View allAll Photos Tagged RedNeckedPhalarope
Not often seen around my parts at this time of year and a lifer for me is this Phalarope. They hunt for food usually with another and swim in circles until they drum up what they are looking for.
Been off for a while, and now trying my best to play catch-up.
All my birds are gone, so I have been playin with me pup Sadie. Yeah I promised..I'll post some soon!
This is very much an abstract portrait.
I have previously uploaded a wider angled view of a larger group of these Red Necked Phalaropes that we came across on a ferry over Puget Sound. This image at a first glance can look somewhat puzzling, almost as though there were six birds in this flock. A closer look will reveal that there were just three and that their reflections in the glassy waters surface creates that impression.
Thanks must go to Tim for his identification.
The one that everybody wants to see in Iceland is not this one but the Red Phalarope, one of the rarest bird of Iceland with a population of less than 300 birds The Red-necked Phalarope is much more common with around 50,000 pair breeding and can be easily found all over Iceland. The Red Phalarope is known to breed on Flatey Island but we had made the decision not to visit that Island... at least not this time.... Having seen and photographed the Red Phalarope previously in Alaska, this is not a bird that was high on our list .... Furthermore, perhaps the Red-necked Phalarope is not as "desirable" for those maintaining a list but they are so interesting and entertaining ... I find it fascinating to watch them, no matter how many times I have seen them before.
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Aveiro | Portugal
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A Red-necked Phalarope with a bug. It is fun to watch the food searching process of these small birds and very difficult to keep the focus locked at the same time.
Taken last year when we had an amazing opportunity to see these birds in their breeding plumage.
A bit of a record of a truly delightful little bird. This was taken at a relatively well known spot on Benebecula. I want to go to Iceland now as there are apparently places where these will walk almost on top of you.
Aveiro | Portugal
Muito obrigado pelos seus comentários e favoritos.
Many thanks for your coments and favs.
Taken at Boundary Bay, Delta, BC - August 2016
I had an incredible experience photographing this juvenile Red-necked Phalarope at Boundary Bay. I spotted it feeding all on it's own, and after a long time slowly approaching, I found myself close enough for some great shots. The bird completely ignored me and kept on feeding until it was too close to focus! In addition to closeups with my big lens, I also put on a wide angle and took some wide photos to show the bird in its habitat.
When I spotted this shorebird at the same location that I found a Dunlin about 2 days before, I initially thought this was the same bird. (See previous frame for Dunlin photo.) However with a closer look I realized this was an even rarer bird, a Phalarope. Finding this species definitely made my day and I had a chance to read-up on Phalaropes:
Red-necked Phalaropes are fascinating shorebirds. Sex roles are reversed so that the females are the more colorful ones and it is they who compete aggressively with each other for the males. Responsibility for tending to the eggs and the young goes to the male. Red-necked Phalaropes breed in the Arctic but spend winters off the coast of Ecuador and Peru in tropical ocean waters.
Saratoga Lake
Stillwater, NY
The Red-necked Phalarope has a circumpolar distribution with the northern edge of the province at the southern extremity of its breeding range.
(The Atlas of Breeding Birds of Alberta)
I don't see these every year so this was my best find of the day.
Since they are northern breeders, I hope this one is in the vanguard of the shorebird and Phalarope southern migration
Lamont County, Alberta.
In non breeding plumage. It was nice to get these two views together.
According to The American Bird Conservancy:
"The Red-necked Phalarope breeds across the "top" of the world, nesting on tundra from Alaska and across northern Canada to Greenland, coastal Scandinavia, and across Russia's northern fringe to the Kamchatka Peninsula and the islands ranging east toward Alaska.
In the Americas, this bird winters well offshore in the Pacific, from off southern Mexico to the Galápagos and in waters far off the coast of Peru and Chile"
Cooking Lake. Strathcona County, Alberta..
Female Red-necked Phalarope sighting in on a potential meal on a shallow pond outside Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Not looking too good for the bug...