Alexander Wetmore (1925), in his report on the food of the red phalarope, analyzed the contents of 36 stomachs, mainly from the Pribilof Islands, with some from New York and Maine; they were collected from May to November, but mainly in August. Crustaceans made up 33.5 per cent of the food; beetles amounted to 27.3 per cent; flies formed 22.7 per cent; and 6.8 per cent consisted of tiny fishes, mostly sculpins. The food of this species therefore shows it to be harmless or neutral.
Behavior.—Phalaropes are active, lively birds in all their movements and they seem to be constantly on the move. They are all rapid fliers and this species is decidedly the swiftest on the wing of all three. As the restless flocks move about over the water, their aerial evolutions are well worth watching. Lucien M. Turner, in his Labrador notes, writes that he has seen them "ascend to a great height in increasing circles, darting in and out among each other and making a peculiar twitter as they ascend. When some suitable locality is discerned these birds descend almost perpendicularly and drop on the water as softly as a feather." They are so much like sandpipers in appearance and in manner of flight that one is always surprised to see them alight on the water.
Perhaps even more surprising than their peculiar marital relations are their aquatic habits. Their semipalmated and lobed toes are well adapted for swimming and the thick, compact plumage of their under parts protects them and buoys them up on the water. They float as lightly as corks, or as freshly fallen autumn leaves on a woodland pool, swimming swiftly and whirling rapidly, undisturbed by rushing currents or by foaming breakers. William Brewster (1925) has well described the behavior of a red phalarope on an inland stream at Umbagog Lake, Me.; he writes:
I strolled across a suspension footbridge that spans Bear River here, a shallow stream rippling over a rocky bed scarce 50 feet in width, beneath overhanging yellow birches and other deciduous trees. Returning a few minutes later I had reached the middle of the bridge when a grayish bird started directly under it and flew off down stream for a few rods, skimming close to the water and uttering a sharp whit, whit, which reminded me of the call of a spotted sandpiper concerned for the safety of its young. Almost at the first glance I recognized the bird as a red phalarope whose presence in such a place surprised me greatly, of course. Alighting, again, in the middle of the river it floated buoyantly and stemmed the swift current with apparent ease, although avoiding such exertion, whenever possible, by taking advantage of backward-flowing eddies. Presently it began working around the bases of some large boulders where it seemed to be obtaining abundant food by pecking rapidly and incessantly at their rough flanks, wetted by lapping waves. It also fed on the surface of the swirling eddies, paddling about very rapidly and in devious courses. It was most interesting to see a bird whose characteristic haunts, at least in autumn and winter, are boundless stretches of wind-swept ocean, thus disporting itself in a brawling mountain stream overarched by trees. Even a water ousel could not have appeared more perfectly at home there. Like most phalaropes this one was tame and confiding, but whenever I approached within 20 or 25 feet, it would rise and fly on a few yards, giving the whit call.
On land their movements are exceedingly rapid and graceful, though somewhat erratic; they run about excitedly with all the restless activity of sandpipers, nodding their heads with a pretty, dovelike motion. At such times they are remarkably tame, unsuspicious, and gentle birds; as they do not habitually come in contact with human beings, they are unafraid.
Voice.—The vocal performances of the red phalarope are not elaborate. As quoted above, Doctor Nelson (1887) describes its note as "a low and musical clink, clink, sounding very much like the noise made by lightly tapping together two small bars of steel." Mr. Brewster (1925) refers to the note as "an emphatic zip, zip, closely resembling that of Bonaparte's sandpiper ... but louder and mellower." Again he says: "Once they rose and flew about the pond precisely like small sandpipers, one of them uttering a peep-like tweet just as it left the water." Charles W. Townsend (1920) saw one which "emitted a whistle which was clear and pleasant at times, and again sharp and grating; at times the note could be expressed as a creak."
Field marks.—In its nuptial plumage the red phalarope can be easily recognized by its brilliant colors; the male is smaller, his colors are duller, and his breast is mixed with white. In its winter plumage, in which we usually see it, it is likely to be confused with the northern phalarope or the sanderling. It is larger than the former, more stockily built and has a shorter, thicker bill, which is yellowish at the base. From the sanderling it can be distinguished by the gray markings on the head and neck, which are mainly white in winter sanderlings, by the darker gray of the back and by the yellow at the base of the bill. Phalaropes are usually tame enough to allow close study of these details. John T. Nichols suggests to me the following additional field characters:
This phalarope holds its gray plumage well into the spring and adults quickly resume same when they go to sea in late summer. Around the first of August flocks offshore are in gray and white "winter" plumage, but a few birds have a peculiar pink tone appreciable on the underparts at fair range, apt to be strongest posteriorly, and which is diagnostic. It is caused by scattered old red feathers overlaid by the delicate tips of new white ones. The white wing stripe is somewhat broader in this than in the northern phalarope and in gray plumage the upper parts are of so pale a tone that the wing pattern appears faint, something as it does in the piping plover. What seems to be a late summer plumage of birds of the year, on the other hand, is less white than the corresponding one of the northern. As the bird sits on the water the sides of its neck, breast, and sides appear brownish (not red or pink), the only touch of whitish it shows is on the flanks. At close range a curved phalarope mark behind the eye is just indicated, corresponding to the bold contrasting mark in the northern.