The Red Phalarope is the most maritime of the three phalaropes, spending most of its life at sea, and it is the rarest of them in Michigan. Like its relatives it has reversed sex roles, with the brighter female — in breeding plumage a deep brick-red below with a white face patch — competing for mates while the duller male tends the nest. But the birds that reach Michigan are almost always in the pale gray-and-white nonbreeding plumage, showing a dark eye patch and a slightly stout bill often with a pale yellow base, and they swim buoyantly on open water.
Red Phalaropes breed on the high Arctic tundra and winter on tropical and subtropical oceans, an unusually pelagic life for a shorebird, and they migrate largely offshore. In Michigan they occur as rare migrants, mostly in late fall, sometimes after storms push them inland, appearing on the open water of the Great Lakes and large lakes, where they swim and spin to feed like other phalaropes. A Red Phalarope bobbing far out on a Great Lake is a coveted late-season find for the state's birders.
Feeds on aquatic insects, crustaceans, and plankton, spinning in tight circles on the water to draw prey to the surface and picking them off with its bill. It feeds largely while swimming and, on its ocean wintering grounds, takes plankton and small marine prey at sea.
The Red Phalarope is a bit larger and stouter-billed, and in nonbreeding plumage looks cleaner gray-and-white with a plainer back. The Red-necked Phalarope has a finer, needle-like bill and, in nonbreeding plumage, a streakier back. Both show a dark eye patch.
The Red Phalarope is highly pelagic, spending most of its life at sea and migrating largely offshore. It reaches Michigan only as a rare migrant, mostly in late fall, sometimes after storms push birds inland onto the Great Lakes.
Yes. In phalaropes the female is the brighter, larger bird that competes for mates, while the duller male incubates the eggs and raises the young — the reverse of most birds.
Because Michigan gets them outside the breeding season, when both sexes are pale gray and white with a dark eye patch. The brick-red plumage belongs to breeding females on the Arctic tundra.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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