Red-necked Phalarope

Our two species of phalaropes are sandpipers that have taken to spending much of their lives out of sight of land. After breeding, Red-necked Phalaropes depart their arctic nesting areas and migrate to staging areas to rest and feed. Here in eastern North America the primary staging area was the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which used to support millions of birds. Numbers in recent decades have been far lower however, and it is unclear whether the population has crashed or birds moved elsewhere. As one might expect, it is extremely difficult to study a tiny shorebird at sea, and it’s not even clear where Red-necked Phalaropes spend the winter. At best we can say that they are spread across the tropical eastern Pacific offshore from Central and South America.

To facilitate their aquatic lifestyle the toes of phalaropes are lobed (like those of a coot or grebe), which allows for more efficient swimming. They are famous for spinning in circles on the water, a behavior which stirs up the small aquatic invertebrates on which they feed and brings them closer to the surface. Studies of captive phalaropes indicate that individuals are “handed” and only spin in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction – never both.

Phalaropes are also unusual (although less so among shorebirds) for their polyandrous mating system. Females are slightly larger than males, more brightly colored, and the sex responsible for setting up a territory. A given female may mate sequentially with two or more males, with each male solely responsible for building a nest, incubating the eggs, and caring for the young.

To see a phalarope in New Hampshire you typically need to get on a boat and head offshore. They are most likely in fall, when large flocks are sometimes seen from whale watch and fishing boats. In both spring and fall they occasionally show up inland after storms, when they’ve been reported from water bodies as varied as large lakes, sewage ponds, and flooded fields.