resting or feeding on the drifting rafts 
of seaweeds. . . . there is time for a good deal of amatory play between 
the sexes of the reds. It is always the bright-coloured female who makes the 
advances, for the wanton Phalaropes have revised nature’s order, and the 
modest male either seeks escape by flight, or else defends himself with 
determined dabs. 
“ ‘ When they arrive on their breeding-grounds in Northern Alaska,’ 
E. W. Nelson writes, ‘ it is much more gregarious than its relative, L. lobatus, 
and for a week or two after its first arrival fifty or more flock together. These 
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