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.