HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
Phalaropus hyperboreus, Lath.
PLATE CCXV. Male, Female, and Young.
Few individuals of this species are ever seen to the South of New York. Near Boston I procured several, and my learned friend Thomas Nuttall presented me with some that had been shot in the neighbourhood of that city, as did Mr John Bethune and Mr Rodman of New Bedford. As we advanced eastward in the month of May, we saw more and more of them, and while at Eastport in Maine my son John shot several out of flocks of sixty or more. At one time a flock consisting of more than a hundred was seen in the Bay of Fundy. They were exceedingly shy, and the gunners of Eastport, who knew them under the name of Sea Geese, spoke of them as very curious birds.
They procure their food principally upon the water, on which they alight like Ducks, float as light as Gulls, and move about in search of food with much nimbleness. The sight of a bank of floating sea-weeds or garbage of any kind induces them at once to alight upon it, when they walk about as unconcernedly as if on land. Their notes, which resemble the syllables tweet, tweet, tweet, are sharp and clear, and in their flight they resemble our common American Snipe. At the approach of an enemy, they immediately close their ranks, until they almost touch each other, when great havock is made among them; but if not immediately shot at, they rise all at once and fly swiftly off emitting their shrill cries, and remove to a great distance. These Phalaropes congregate in this manner for the purpose of moving northwards to their breeding grounds, although some remain and breed as far south as Mount Desert Island. I have met with them in equally large flocks at a distance of more than a hundred miles from the shores. They were feeding on great beds of floating seaweeds, and in several instances some Red Phalaropes were seen in their company.
Whilst in Labrador, I observed that the Hyperborean Phalarope occurred only in small parties of a few pairs, and that instead of keeping at sea or on the salt-water bays, they were always in the immediate vicinity of small fresh-water lakes or ponds, near which they bred. The nest was a hollow scooped out among the herbage, and covered with a few bits of dried grass and moss. The eggs are always four; they measure at an average an inch and three-sixteenths in length, seven-eighths in their greatest diameter, are rather pointed at the smaller end, and are more uniform in their size and markings than those of most water-birds. The ground colour is a deep dull buff, and is irregularly marked with large and small blotches of dark reddish-brown, which are larger and more abundant on the crown. The birds shewed great anxiety for the safety of their eggs, limping before us, or running with extended wings, and emitting a feeble melancholy note as if about to expire. When we approached them, they resumed all their natural alacrity, piped in their usual manner, flew off and alighted on the water. Captain Emery and myself followed some nearly an hour, assisted by a pointer dog, in the hope of tiring them out; but they seemed to laugh at our efforts, and when Dash was quite close to them, they would suddenly fly off in another direction, and with great swiftness, always leading us farther from their nests. The young leave the nest shortly after they are hatched, and run after their parents over the moss, and along the edges of the small ponds; but I saw none on the water that were not fully fledged. Both young and old had departed by the beginning of August.
The Hyperborean Phalarope seems to undergo an almost continual moult, and is in full plumage only about six weeks each year. The young when fledged are nearly grey above, and all white beneath. Some of them breed before they have acquired what may be considered the perfect plumage; and the very old birds become greyish also at the approach of winter, the red of the throat and other parts becoming bright again in the beginning of May, or sometimes in April. The scapulars of the young are conspicuously shorter than the longest primaries, but after the first moult are equal in length. The upper wing-coverts are then also short.
I have never met with this species in any part of the interior, although I have procured the Red Phalarope and Wilson’s Phalarope in many parts to the west of the Alleghany Mountains, at a distance of more than a thousand miles from the sea coast.
Phalaropus hyperboreus, Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 774.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 342.—Swains. and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 406.
Hyperborean Phalarope, Ch. Bonaparte, Amer. Ornith. vol. iii.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 239.
Adult Male in Summer. Plate CCXV. Fig. 1.