Wilson’s Phalarope Images

Wilson’s Phalarope Images, Facts and Information:

Phalaropus tricolor

• Wilson’s Phalaropes are small, grayish shorebirds with long, slender legs, thin straight long bills and short necks.
• In breeding plumage the female Wilson’s Phalarope is the most colorful of the sexes.
• Phalaropes are the only shorebirds that regularly swim in deep water.
• The preferred breeding habitat for Wilson’s Phalaropes include marshes, grassy edges of shallow lakes, reservoirs and even ditches in the Great Plains and Intermountain West with spotty breeding areas in the Midwest. During migration they can be found in hypersaline lakes like the Great Salt Lake. They spend winters in South America.
• Wilson’s Phalaropes eat small aquatic invertebrates such as brine shrimp and midges.
• Wilson’s Phalaropes lay 4 eggs which take 18 to 21 days to hatch. Only the male incubates and he raises the young.
• A group of phalaropes can be called a “swirl”, “twirl”, “whirl” and a “whirligig” of phalaropes because of their twirling motion causing whirlpools when they feed at times.
• Wilson’s Phalaropes can live up to 10 years.

I hope you enjoy viewing my Wilson’s Phalarope photos.