Greater Yellowlegs

This picture was a little obscured by vegetation, but it's my 1st verified Greater Yellowlegs of the season. They are sandpipers, a large family of shorebirds [1]. Their closest relatives in my area are the smaller Lesser Yellowlegs and the Solitary Sandpiper, with all 3 being in the Tringa genus. Though they are the largest of these 3 species, pictures like this 1 probably don't give a strong sense of size. You'll mostly tell them from the Lesser Yellowlegs because the Greater Yellowlegs has a noticeably longer beak relative to the head [2]. In the picture below, the bill certainly appears to be longer than the rest of the head.

Similar to their Lesser Yellowlegs and Solitary Sandpiper cousins, I've only seen these birds during migration. They generally spend our winters south of here (some going as far as South America), though some maps suggest they might winter as far north as southern New Jersey and Long Island [3].

These birds should have started migrating back down south by now, yet I've only photographed them in April/May. I'm not sure why I don't generally see them in late summer or early fall; perhaps they take a different route or use different "rest stops". 

April 21, 2023 at Duke Farms
Photo 272675189, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


[1] Examples of other shorebirds that aren't sandpipers are plovers (like our Killdeer), oystercatchers, and stilts.

[2] This is similar to how you can tell Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers apart.

[3] I don't know if the maps reflect small, localized populations, or whether they were found in these locations during particularly mild winters. Migration is dangerous and resource-draining, so it behooves birds to do as little of it as they can to find an acceptable winter home (providing both warmth and food).

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