A few birds from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
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Red-necked Phalarope:Red-necked Phalarope Talegcaaraq When I first saw Red-necked phalaropes I thought they were birds gone crazy. Spinning like tops on the surface of the water, they absolutely captivated me. I later learned they do this to stir the bottom to cause food items to rise to the surface so they can eat them there. This is because their dense breast plumage traps so much air that it makes them too buoyant to dabble or dive for their food, which usually consists of the larvae of small insects like mosquitoes. The Yupik name I found in Hooper Bay that describes their frenetic behavior well is, Talegcaaraq, meaning “trying really hard to scratch or scour something.” I was recently (May, 2010) in Hooper Bay walking in the sand dunes near the ocean and I saw these little whirling dervishes again. And again I was captivated as I watched them do their little dance on the top of the water. I noticed the red color of the male was lighter than that of the female. This is because phalaropes (including the two other species in North America) practice something called sequential polyandry, meaning that after the female mates with a male and lays her eggs, she ends the relationship and leaves him to incubate the eggs and care for the young while she goes off to repeat her actions with another male. Since the male is responsible for brooding the eggs, he has to be less visible to predators while on the nest, hence his duller coloration. This role reversal also means that the female is the one who competes with other females for the attentions of a male. I remember watching one do this a few summers ago in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where a lot of these birds nest. She flew around the male with whirring of wings, then settled on the water and swam circles around him, calling him in a low voice, trying to make him follow her to mate. At first, he was reluctant, but eventually, after she aggressively drove other rival females away, the temptress had her way. Before she lays her eggs, though, both male and female clear shallow scrapes on the ground in low vegetation near water. The female chooses the actual nest site, then the male, sometimes with the help of the female, lines the scrape with grass, leaves and moss. She lays four, brown-blotched, olive-colored eggs, then he settles in to brood them for about 19 days. The eggs all hatch at about the same time, then the downy young leave the scrape within 24 hours and find the nearest body of water to swim on. Although they know how to feed themselves from the get-go, their father watches over them and broods them for the next two weeks. During this period of day care, he sometimes will adopt orphans from someone else’s brood where the father was grabbed by a predator. At the end of the third week the young take to the sky for their first flight and prepare for the fall migration. During their fall migration phalaropes go to sea, and that’s where they remain for the entire winter. This makes them the most pelagic of all the shorebirds. And they are able to do this because they have salt glands that separate the salt from the seawater they drink to sustain themselves. Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim birds winter in the Pacific Ocean, mainly south of the Equator off the coast of western South America. Let’s finish off with some names. Their scientific name is Phalaropus lobatus, meaning “lobe-footed coot,” although this bird is most definitely a shorebird and not a coot. It has other Yupik names, including Imarcaaraq, meaning “really trying hard to get what’s in the water,” and Ceqcaaq, which means “being excitedly active and noisy.” This last moniker describes best what this bird represents to me. Finally, as with all birds, this phalarope has other common English names: bank bird, gale bird, hyperborean phalarope, mackerel-goose, sea-goose, sea-snipe, northern phalarope, web-footed peep, whale-bird, and white bank-bird.  |
