Greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) and their half-sized cousins, the lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes), are arriving here. These sandpipers are easy to identify as yellowlegs at the beach, when they’re using their disproportionately long and disturbingly yellow limbs to wade in the shallows. But greater yellowlegs pipers, such as this fellow, also work the marshes alone, where it’s a different story.
It’s not that greater yellowlegs are hard to identify in marshes; it’s that they’re almost impossible to SEE when they stand still there. Their yellow legs can seem to be dead vegetation and their neutrally-checkered bodies make their familiar shapes dissolve into the complex backgrounds.
Fortunately, greater yellowlegs seem to find it impossible to stand still when they’re secretly watching you looking for them. They’ll often teeter-totter in place, flit nervously, or fly off fast and low. That’s when you’ll notice them most.
Nonetheless, when you’re slowly sweeping a big lens along a marsh edge and your viewfinder suddenly finds a yellowlegs that’s standing still and secretly watching you, it can be one of those slightly-creepy-but-delightful discoveries. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 5, 2024.)