Wilson's Phalarope

BirdNote^®
 
The Anomalous Wilson’s Phalarope

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[Call of Wilson’s Phalarope]

The dictionary defines “anomaly” as something difficult to classify – a departure from the rule.  If any bird meets that description, it’s the Wilson’s Phalarope. [Continue call of Wilson’s Phalarope]

In a bird book, Wilson’s Phalaropes are found among the sandpipers – and in fact they do have the long, slender sandpiper bill, but, instead of probing tide flats, they forage while swimming, alongside ducks. They spin like tops on the water. That creates an upwelling, pulling food to the surface which the birds pick up. [Wilson’s Phalarope call notes]

The breeding of Wilson’s Phalaropes is even more unusual. Females are the brightly colored sex, opposite of most birds, and courtship roles are reversed: females compete for males, sometimes mate with several and, once they lay eggs, leave all parental duties to the males. In summer, Wilson’s Phalaropes nest in prairie wetlands in the northern half of the western United States, and well into Canada, but come winter they head south — some as far as Argentina. 

In common with most birds, however, Wilson’s Phalaropes face conservation challenges, particularly when it comes to the protection of their winter habitat. [Wilson’s Phalarope call notes]

To learn more about the anomalous phalarope, come to our website: BirdNote.org.  I’m Mary McCann.

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Calls of Wilson’s Phalarope provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  3208 recorded by R.S. Little; 105882 R.C. Fawcett.
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© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org          July 2017/2020  February 2023   Narrator: Mary McCann  

ID#  SotB-WIPH-01b-2020-7-26