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Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) UB2A2525

Pegwell Bay, Kent, England.

 

The red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia. It is migratory, and, unusually for a wader, winters at sea on tropical oceans. Wkipedia

 

Length:17-19cm

Wingspan:32-41cm

Weight:27-48g

Population:

UK breeding:22 males

UK passage:30 birds

Read more at www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a...

It is not primarily a North American bird. ........ it does occur in Canada and Alaska but It is a European bird. It breeds in very large numbers across the northern coasts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the states of the former Soviet Union. They also breed in very small numbers in the UK with around 20 pairs being recorded across the Hebridean and Shetland Isles in 2011.

(Courtesy of a very esteemed gentleman)

 

Unlike any other sandpipers, phalaropes forage mostly while swimming, by picking items from the water's surface or just below it. Often they spin in circles on shallow water, probably to stir things up and bring food closer to surface. In general, they feed very rapidly on very small prey.

 

The Red-necked Phalarope, a member of the shorebird family, is functionally among the world's smallest seabirds. Smallest and daintiest of the 3 phalarope species, it spends up to 9 months of the year at sea, riding on a raft of dense belly plumage and feeding on tiny planktonic invertebrates at oceanographic fronts, convergences, and other discontinuities.

birdsna.org/Species-Account/bna/species/renpha/introduction

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Uploaded on November 18, 2017
Taken on November 17, 2017