Bird #36 — Lesser Yellowlegs

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.

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