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Lesser Yellowlegs | Tringa flavipes
Kleine geelpootruiter | Archibebe patigualdo chico
The Lesser Yellowlegs is one of the most common waders in the Caribbean, especially on salt ponds and flooded land during autumn migration. It closely resembles Greater Yellowlegs, and telling the two apart is a regular task for birders. The species is globally Vulnerable, partly because of shorebird hunting in the Caribbean and northern South America.
Voice
A soft, flat tew or tew-tew, usually of one or two notes; softer and less urgent than the series of Greater Yellowlegs. When alarmed also a repeated kip.
Recording: Tony Rinaud — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–25 cm, slender and long-legged, with bright yellow legs and a straight, thin, uniformly dark bill about the length of the head. In non-breeding plumage grey-brown above with fine white spots and fringes, white below with lightly grey-streaked neck and breast, a narrow pale supercilium and a white eye-ring. In breeding plumage the upperparts are chequered black and grey and the neck and breast more densely streaked. In flight dark wings without a wing bar, a square white rump and a finely barred tail; the legs project well beyond it.
Confusion species
Greater Yellowlegs Tringa melanoleuca is larger and heavier, with a longer bill (about one and a half times the head length) that is often slightly upturned and greyish at the base, and gives louder calls in series of three or four notes. In mixed flocks the size difference helps. Solitary Sandpiper Tringa solitaria has greenish legs and a dark rump, Stilt Sandpiper Calidris himantopus a slightly drooping bill and greenish legs, and Wilson's Phalarope Phalaropus tricolor a needle-fine bill and shorter legs.
Habitat
Salt ponds, brackish and freshwater lagoons, muddy ponds, mangrove edges, flooded pastures, rice fields and sewage ponds. It feeds by walking in shallow water, actively picking insects, small fish and crustaceans; often in flocks, sometimes with peeps and Greater Yellowlegs.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Winter visitor and passage migrant throughout the region, in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Greater Antilles, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands, San Andrés and Trinidad and Tobago. Autumn migration starts in July; numbers peak from August to October, especially in the east of the island arc. Common in winter on most islands, and a few birds stay through the summer. Outside the region it breeds in Alaska and Canada and winters from the southern United States to Argentina and Chile.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Salt ponds and flooded land in August and September, for example on the ABC Islands, Barbados and Trinidad. In mixed flocks it pays to check bill length relative to the head and the call on take-off.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The global population has declined sharply over a few decades. Causes include loss of stopover sites, changes on the breeding grounds and hunting: on Barbados, Guadeloupe and Martinique and in northern South America large numbers of shorebirds are shot each year during autumn migration, and tagged Lesser Yellowlegs have been killed there. Some islands have since restricted hunting.
Scientific name
Tringa flavipes | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Scolopax flavipes; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tringa was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Tringa is the Neo-Latin name Aldrovandi gave to the green sandpiper, after Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. flavipes is Latin, from flavus 'yellow' and pes 'foot', after the yellow legs. The specimen the first description was based on came from New York.