The Introduction Article is just the first of 11 articles in each species account that provide life history information for the species. The remaining articles provide detailed information regarding distribution, migration, habitat, diet, sounds, behavior, breeding, current population status and conservation. Each species account also includes a multimedia section that displays the latest photos, audio selections and videos from Macaulay Library’s extensive galleries. Written and continually updated by acknowledged experts on each species, Birds of North America accounts include a comprehensive bibliography of published research on the species.
A subscription is needed to access the remaining account articles and multimedia content.
Figure 1. Distribution of the Red-necked Phalarope.
Distribution of the Red-necked Phalarope in North and Central America. During winter, a few birds are observed irregularly within the areas enclosed by the dashed lines. This species largely winters along the Pacific coast of South America from northern Peru south to central Chile.
Adult female Red-necked Phalarope, breeding plumage; Alaska, June
Colville River Delta, Alaska, June.; photographer Gerrit Vyn
The Red-necked Phalarope, a member of the shorebird family, is functionally among the world's smallest seabirds. Smallest and daintiest of the 3 phalarope species, it spends up to 9 months of the year at sea, riding on a raft of dense belly plumage and feeding on tiny planktonic invertebrates at oceanographic fronts, convergences, and other discontinuities. During that time, both sexes are largely white with gray mantles and striking piratical black eye-patches, and are difficult to distinguish from their equally pelagic congener, the Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicaria), except by the fineness of their bills and bodies. Red-necked Phalaropes are famous, as are the other 2 species of phalarope, for lifting aquatic prey within reach by rapidly spinning in tight circles in a manner reminiscent of a slightly demented toy.
Formerly known as the Northern Phalarope, this species breeds widely across the Holarctic. Like other phalaropes, it is a polyandrous species in which sex roles are reversed; breeding females are distinguishable by brighter plumage than males and by slightly larger body size. The species is largely nonterritorial, but females fight ferociously over males, which provide all parental care. Nests are terrestrial, but the affinity of this species for water is evident through the feeding, fighting, and copulation on almost every small tundra pond.
Postbreeding, Red-necked Phalaropes migrate to pelagic wintering areas either over the open ocean or via inland bodies of water of all sizes and description. In western North America, tens of thousands use hypersaline lakes as fueling stations on their way south to the Humboldt Current off Peru and Ecuador. In eastern North America, massive flocks totaling millions formerly staged in fall in the western Bay of Fundy; in recent years, these have disappeared. This troubling development remains a puzzle, like much of the pelagic biology of this species, and has been mirrored by similar declines in numbers of migratory phalaropes observed off Japan.
The circumpolar distribution and sex-role reversal of this species has generated interest in its breeding biology since the early part of the twentieth century. Much of what is known about breeding behavior of Red-necked Phalaropes was first described in some form in Tinbergen's (
Tinbergen, N. (1935). Field observations of East Greenland birds: I. The behavior of the Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus L.) in spring. Ardea 26:1-42.
Tinbergen 1935) detailed observations in Greenland, and Hildén and Vuolanto's (
Hildén, O. and S. Vuolanto. (1972). Breeding biology of the Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus in Finland. Ornis Fennica 49:57-85.
Hildén and Vuolanto 1972) multiyear study in Finland. More recently, the work of Colwell, Reynolds, and their colleagues in Canada (e.g., Colwell et al.
Colwell, M. A., S. D. Fellows and L. W. Oring. (1988a). Chronology of shorebird migration at Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada. Wader Study Group Bulletin 52:18-22.
Colwell et al. 1988a,
Colwell, M. A., C. L. Gratto, L. W. Oring and A. J. Fivizzani. (1988b). Effects of blood sampling on shorebirds: injuries, return rates, and clutch desertions. Condor 90:942-945.
Colwell et al. 1988b,
Colwell, M. A., J. D. Reynolds, C. L. Gratto, D. Schamel and D. Tracy. (1988c). Phalarope philopatry. Paper read at Proceedings of the XIXth International Ornithological Congress, at Ottowa, ON.
Colwell et al. 1988c;
Reynolds, J. D. and F. Cooke. (1988). The influence of mating systems on philopatry: a test with polyandrous Red-necked Phalaropes. Animal Behaviour 36:1788-1795.
Reynolds and Cooke 1988;
Reynolds, J. D. (1987a). Mating system and nesting biology of the Red-neck Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus: what constrains polyandry? Ibis 129:225-242.
Reynolds 1987a;
Reynolds, J. D., M. A. Colwell and F. Cooke. (1986). Sexual selection and spring arrival times of Red-necked and Wilson's phalaropes. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 18:303-310.
Reynolds et al. 1986), and Schamel and Tracy (
Schamel, D. and D. M. Tracy. (1988). Are yearlings distinguishable from older Red-necked Phalaropes? Journal of Field Ornithology 59:235-238.
Schamel and Tracy 1988,
Schamel, D. and D. M. Tracy. (1991). Breeding site fidelity and natal philopatry in the sex role-reversed Red and Red-necked phalaropes. Journal of Field Ornithology 62:390-398.
Schamel and Tracy 1991) in Alaska has broadened our knowledge of the breeding biology of this species. The endocrinology of sex-role reversal in phalaropes was revealed by Höhn (
Höhn, E. O. (1963). Steroid hormone content of the gonads of phalaropes and certain other birds in relation to sexual behavior in phalaropes. J. Physiol. 169:42-43.
Höhn 1963,
Höhn, E. O. (1970). Gonadal hormone concentrations in Northern Phalaropes in relation to nuptial plumage. Canadian Journal of Zoology 48:400-401.
Höhn 1970), Gratto-Trevor et al. (
Gratto-Trevor, C. L., A. J. Fivizzani, L. W. Oring and F. Cooke. (1990a). Seasonal changes in gonadal steroids of a monogamous versus a polyandrous shorebird. General and Comparative Endocrinology 80:407-418.
Gratto-Trevor et al. 1990a,
Gratto-Trevor, C. L., L. W. Oring, A. J. Fivizzani, M. E. El Halawani and F. Cooke. (1990b). The role of prolactin in parental care in a monogamous and a polyandrous shorebird. Auk 107:718-729.
Gratto-Trevor et al. 1990b), and Oring and Fivizzani (
Oring, L. W. and A. J. Fivizzani. (1991). "Reproductive endocrinology of sex-role reversal." In Proc. XX Intl. Ornithol. Congr., 2072-2091. Christchurch, New Zealand.
Oring and Fivizzani 1991).
In contrast, very little is known about the migratory or wintering biology of the species at sea; our most detailed information about migration comes from a single saline lake in California (
Winkler, D. W., C. P. Weigen, F. B. Engstrom and S. E. Burch. (1977). "Ornithology." In An ecological study of Mono Lake, California., edited by D. W. Winkler, 88-113. Davis, Inst. Ecol. Publ. 12: 1-184: Univ. of California.
Winkler et al. 1977,
Jehl, Jr., J. R. (1986b). Biology of the Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) at the western edge of the Great Basin in fall migration. Great Basin Nat. Mem. 46:185-197.
Jehl 1986b,
Rubega, M. A. and C. Inouye. (1994). Switching in phalaropes: feeding limitations, the functional response and water policy at Mono Lake, CA. Biological Conservation 70:205-210.
Rubega and Inouye 1994) and the Bay of Fundy (
Mercier, F. M. (1985). Fat reserves and migration of Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) in the Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:2810-2816.
Mercier 1985,
Mercier, F. and D. E. Gaskin. (1985). Feeding ecology of migrating Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) in the Quoddy region, New Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:1062-1067.
Mercier and Gaskin 1985,
Brown, R. G. B. and D. E. Gaskin. (1988). The pelagic ecology of the Grey and Red-necked phalaropes Phalaropus fulicarius and P. lobatus in the Bay of Fundy, eastern Canada. Ibis 130:234-250.
Brown and Gaskin 1988). Even less is known about its biology at sea, because of the logistical difficulties of finding and observing the species offshore. Since Murphy's (
Murphy, R. C. (1936). Oceanic birds of South America. Vol. 2. New York: Am. Mus. Nat. Hist.
Murphy 1936) account of vast flocks wintering in the Humboldt Current, a few workers have added distributional and diet data, and confirmed the affinity of these birds for oceanographic features that concentrate prey near the surface (
Briggs, K. T., K. F. Dettman, D. B. Lewis and W. B. Tyler. (1984). "Phalarope feeding in relation to autumn upwelling off California." In Marine birds: their feeding ecology and commercial fisheries relationships., edited by D. N. Nettleship, G. A. Sanger and P. F. Springer, 51-62. Ottawa, ON: Spec. Publ., Can. Wildl. Serv.
Briggs et al. 1984; Haney
Haney, J. C. (1985c). Wintering phalaropes off the southeastern United States: application of remote sensing imagery to seabird habitat analysis at oceanic fronts. Journal of Field Ornithology 56:321-333.
Haney 1985c,
Haney, J. C. (1986b). Seabird patchiness in tropical oceanic waters: the influence of Sargassum "reefs.". Auk 103:141-151.
Haney 1986b;
Tyler, W. B., K. T. Briggs, D. B. Lewis and R. G. Ford. (1993). "Seabird distribution and abundance in relation to oceanographic processes in the California Current system." In The status, ecology and conservation of marine birds of the North Pacific., edited by K. Vermeer, K. T. Briggs, K. H. Morgan and D. Siegal-Causey, 48-60. Ottawa: Can. Wildl. Serv. Spec. Publ.
Tyler et al. 1993;
Wahl, T. R., K. H. Morgan and K. Vermeer. (1993). "Seabird distribution off British Columbia and Washington." In The status, ecology and conservation of marine birds of the North Pacific., edited by K. Vermeer, K. T. Briggs, K. H. Morgan and D. Siegel-Causey, 39-47. Ottawa: Can. Wildl. Serv. Spec. Publ.
Wahl et al. 1993).
Recommended Citation
Rubega, M. A., D. Schamel, and D. M. Tracy (2000). Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.538