Phalaropus lobatus

Slim pickin's today, I'm afraid--just this shot of three dainty Red-Necked Phalaropes in the Arcata bottoms. This species breeds in the Arctic and winters primarily on the open ocean. Fortunately during migration you can catch them on the coast (and also in terrific numbers at my former haunt, eastern California's Mono Lake).

The three species of phalarope (which belong to the sandpiper family) represent one of the few marked gender role reversals in the animal kingdom. It is the females who sport the brightest plumage, compete for territory, and breed freely with several mates. The male is left to incubate the female's clutch on his own, and act as a single father once the chicks hatch.

Typically with single parent species, the deadbeat parents are observed to pass through on migration a few weeks before the dedicated parents and the juveniles. This usually results in an initial wave of males, such as with hummingbirds, yet in the case of phalaropes it is the females that arrive first in the fall.