Cathy mentioned she's been seeing some Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) at Salmon Creek, so I went for a short walk there before work this morning (26 August 2021). It was foggy and gray with hardly any wind, and perhaps that was a setup for an interesting feeding behavior.
Although I'm used to seeing phalaropes picking insects (or other invertebrates) out of the water or off the surface, this morning many of the phalaropes were snatching flies out of the air! In the photo above, can you see the fly above the phalarope's bill?
Here's another phalarope leaping into the air to catch a fly, ballet-style:
And a couple more:
Such an interesting behavior to watch.
At the other end of the day, after work, I stopped to look at some shorebirds on the mudflats in Bodega Harbor. The sun was out but it was very low on the horizon —
beautiful conditions, and more phalaropes!
3 comments:
What a lovely post. Really nice photographs of nifty birds and interesting behavior. Thank you!
Thanks, Alice! I'll never get tired of watching phalaropes!
:) Jackie
Since 1995 we’ve been watching the ducks and birds in Salmon Creek (our kitchen window overlooks the creek), and I don’t recall seeing phalaropes in past years—certainly not in these numbers nor for as long. They’ve been here about a month now.
We love your photos!
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