Species BirdsWilson's Phalarope

Wilson's Phalarope

Phalaropus tricolor

CommonBird
Illustration of Wilson's Phalarope (Phalaropus tricolor)

Wilson's Phalarope is the largest phalarope and the only one that lacks webbed feet, breeding inland on prairie wetlands rather than at sea. Like all phalaropes, roles are reversed — the more colorful female establishes territory, courts the male, and leaves him to incubate and raise the young. It feeds by spinning rapidly on the water surface to create a vortex that draws prey upward.

Habitat
Prairie marshes in summer; saline lakes in late summer
Diet
Aquatic invertebrates and brine shrimp
How common
Common

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