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<\/p>\nThis species typically feeds on prey so small I can’t tell what it is, even in highly cropped versions of my photos. This instance was an exception.<\/p>\n
Plus: Incontrovertible evidence that birders really do have a sense of humor.<\/p>\n
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I spent some time with this Greater Yellowlegs three days ago while it was feeding at Farmington Bay WMA. Most of the time I couldn’t tell for sure what it was eating, even when I inspected my photos carefully at 100% resolution, but in two series of photos I could just barely tell it was a tiny fish that must have very recently hatched.<\/p>\n
However, this particular fish is a giant compared to the rest of them and the yellowlegs had to work harder to capture it and keep it from escaping than it did with the others,<\/p>\n
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It was also more difficult to swallow but eventually it went down the hatch with no further ado.<\/p>\n
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This is an older photo of a different Greater Yellowlegs that better illustrates another point I’d like to make about the species. And about birders.<\/p>\n
During the breeding season their legs and feet are bright orange-yellow (although those colors aren’t quite so bright during the rest of the year). Some birds have common names that many think are poor choices for the species. Ring-necked Duck comes to mind as an example because the ring on the neck is so very difficult to see but obviously yellowlegs are appropriately named.<\/p>\n
I’m getting somewhere with all this so stick with me.<\/p>\n
Birders and others have assigned many colloquial names for groups of birds of the same or similar species. A few examples might include:<\/p>\n
As we can see many of those names are quite descriptive, creative and\/or colorful. The name for a group of yellowlegs is, wait for it…<\/p>\n
An incontinence.<\/p>\n
Think about it in the context of leg color.<\/p>\n
Birders are often thought of as a serious, highly-focused group of nerds with tunnel vision but you can’t tell me we don’t have a sense of humor.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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PS – My good friend Jim DeWitt (Hieronymus Bosch) made the following comment on this post on Facebook. I liked it so much I had to share: “My personal favorite collective noun is a Durante of Toucans, although you have to be of a certain age to get the reference. It’s more proof of your thesis.”<\/em><\/p>\n