Another Rex Brasher Shorebird Feathursday
In last week’s post, we learned that Rex Brasher named his custom-built sloop “Phalarope,” so this week we thought we would show his images and share some of his insights on the boat’s namesake. There are only three living species of Phalarope: the Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus; top two images); Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius; middle two images); Wilson’s Phalarope (Phalaropus tricolor; bottom image).
Unusual in the bird world, the female phalarope is more aggressive during courtship and has brighter plumage than the male. Brasher’s typically idiosyncratic descriptions use colorful early-20th-century language, but may reveal a more progressive view than that held by some of his contemporaries.
Of Phalaropes in general Rex Brasher says:
Long before men admitted that females had any rights in administration of affairs outside the domestic circle, Phalaropes were leaning so far the other way that the poor little males were, and are, mere scrubs in the Phalarope world. He is kept more strictly in his place than housewives of the Puritan period.
Of the Red-necked Phalarope (which Brasher calls the Northern Phalarope), he says:
Apparently guided by fancy they drift over the pool like an Autumn leaf. The delicate tints of its slender agile form combine grace and color with dainty elegance of motion, and render it most lovely and attractive.
A female coyly glides close to a dull-colored male. He moves off but she follows with proudly arched neck. He is her choice. In vain he turns, seeking escape, but his wooer is always just in front, and presently they are comfortably married!
Of Wilson’s Phalarope he says:
They have all the graces of other members of the genus and the females are less domineering and take considerable interest in domestic affairs, even responding to the husbands’ cries of distress, in readiness to fight the enemy.
All images are from hand-colored prints in Rex Brasher’s massive, limited-edition, 12 volume set Birds and Trees of North America, self-published in Kent, Connecticut, between 1929 and 1932.
Find out more about Rex Brasher’s work, and/or view other posts from this set.
View more Feathursday posts.