SD Shorebird Workshop Yellowlegs

Out of all of the shorebirds perhaps the most difficult to tell the difference between is the greater and lesser yellowlegs. According to The Sibley Guide the lesser is smaller with a shorter bill and it appears elongated and delicate. However these field markings are difficult to tell unless you have a greater and lesser near each other to compare.

At the shorebird workshop that I attended back in August, 7th - 10th, we were told that an easier way to distinguish the difference is that the greater appears to have a two toned bill compared to the single colored bill on the lesser. If you look at the first photo in the post you will see that the bill appears lighter at the base and gets darker as it gets nearer to the tip. Now compare that to the bird above who's bill appears to be a solid color. You may also notice that the bill on the greater, first pic, is slightly curved up compared to the very straight bill of the lesser.
It is also possible to confuse a yellowlegs with a solitary sandpiper. However solitary sandpiper have a much more defined white eye ring and there is much more noticeable contrast between the dark shoulder of the solitary and its lighter breast.
In flight yellowlegs are easily identified because there legs extend back behind the tail. This is true for both lesser and greater so to distinguish between the two type you need to look at the bill again. Since this bird has a straight solid black bill we would ID it as a lesser yellowlegs.

One bird that I forgot to mention, that is also easy to mistake for a yellow legs, is the stilt sandpiper. I mistakenly originally put in my stilt pics in place of my greater yellowlegs on this post. So I made the mistake even after taking the workshop. Fortunately one of my readers saw my error and sent me an e-mail, thanks Mike. I have now corrected the pics.
The stilt sandpiper has more of a scale type of pattern on the back compared to the spotted pattern of the yellowlegs. It also has a shorter stockier bill.

Shorebird Workshop Solitary Sandpiper

At the beginning of August I traveled to South Dakota for a few days to participate in a shorebird workshop. The conditions for shorebirds was not as good as I had hoped, rain the week before made the water level of many of the locations that are usually considered prime shorebird spots to high, but we found a few good spots where we had 20 to 50 birds that we could get real good looks at. This was very helpful for the workshop, since it gave us enough birds to look at and compare but not so many that it would be difficult to find a particular bird in a crowd.
One of the birds that we saw in several locations was the solitary sandpiper. The distinguishing marks of the solitary sandpiper are the bold eye ring and the dark shoulder. These marking help to distinguish it from the similar looking lesser yellowlegs, which is only slightly larger but does not have the eye ring or dark shoulder. Both markings are very visible in the photos.
Another thing that you can frequently us distinguish a solitary sandpiper from similar shorebirds is to look at the habitat in which you find the bird. Solitary sandpipers are one of the few shorebirds that do not mind having vegetation in the mud around them, most other shorebirds look for mud that is clear of any and clutter.
Because it does not mind vegetation solitary sandpipers are often found wading in the shallows of small ponds while they migrate between summer breeding grounds in Canada and wintering grounds in Mexico, Central and South America. Unlike other shorebirds the solitary sandpipers do not migrate in large flocks like other shorebirds, which is perhaps why they are called solitary.
Solitary sandpipers are the only type of sandpiper in the Americas, and one of only two world wide, that nests in trees. They use the abandon nests of song birds such as robins, jays, waxwings and kingbirds.

Alas a shorebird

For the past couple weeks I have been in search of shorebirds migrating back through the area. The conditions where pretty good with a lot of smaller pools being mud puddles before the rain started this weekend. However every where I went I could not find any until I went to the Bass Ponds in the Minnesota Valley NWR on Friday after work.

It was sunny when I left work but I knew that would not last long. The weather forecast said that the skies would begin to cloud up Friday night and that we would have rain all weekend, that was an understatement with a few people in southeast Minnesota dying in flash floods due to the rain. So I decided to get in as much outside time as possible. First I went to Fort Snelling State Park and got some more dragonfly pictures and some picture of birds a their feeders. Then I moved onto the Bass Ponds where I found this solitary Solitary Sandpiper.

He was scavenging the shore of the Minnesota river.There were also a few egrets hanging around.Unfortunately the light did not last long as the clouds started to block out the sun around 6pm so I headed home.