This afternoon I saw what I believe to be a pair of Wilson's Phalaropes at
the southernmost Boeing Pond (just north of the intersection of 59th Place
So. and s. 212th in Kent). The birds were working the shallows and mud flats
at the south side of the pond very actively, walking quickly and then
stopping to rapidly probe the mud. They seemed overall a bit "lankier" in
appearance than the average shorebird (such as a Greater Yellowlegs, for
example), particularly somewhat longer in the neck. One -- what I took to be
the female from what I could determine in the National Geographic Field
Guide -- had a dark eye and eye stripe; dark rusty color down the side of
the neck; paler rusty color down the front of the neck, a dark rusty/black
patch surrounded by gray on the wings; white face under a black, thin bill;
with pale belly and blackish legs. The most distinctive feature of this bird
was the silvery gray stripe from the upper base of the bill all the way over
the top of the head and down the back of the neck to the base of the wings.
The other bird -- probably the male -- was much paler and muted overall, a
bit smaller than the female, but still with the dark eye and eye stripe,
pale rusty color down neck and onto the upper belly, with a white face under
a dark bill, gray wings, and white underparts. Both birds had the look of
being only partially molted to what the guides illustrates as their full
breeding plummage, but "headed in the right direction".

I am not positive of the ID, and since both Sibley and National Geographic
show them as "rare" on this side of the mountains, I would appreciate any
birder who is more familiar than I with this species to check them out.

Bob Stallcop
Renton (Maple Valley Heights), Washington
bstallcop at seanet.com
(425)922-2300