Scientific name: Phalaropus lobatus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Bird group: Waders
Field characters. 17 cm. Female is larger and more colourful than male. Head, neck, and upper chest predominantly slate-grey, with white 'eye-lid' and throat, and with horseshoe-shaped orange-red 'collar'. Upperparts bluish slate-grey with cream streaks. Lower chest brown-grey with white patches; underparts white. Legs and needle-like bill are black (Grey Phalarope has legs yellowish and bill short and thick). Plumage of male resembles female's but colours are duller; dark brown instead of slate-grey and 'collar' chestnut; more intensely streaked on chest and flanks. In winter, crown and nape ash-grey; upperparts blue-grey, intensely streaked with white (not as uniform as in Grey Phalarope); rest of plumage white except for dark eye-stripe. Juvenile resembles juvenile Grey Pharalope but smaller and with thinner bill; upperparts dark with reddish-ochre bands (Grey Pharalope lacks these bands and usually has some grey first winter-feathers).
Voice. Common call resembles Grey Phalarope's but is lower-pitched.
Distribution. Locally a very common breeding bird; a common passage migrant in some regions which are on their flight route, but virtually absent from others.
Habitat. Breeding habitat similar to that of Grey Phalarope, but also occurs more inland. Winters at sea.
Food. Mainly insects and their larvae; also some molluscs and worms; feeding methods as in Grey Phalarope.