Phalarope slam

There's a handful of relatively rare birds I've never seen in Michigan, though that I certainly expect to encounter eventually. One of these is Red Phalarope. Tim and I found 2 individuals well off shore earlier this week in the boat.

The birds are first fall birds moulting into winter plumage. This one retains some of the buffy coloring to the throat and face.

There is a difference in the underwing whiteness reported between Red and Red-necked Phalarope with Red being whiter. To me the flight style of the noticeably heavier Red was more distinctive to my eyes at least.

Note that the above bird is moulting its entire tail.

The other individual retained a lot less buffy in the throat and has less black in the cap.

The bird didn't exactly land gracefully. Here it's rolled its body past 90 degrees as it dives for some prospective appearing foam.

It would land by bouncing its breast into the water and skidding to a stop a la the murrelet.

At one point the bird landed amidst some Bonaparte's Gulls and Common Terns that were resting on the water. One of the Terns chased/followed it about for quite a while through the air.

Here's the previous posts from this fall if you want to compare the body and bill shape to Red-necked Phalaropes and Wilson's Phalaropes