Record shot of two Red-necked Phalarope – Henderson poo ponds

We were drawn back to Clark County Wetlands Park and Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve this morning by reports on eBirder of a couple of species we need for either our trip or State lists. In the event we couldn’t find them and it looked, at one point, that today would be the first when we added no new species to our trip list. We’d done the Wetlands and were nearly finished walking the trails around the poo ponds when two birds appeared ‘spinning’ in the middle of one of the ponds. Clearly, phalarope species, closer inspection confirmed that they weren’t Wilson’s, which we’ve seen already at several locations, but Red-necked – a State, GABRAT and America tick. The guy at the Centre said he thought that, as these are ‘early breeders’ in North America, they were probably returning migrants. Coincidentally, a report on the internet today announced the first arrivals of Red-necked Phalarope back in Iceland – at the beginning of their breeding season. This reminded me of the comparatively recent discovery that the Red-necked Phalarope which breed in The Shetlands and were originally thought to winter in The Red Sea, in fact spent their winters off the coast of Peru. Whether these birds were heading north or south is unclear but one thing’s for certain they were a very welcome addition to the list.

This evening we did the tourist thing and visited The Strip – a unique and rather bizarre experience on a number of levels – one I doubt I’ll ever repeat!

Venice, in the desert