Date: 11/21/25 4:51 pm From: Dean Thompson via groups.io <deanofosos...> Subject: [slocobirding] An odd place for a phalarope?
While walking before sunset in the sandy, chaparral-covered hills above Bayview Heights Drive in Los Osos, I saw what looked to be a freshly dead bird under a small Torrey Pine. Upon investigation, it was a Red Phalarope. Very strange to be so far away from water. Perhaps it succumbed to fatigue while migrating or was a casualty during the recent storm, or maybe it was nabbed by a raptor and dropped somehow when it landed on the tree to feed? Puzzling, we'll never know. I did notice its keel was very sharp, so perhaps malnutrition contributed to its demise.
