[Maine-birds] Wilson's Phalarope at Scarborough Marsh Eastern Road, 8/25

There was a juvenal Wilson's Phalarope in the pannes off Eastern Road in Scarborough marsh yesterday afternoon. It flew in close and allowed me to study it foraging:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/68931408@N04/7860927688/

This image shows a droplet of water being moved to the mouth by rapidly opening and closing the beak. This mechanism has been called the "capillary ratchet" and employs surface tension of water to aid prey transport. A paper in Science magazine described this feeding mechanism in Red-necked Phalarope and other shorebirds: www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5878/931.short

My eBird list is here:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S11440928

Louis Bevier

Fairfield, Maine