They flew in fast and low to the water, every downstroke and graceful turn screaming shorebird and Blue Angel precision. The expectation that they would land on the shoreline evaporated when the birds landed in the water.
Well, fancy that.
After thumbing through bird books and observing with binoculars and a birding scope, we pinned down the one of three possibilities phalaropes rather than red or Wilson’s.
So what’s a member of the Scolopacidae family, order Charadriiformes (sandpipers, phalaropes) doing swimming?
Sandpipers, after all, work the sand and mud along the shoreline, staying on the beach, at the water’s edge or in shallow water, depending on the species.
But there’s an exception to the rule: red and red-necked phalaropes. Although they can be found feeding along the shoreline, they will more than likely be spotted in deeper water or at sea, where they fed on zooplankton.
So how does a shorebird swim? The exception to the rule has three things going for it: toes with lobs on the sides and small webs at the base, slightly flattened legs and plumage that can trap air for buoyancy.
Wilson’s, the largest of the three with the longest legs and bills but less lobe and web area, rarely swims.
While we’re talking exceptions, phalaropes, unlike other sandpiper-like birds, exhibit role reversal. The females rule in the mating game, compete for nesting areas and pursue the males. They’re 20 percent larger and more colorful.
Males usually create the nest, a scrape on the ground lined with grasses and lichen, incubate the eggs (usually four, laid one a day) and hang out with the young for a couple of weeks.
This allows females to lay up to four sets of eggs fertilized by multiple males, important when your nests are on the ground and highly susceptible to predators.
Phalaropes are the faster feeders on Earth and the only animal that spins to eat. The spin creates a depression in the water, a little whirlpool that draws out-of-reach prey upward as deeper water rushes to fill in the depression.
Spinning is an energy-draining experience so they don’t do it when there’s accessible food close to the surface.
Apparently they don’t get dizzy from kicking several times a second to whirl around about once every second. But neither do pirouetting ballerinas, who focus on one point during the action. Perhaps it’s the same for phalaropes.
Although some sources say phalaropes spin in only one direction, observations by many birders say otherwise. In a crowd, there’s a tendency for almost all phalaropes to spin counterclockwise.
But in less crowded situations, individual phalaropes have been seen with right-hand or left-hand spins; a few changed directions, others did not.
In the fall, red and red-necked phalaropes look similar with gray above and white below and a dark ear patch on a white face. Although the red’s back is not streaked, the red-neck’s back is strongly streaked with gray with a more distinctly dark eye patch and cap.
When not breeding in the Arctic, the 8- to 9-inch-long red-necked phalaropes spend up to nine months at sea thousands of miles to the south. Here, migration is usually over the continental shelf to the southern hemisphere; red-neckeds peak in August through mid-September and are fairly common in Western Washington’s inland waters
The red phalaropes are rarely encountered anywhere but offshore; Wilson’s phalaropes are rarely seen west of the Cascades.
If you see a sandpiper-like bird land in the water, think red-necked phalarope.
White-water action: If you’re looking for white-water adventure, head south. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been releasing water from Rimrock Lake into the Tieton River, southeast of Mount Rainier.
Farmers use the water to irrigate crops; rafters ride the resulting Class III white-water rapids.
Rafting companies take tours in September and October. The best weekends are this weekend and next but rafting continues into October.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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