Lesser Yellowlegs / Kleine Geelpootruiter

Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Pieter Verheij	© Pieter Verheij	© Carl Beel
Greater and lesser YL © Ton Plug	© Dominiek Plouvier	French Guiana © Michel Giraud-Audine
French Guiana © Alexandre Renaudier

Lesser Yellowlegs: They are very common in the mud along the coast or in rice fields, when these are flooded. According to Arie Spaans more than 100.000 can be around in Suriname on the same time, especially from August to November or in March or April.
Pictures of a Lesser Yellowlegs, made by Pieter Verheij in Suriname in January 2005 and by Carl Beel in the Bigi Pan area in February 2013. The last one by Alexandre Renaudier in French Guiana, a young bird in the ricefields near Mana. Identification of these birds from a photo I always find difficult: the resembling Greater yellowlegs has a longer bill that is slightly upturned, the Solitary sandpiper has more white around the eyes and green-yellow legs.
Pieter de Groot Boersma made a video of a Lesser Yellowlegs at Weg naar Zee, Suriname in March 2011.
Dominiek Plouvier filmed the Lessser Yellowlegs. The second video shows two birds in April that show territorial behaviour before the return voyage.

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Lesser Yellowlegs © ;	Video recording of a Lesser Yellowlegs © ;	Video recording of a Lesser Yellowlegs © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Tringa flavipes
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Scolopacidae, 25 in Suriname
Dutch:	Kleine Geelpootruiter
English:	Lesser Yellowlegs
Sranan ('Surinamese'):
Guyana:
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Tigüi-Tigüe Chico
Portugese (Brazil):	Maçarico-de-pema-amarela
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	Petit Chevalier

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 321 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 321 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).