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Red-necked phalarope Expand text

An interesting dainty bird feeding on water in the coastal zone, but also on ponds and lakes. Interesting for two reasons, apart from its charm of course. Always when I was sitting quietly on the shore of a lake it swam up after a while at a distance that enabled me to take a satisfactory picture. And this distance had to be just a few meters, because it is quite small bird. Not much bigger than a sparrow, as its weight is about 45 grams, and the wingspan is about 35 cm. My associations with the sparrow when talking about Iceland is probably a miss, because in Iceland there are no sparrows. Yes, it is the first country where I have not seen sparrows, nor Eurasian tree sparrows. Reversed sexual dimorphism is the next oddity. Typically, in the world of animals the male's plumage is more ornate, colorful than that of the female, to present themselves to curry favor with the females. Among red-necked phalaropes the female is beautifully colored, much more than the male. It was no problem for me to find red-necked phalaropes. Once it happened that at the entry road to a small town, at crossroads where a small pond was placed I counted 6 phalaropes. These images were taken when shooting other birds, including horned grebes or loons.
Last minute news 07/2018 – Norway-Spitsbergen
Last minute news - 09/2019 - Mikoszewo - Poland
This is my third encounter with this bird, but the first in Poland. This species of bird does not belong to the common birds in our country, so despite the resting plumage, I had to add a few photos and note it in the information to this gallery. The bird appeared for a moment and was quite skittish.