Wilson's Phalarope

Phalaropus tricolor

Females are the brighter sex and abandon the males to do all the parenting. Role-reversed and shameless.

Population: ~1,500,000 mature individuals; global trend suspected stable (some assessments note a small ~6% increase over three generations, though confidence is wide)
Habitat: Prairie wetlands, shallow alkaline/saline lakes, and marshes during breeding; hypersaline lakes (e.g. Mono Lake, Great Salt Lake, Salton Sea) and coastal lagoons during migration and winter
Fun fact: Wilson's Phalarope shows reversed sex roles: the more brightly colored females compete for mates and territory, then leave incubation and chick-rearing entirely to the males.
Range: Breeds across western North America (northern Great Plains and Great Basin into southern/western Canada); migrates through Central America to winter primarily on high-altitude saline lakes in the Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina; rare vagrant to western Europe
Diet: Small aquatic insects and crustaceans (brine flies, brine shrimp), picked from the water surface, often while spinning in tight circles to stir up prey; can double body weight at staging salt lakes before migration
Size: 0.23 m
Wingspan: 0.37 m
Lifespan: 10 years

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