Shorebirds

The Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary
www.reifelbirdsanctuary.com/
is a 830 acre area on Westham Island, which is the southernmost island in the Fraser River Delta. The island is surrounded by dikes and is devoted mainly to produce farms. The sanctuary is in the northwest corner of the island with dikes along its west and north. Between the dikes and Georgia Strait are large areas of marshy wetlands. Normally shorebirds would be at the Georgia Strait shore of the wetlands and not visible from land, but at high tide, the birds fly over the dikes and feed in large ponds in the sanctuary.

The first group of pictures were taken at about 3 PM Canada Day, July 1, 2009, when high tide was at 4 PM, just when the sanctuary closes to the public. So the window for viewing was small. There was a mixed flock of about 40 Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs in the northernmost pond. The second group of pictures are from August 4, 2009.

Normally these species are hard to tell apart unless they are standing next to each other. The Greater Yellowlegs is about 14 inches tall compared with the Lesser Yellowlegs at about 10 inches. Also the bill of the Greater Yellowlegs is considerably longer and often slightly upcurved. The adult males of the Greater Yellowlegs are more distinctly marked than the Lesser. So we can decide that most of the birds in these pictures are Greater Yellowlegs, but there are a few Lesser Yellowlegs scattered among them as you can see in the group pictures and some of the individual pictures. I leave it to you to decide!