Timing is everything. It was the day before Sandy Hook was to close due to politicians in Washington DC quarrelling over policy and political opinions, and unable to agree on a budget.
About an hour after dawn, with an outgoing tide, I was in a tidal wetland within Horseshoe Cove. All was quiet, all was calm. Yet, within 100 feet from where I was standing my eyes immediately were attracted to the sight of a large beautiful flock of migrating birds with bright yellow legs.
With binoculars and camera in hand, I got closer to the birds. Some were resting on a tiny mud island in the middle of small shallow waterway. Most others were busy probing the mud for crabs or foraging for small fish in the water. The birds had long and lengthy necks, legs, and bills, They were perfectly suited for living along the shore.
Most noticeable, though, were the color of their legs. I counted nearly twenty pairs of yellow legs.
These birds were a type of sandpiper called Yellowlegs, due to, you guessed it, their slender bright yellow legs. Their long legs, however, were not just for show. They help this bird thrive in wet areas to forage in shallow or deeper waters.
At first glance, the birds looked all the same. Yet, there was a dissimilarity.
Two different species of yellowlegs were looking for food. It was hard to tell the difference unless you looked close enough. Size matters here.
Lesser Yellowlegs is a small 8 inch bird in length with a straight bill. Greater Yellowlegs is taller, about 14 inches in height with a longer, slightly upturned bill. This was the first time I saw the two species together. It was a nice opportunity to view the two species side-by-side and distinguish between these pair of nearly identical shorebirds.
Forget about telling which ones where male or female. Males and females look alike.
The ratio was probably 1 Greater Yellowlegs for every 4 Lesser Yellowlegs, which is unusual I thought. Lesser Yellowlegs tends to migrate earlier in the fall than Greater Yellowlegs. The birds, though, were quite spread out making them hard to count.
Yellowlegs were busy. They were getting ready for the next leg of their long winged migration somewhere down south. By mid-October, most of these birds will have cleared out of Lower New York Bay and the northeast, en route to their winter home.
During the summer, the birds nest near marshes, bogs, or ponds in coniferous boreal forests in northern Canada. Sometime starting in the end of July, definitely in August, yellowlegs are restless and on the move southward. The birds often winter in a wide variety of warm places, including estuaries, riverbanks, and shorelines from the southern United States southward to the West Indies and South America.
In between their summer breeding grounds and winter home, yellowlegs can be seen along the Atlantic Coast. For as long as I can remember, Lower New York Bay, including Sandy Hook Bay and Raritan Bay, has been a popular stopover for the birds to rest and feed for a few days before continuing either their fall or spring migration.
Of course, the birds were not so always easy to find. Yellowlegs was once a popular game bird, hunted heavily for their feathers until the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 banned their hunting. Today, the good news is that most wildlife biologists agree the population of both species of yellowlegs is currently stable.
As long as we continue to preserve wetlands and coastal areas like Horseshoe Cove at Sandy Hook around Lower New York Bay, these beautiful shorebirds will be able to find places to rest, feed, and flourish as they pass though on their long winged migrations. Wild nature downstream from Wall Street.
For more information, pictures and year-round sightings of wildlife in or near Sandy Hook Bay and Lower New York Bay, please check out my blog entitled, Nature on the Edge of New York City at http://www.natureontheedgenyc.com
