You might be asking yourself "what exactly is a phalarope?" Great question. A phalarope is a type of shorebird. There are 3 species in the world: Red, Red-necked and Wilson's and all occur in North America. We occasionally have Wilson's phalaropes stop by in New Jersey on their way to and from the arctic where they breed. Red and Red-necked can be seen off the cost of of New Jersey flying and swimming offshore. Yes, swimming. All phalaropes swim. You can see Red-necked and Wilson's phalaropes swimming in this video that I shot in Utah.
They spin around in the water to trap food in a little whirlpool. Pretty cool. We saw a lot of phalaropes on Antelope Island. They are already finished breeding and heading back south for the winter and its only July. We stopped along the causeway to admire the throngs of phalaropes in the water and along the shoreline when all of a sudden, they all took flight. Our group of birders spotted a Peregrine Falcon chasing after the birds. Birds often fly in "murmuration" to confuse the predator. I've seen murmurations before but this one was spectacular.
You can hear our tour guide say that he estimates 250,000 phalaropes in the area. Wow. Unfortunately for the shorebirds, there were only 249,999 after the Peregrine flew through. We watch the falcon have lunch on on the mudflat while the other birds settled down. I don't think I've ever seen a flock of birds that large before.
Seeing that many birds is really incredible but you can't really get a good look or photo of any individual bird. On another day, we did get close up to a few shorebirds including a few Wilson's phalaropes.
Wilson's Phalarope
Here is a phalarope with a Long-billed Dowitcher.
Long-billed Dowitcher and Wilson's Phalarope
And here is another fraternizing with another Wilson. This time, Wilson's Snipe. 2 of the birds named after the father of ornithology, Alexander Wilson on the same pond. Neither of them gets the irony of their human-given names.
Wilsons facing off - phalarope and snipe
We spent a good bit of time at the pond watching other birds as well including White-faced Ibis.
White-faced Ibis
And a few Common Nighthawks that wouldn't call it quits even after the sun was up in the sky. I caught a few photos. You can see the mountains in the background.
Common Nighthawk
The trip was pretty great. Although we raced around between 3 states, we also got to spend quality time with many of the birds that we saw.
I went out on another pelagic birding trip yesterday with SeeLife Paulagics in hopes of seeing some offshore birds. We left Wildwood Crest aboard the Atlantic Star at 10 PM Sunday night and made it 100 miles offshore to the edge of the continental shelf by 4 AM. The seas were calm, the sky was bright blue and the temperature was perfect.
We were greeted by Leach's, Band-rumped and Wilson's Stormpetrels in the early morning. These are little birds that can smell fish guts and shark liver oil from miles away (that's what we use as chum). Here is Band-rumped in flight.
Band-rumped Stormpetrel
Here is the Band-rumped picking at the chum.
Band-rumped Stormpetrel
This is Wilson's. I know, it looks exactly like the Band-rumped. The only way that I can tell the two apart is by the way the Wilson's feet drag out behind the tail when they fly. This is because their legs are a little bit longer than the Band-rumped. Who ever figured that out?
Wilson's Stormpetrel
Here is the Wilson's with a tasty morsel of shark liver. He actually looks happy. Yuck.
Wilson's Stormpetrel with chum
We were all hoping for another type of Stormpetrel called White-faced but we didn't see one all day. We did have a few unexpected sightings but not the avian type. These were the cretaceous type. The trip leaders saw a whale blow in the distance so we headed over to get closer. Even at a distance, the leaders knew what type of whale it was. They could tell by the blow. Notice that the spray isn't going straight up but it is shooting out to the left (away from the camera). That indicates Sperm Whale. Point of interest - Right Whales are named "Right" because they blow to the right.
Sperm Whale blow
Sperm Whales eat giant squid that they find at the bottom of the sea. We were in 6000 feet of water. This fellow took a deep breath and headed down just as we approached. You can tell that they are going deep when you see the giant fluke rise up into the air like this.
One Sperm Whale sighting is amazing but as we turned our attention to the other side of the boat, we saw 6 more whales blowing to the left. Wow. We were actually in the midst of a pod of females and calves! I tried video where you can see 2 whales diving.
I know, I know - "whoooaaa". I wanted to provide commentary but when they dove, all I could say is whoooaaaa.
Whales weren't the only mammal surprise. We also encountered 2 pods of dolphins that are rare for the area. These are called Pantropic Spotted Dolphins and are usually found much farther south than Jersey. Boy did they put on a show. No video, but I got some pretty good photos. They really like to jump out of the water.
Pantropic Spotted Dolphins
They also like to play in the wake of the boat.
Jumping the wake!
They got so close to the boat that you could see the spots that give them their name. You can also see that they are pink too.
Pink and spotty
This one got so close that you can see his exhale bubble trail underwater.
Exhale
And then immediately inhale when the blow hole broke the surface of the water.
Inhale
The dolphin and whale show would have made the trip for me. We could have gone back to the dock at this point which we kind of started to do. After all, it takes 6 hours to get out here and 6 hours to get back to Wildwood. On our way back, we found some more good birds like Cory's Shearwater. We probably saw 20 or so. This guy flew by pretty close.
Cory's Shearwater
Here is another Cory's (right, back) sitting with a Great Shearwater (left, front).
Greater and Cory's Shearwaters
This Audubon's Shearwater also put on a show close to the boat.
Audubon's Shearwater
Once again, I realize that they all look alike at first. Here is a bird that stood out from the others. This is Pomarine Jaeger in mid molt which makes him look more like a vulture. Ugly.
Pomarine Jaeger
Another bird that is still weird to see 60 miles offshore is this Red-necked Phalarope. These are shorbirds that make their living at sea. It is still hard to believe even though we see them regularly.
Red-necked Phalarope
What made this sighting even more odd is that this bird was eating a moth. How does a moth get 60 miles offshore only to be eaten by a shorebird?
Yummy, salty moth
The day was really great. Made it back to Rydal by 7 PM sun kissed, salty and pooped!
I had a really great experience the other night after work. Harvey found a Wilson's Phalarope at Higbee dike dredge spoils and told me about it. He said that he had never been that close to one before. He was right. Patty and I went to the dike to photograph the bird and got really close - even with Roxy at our side. Here are some photos of this amazing bird. It's a shorebird that also swims! Highly unusual.
Wilson's Phalarope
Wilson's Phalarope - raising a ruckus!
The Wilson's Phalarope is on the left. Check out those beefy legs. They need them to swim in open ocean. The bird on the right is a Lesser Yellowlegs.
Wilson's Phalarope, Lesser Yellowlegs, peep
Check out how close we got to the bird. That's Patty in the foreground and the phalarope in the water.
Patty and the phalarope
I hope for more migration this weekend. Happy Labor Day!
