Richard Rowlett writes: unaware of the distribution or status of Red
Phalaropes in winter in BC and Pacific Northwest.

I can share what bit of information I have; For starters, there are very
few winter records for the province of BC. All 11 winter records cited in
the "Birds of BC" are from the coast. They appear to solely from
southern VAncouver Island with a record number of 8 found on Dec. 15
1979. They have since been found farther north in winter. For example,
3-4 were present in Port Alberni as late as Dec. 17 of this year. POrt
Alberni is close to the geographic centre of the island. There was also
at least one individual found on the Victoria CBC this past DEc. 16 I
believe. The 17th of December seems to be the latest known occurence of
Red Phalarope in BC.

Since there are so few records, and many of these appear to occur after
storms, it is difficult to determine whether these late occurences
represent offshore wintering birds or late migrants.

Perhaps someone out there could shed more light on this subject?

Don Cecile
dcecile at cln.etc.bc.ca