Phalarope breaks all conventions

ACCORDING to ornithologist Eric Dempsey, three red-necked phalaropes visited a site in the midlands this summer.

Phalarope is not a name on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but this bird deserves to be better known. People who break the rules and flout social conventions are usually more interesting than their staid law-abiding equivalents and it’s the same with wild creatures.

The cuckoo is a case in point. So too is the phalarope, a small wader who pays little heed to the normal decencies of family life.