Red phalarope

Voice

Usually silent; if you do hear one, it is a short, high, sharp pit or wit, thinner and higher than Red-necked Phalarope and easily lost in the wind. Feeding parties at sea keep up a soft, high twittering. On the breeding grounds displaying females give a fast, low rattling prrp-prrp. Off the Dutch and Spanish coasts birds nearly always pass in silence, so do not count on sound.

Identification

Bulkier and rounder than Red-necked Phalarope, with a short, thick, blunt bill that is yellow at the base. In the plumages we see, winter and first-winter, the mantle is plain pale grey with no pale lines, and the head is white with a black eye-patch and a dark rear crown. September juveniles are still dark-backed with cream fringes and a pink-buff wash on neck and breast, but moult quickly into that clean grey. Summer females are spectacular: deep rusty red from throat to tail, with a white face patch, black crown and yellow bill; males are duller. On the water it sits high, rear body raised, and often spins in tight circles to stir up food.

Confusion species

Red-necked Phalarope is the heart of the problem: smaller and slimmer, with a needle-fine, wholly black bill, and in winter a darker grey mantle with obvious pale lines down the back. Juvenile Red-necked are much darker above with striking buff-yellow mantle stripes. At range on the sea a floating Red Phalarope can suggest a Little Gull or a small auk, but the spinning feeding action and the ticking bill movements are diagnostic. Sanderling is white and grey too, but runs on the beach and does not swim.

Habitat

Outside the breeding season wholly pelagic: it winters on the open ocean above upwellings and along plankton-rich current boundaries, picking from the surface film. Only gales bring it inshore or, exceptionally, to an inland pool or harbour, where it may then feed without any shyness at your feet. It breeds on wet coastal tundra with pools and sedge in the high Arctic.

Range and movements

Breeds in Iceland, Svalbard, arctic Russia, Greenland and northern Canada, and winters at sea, including over the upwellings off West Africa and South America. For the Netherlands it is a scarce but annual autumn migrant recorded from seawatch points, peaking in October and November with most birds after north-westerly gales. Along the Spanish coast it is more regular, especially over the Bay of Biscay and off Galicia, and it passes the Strait of Gibraltar in varying numbers.

• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Seawatching is the best chance: in October or November, after a hard north-westerly to westerly blow, take up position behind a groyne or in a seawatch hide and scan the surface of the water rather than the sky. A Red Phalarope stands out as a small, pale, high-riding bird that vanishes into the troughs and bobs up again, often spinning. In the days after the storm it pays to check adjacent beach lakes, harbours and even inland waters; wind-blown birds sometimes linger for a day or two and then allow point-blank views.

Conservation status

Least Concern, with a large circumpolar world population that is hard to count because it disperses across the open ocean. The European breeders in Iceland and Svalbard form only a small part of it. Its vulnerability lies mainly at sea: changes in plankton production through warming and shifting currents, oil pollution and entanglement in fishing gear affect it directly, while on the breeding grounds earlier snowmelt and predation play a part. Mass mortality after prolonged storms is well documented.