Shorebirds are somewhat rare in the Toronto area so it was a pleasure to see an incontinence of Lesser Yellowlegs this morning. An “incontinence” is the term for more that 1 Lesser Yellowlegs.
These beautiful birds breed from western Alaska and Canada east to western Quebec and spend winters on coasts from southern California and Virginia southward, and along the Gulf Coast. They are also found in Hawaii.
While the Lesser Yellowlegs is similar in appearance to the Greater Yellowlegs, they are not closely related.
Diet is primarily invertebrates gleaned from water or land, especially snails and flies, beetles, dragonflies of all life stages.
Other birds:
Species list: double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, great egret, Canada goose, mallard, common merganser, lesser yellowlegs, ring-billed gull, red-bellied woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, blue jay, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, red-breasted nuthatch, ruby-crowned kinglet, house sparrow, northern cardinal. (18 species)
Park views:
Today’s group:
Some botany:
NATURE POETRY
Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled,
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold. – Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
Miles Hearn
Before I saw anything else, the TITLE made me laugh–
The Lesser Yellowlegs and Greater Yellow are in the same Order, Family and Genus (Tringa) which says to me that they are closely related. True?
There’s certainly a lot more colour at Lambton Woods than three weeks ago. How do you distinguish the sugar maple from the Freeman maple. There is a maple tree on our street and the leaves are now a mahogany colour.