Birder’s Notebook: Lesser Yellowlegs –– a long-legged loudmouth

By Kate Persons

The lesser yellowlegs is a character. This svelte, graceful shorebird atop disproportionally long, with bright orangey-yellow legs is typically found in forest wetlands, and not so often around Nome. So when a friend told me there was a family of yellowlegs feeding at a pond on the edge of town, I went for a visit.
Yellowlegs are renowned for the incessant, blaring racket they make in defense of their nests and young. In 1929, biologist William Rowan wrote “they will be perched there as though the safety of the entire universe depended on the amount of noise they made.”
The parent at the Nome pond was true to form and launched into a strident uproar as soon as I opened the car door. Eventually, after I’d settled motionless into the tall grass, the bird roosted on one leg and tucked its head, all the while keeping one open eye on me and scolding endlessly into the feathers on its back.
The nearly full-grown chick ignored me. It continued high-stepping through the horsetails on fast-moving, long yellow legs, snatching prey from the mud, seemingly confident that the parent’s barrage of insults would keep me under control.
The lesser yellowlegs’ migration is among the longest in the Western Hemisphere. Their range extends from their breeding grounds in the wetlands of Alaska and Canada to wintering grounds in southern South America. Some yellowlegs travel as far as 8,000 miles, twice a year.
Lesser yellowlegs are common in the wetlands of Interior Alaska’s boreal forests, and extend into the southeastern part of the Seward Peninsula where forest and tall shrub habitats meet freshwater wetlands.
They breed uncommonly at least as far west as Nome, and eBird reports widely scattered sightings across the peninsula and on St. Lawrence Island. Lesser yellowlegs may be found in the region from early May through August in wetlands and along shallow ponds with emergent vegetation surrounded by trees, shrubs or sedges.
Lesser yellowlegs often return to the same nesting areas each year. Pairs form soon after arrival on the breeding ground and are monogamous for the season. Males attract mates with an undulating aerial courtship display, accompanied by song that can be heard far and wide.
The pair nests on dry ground, usually within 200 yards of water. The nest is a well-hidden depression in the ground, formed under low shrubs or next to branchy debris.  They may prepare many nests (scrapes) before picking the final one, which they line with grass or other surrounding vegetation.
Nest sites are often away from the wetlands where the birds forage, so they commute between them. Males aggressively defend the nesting site from other males and guard their mate while she feeds.
The female lays three to five eggs that hatch in 22 to 23 days. Both parents incubate, brood and care for the young. These downy chicks on stilts would be something to see as they leave the nest within a few hours of hatch, able to walk and feed themselves.
When leading the chicks to feeding areas, one parent may fly ahead and call to the chicks while the other perches on a nearby vantage point to scan for danger. These parents are very aggressive in defense of their young. They will fly relentlessly at intruders and call from treetop perches when danger is still far away. Their alarm calls can carry for a half mile for more.
Females may depart before the chicks can fly, while the male stays to defend the young until they fledge when 18 to 20 days old.
The lesser yellowlegs’ diet is mostly aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates, including flies, beetles, dragonflies, crustaceans, snails, worms and sometimes small fish and seeds.
These shorebirds feed actively with high-stepping, long strides, and an outstretched neck, snatching prey quickly from the land or water. They may probe in the mud and wade belly deep when foraging in fresh, brackish or salt water. When larval invertebrates are a big part of their diet, they cast pellets to expel the hard exoskeletons of the larvae.
Though still widespread, lesser yellowlegs are rapidly declining. Over the last 50 years a decline of 70-80 percent is estimated across the species’ range. In Alaska, from 2003 to 2015 the species declined by an estimated 45-65 percent.
The lesser yellowlegs was selected as one of four pilot species in the Road to Recovery program, an international effort begun in 2020 to find new ways to reverse steep declines in vulnerable bird species.
Researchers used satellite transmitters to track the migration of lesser yellowlegs from their breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada (none were tagged in this region) to their wintering grounds in Central and South America. We now know where these birds stop to refuel during migration, where different populations winter, and some key threats they face across their range.
The major threats identified in the study include alteration and loss of wetland habitat in the winter range, pesticide exposure, illegal and unregulated hunting during migration and in wintering areas and drying of wetlands from climate change.
The lesser yellowlegs is a widely hunted shorebird on the Atlantic Americas Flyway, and harvest levels are believed to be unsustainable, especially in northeastern South America. Efforts are being made now to regulate and reduce harvest in this migratory corridor. It was found that few yellowlegs from Alaska migrate through this deadly area of high harvest.
The Prairie Pothole region in the Great Plains of the U.S. and Canada, the Gulf Coast, and the Mississippi Alluvial Valley in the United States, along with the Pampas of Argentina, were identified as key migratory stopover and wintering sites. They are now being targeted for conservation efforts.
It is good to know that these charismatic shorebirds have many advocates working hard on their behalf.
If you wondered, there is also a greater yellowlegs. This similar looking species is slightly larger and has a longer, thicker bill. They are rarely seen in this region.

The alarm call of a lesser yellowlegs is loud and incessant and does make you want to leave!