tringa (a white-rumped water bird) flavipes (from flavus, yellow, and pes, foot)
Monday, July 30, 1979 — 1:00 pm
Barrington, Illinois — Crabtree Nature Center
I arrived at Crabtree shortly after a storm chased everyone away, and I had the place to myself. It was one of those steamy, sticky days that make moving miserable.
Shortly after I arrived, I spotted the Lesser Yellowlegs. It was feeding near a Killdeer in a flooded area in the grassy field along Sulky Pond. I didn’t know what it was, and as I had come straight from work, I didn’t have a field guide. I walked off the trail (violating the regulations) to within 30 feet of the bird and sat down with my back against a large oak tree. I watched it for 20 minutes and wrote down a complete description in a notebook. The bird waded around in the puddle and in the nearby grass. When it wasn’t walking, it bobbed up and down.