Greater yellowlegs Tringa melanoleuca

Identification Tips:

• Length: 11 inches
• Medium-sized long-legged shorebird
• Long, thin bill is slightly upturned
• Dark bill often has a slightly paler base
• Bill length is approximately 1.5 times the length of the head
• Bright yellow legs
• White tail is crossed with thin black bars
• Sexes similar
• Juvenile similar to basic-plumaged adult

Adult alternate:

• Head, neck, and chest are extensively streaked with black
• Pale flanks are barred with black
• Whitish belly with sparse dark bars and chevrons
• Back and upperwings are dark brown, dappled with black and white
• White notches on wing feathers appear as white spots on back
• Whitish supercilium and eyering, dusky lores

Adult basic:

• Head and neck pale, streaked sparsely with brown
• Breast, and to a lesser extent, flanks, streaked and spotted with gray-brown
• Dark brown back, with pale flecks and feather edges
• Buff notches on wing feathers appear as white spots on back

Similar species:

Solitary Sandpiper is smaller, shorter-billed and has a bolder eye ring, a dark rump, and green legs. The Lesser Yellowlegs is very similar but is smaller, with a straighter and proportionately shorter bill that is uniformly dark. In alternate plumage Lesser Yellowlegs has short, indistinct bars on flanks. The safest way to distinguish the two is the call: a harsh series of three or more notes in Greater Yellowlegs versus a softer, mellower single or double note of the Lesser Yellowlegs.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.