Red-necked Phalarope

Name: Red-necked Phalarope

Scientific name: Phalaropus lobatus

Category: Birds

Nature Stars: 90

What are nature stars?

About: A small wader, only about 18cm long. Phalaropes are a strange group of pot-bellied, long-necked, short-legged, needle-billed waders that swim on the surface of the water, catching midges and mosquitoes. In non-breeding plumage they have a black ear patch

How to identify: The rarer Grey Phalarope is slightly larger and stockier, with a thicker bill, and more likely to be found around the coast.

Where: A very rare nesting bird on a few tiny pools in Shetland. A rare visitor to wetlands anywhere in the country during spring and autumn migration.

Natural Superpowers

• Predator: 40
• Agility: 40
• Rarity: 100
• Cute factor: 50
• Traveller: 80

Fantastic fact: Male phalaropes are much duller in colour than the females, and incubate the eggs and look after the chicks: quite a role reversal!

Photograph credit: Photo credit tbc