Phalaropes spread their wings

IN May, this column celebrated the extraordinary lifestyle of the red-necked phalarope. After years of research, ornithologists thought they knew almost everything about the strange ways of this little wader but they were wrong. A phalarope from Shetland has confounded everybody by travelling 16,000km on migration. It’s not just the distance covered which is astonishing but the bird’s destination.

The red-necked phalarope, a sub-arctic species, bred annually in Ireland up 1971. The Irish Wildbird Conservancy, now BirdWatch Ireland, established a reserve on the Mullet Peninsula to protect what was then the bird’s most southerly regular breeding haunt. Phalaropes seldom nest here now. According to the Bird Atlas, a pair ‘possibly’ bred in Mayo in 2010 and another ‘probably’ did so in Offaly in 2011. Up to 40 pairs nest in Scotland.

Waders don’t swim but phalaropes are an exception; their toes are lobed to help them do so. They spend their winters in the sea feeding on plankton. Individuals can be extraordinarily tame; parent birds have been known to brood chicks held in the hand.