Guide to Boreal Birds
This is an in-depth boreal species profile.
What is this?
This species is one of more than 30 birds selected for in-depth profiles. Find out why and see all selected boreal birds »
It is
Guide to Boreal Birds
This is an in-depth boreal species profile.
What is this?
This species is one of more than 30 birds selected for in-depth profiles. Find out why and see all selected boreal birds »
It is a standing joke among novice birders that the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs are really the same species because their appearance is so similar to the untrained eye. Ecologically, however, they are quite different, and recent evidence suggests they may not even be closely related. The Lesser Yellowlegs is the less familiar of the two to North Americans because it winters farther south, with less of its winter range within the U.S. Both are almost entirely boreal in their breeding distributions, though they prefer somewhat different nest sites. North America's boreal forest accounts for virtually all of the species' breeding population.
The Lesser Yellowlegs is tamer than its larger relative and often allows close approach. Both species of yellowlegs bob their heads up and down when watching an intruder. It was formerly a favorite game bird--not because shooting it was good sport but because the birds were good eating--but is now fully protected.
10 1/2" (27 cm). A slender, gray-streaked wader with conspicuous white rump and long yellow legs. A smaller, more slender edition of the Greater Yellowlegs, with a proportionately shorter, straighter, more slender bill. Looks longer-legged than Greater Yellowlegs.
A flat tu-tu, less musical than call of Greater Yellowlegs.
4 buff eggs, blotched with brown, in a slight depression on the open ground near water.
The Lesser Yellowlegs typically nests in open boreal forest and forest/tundra ecotone with scattered shallow wetlands. Typical habitat components in breeding territories include trees or shrubs, logs, grassy meadows, and marshy pools with well-vegetated margins. Its nest sites are generally drier and more densely vegetated than those of the Greater Yellowlegs. The rest of the year it utilizes a wide variety of wetland habitats ranging from tidal marshes to alpine lakes and including freshwater marshes, mud and salt flats, swamps, sewage lagoons, sloughs, wet meadows, puddles, flooded agricultural fields, and reservoirs. Habitat use in winter is often strongly tied to rainfall patterns as changing water levels cover or expose foraging habitat. For example, use of rivers and tidal areas is highest in the dry season; in the wet season, birds shift to flooded fields and coastal lagoons.
As is typical of shorebirds, the Lesser Yellowlegs migrates both north and, especially, south earlier than songbirds, in large part because their young require less parental care. Departure from the breeding grounds is in June for failed breeders, mid-July for successful breeders (females depart ahead of males), and late July to early August (occasionally September) for juveniles. Migration is usually in small groups mixed with other shorebirds; flock size increases during bad weather. Most Eastern breeders fly southeast to the Maritimes and New England, then make short flights south along the Atlantic coast to the southern states. Most Western breeders follow a mid-continental route west of the Mississippi to the Gulf States. Relatively few follow the Pacific coast. Many birds from all populations continue to the Caribbean or cross the Gulf of Mexico to winter in Latin America as far south as Tierra del Fuego; the highest winter concentrations are on the north coast of South America, particularly Suriname. No