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Breeding

The nest is a depression on dry mossy ground and is usually well hidden, typically within 200 meters of a water source and next to fallen branches, logs, or underneath low shrubs. The clutch is normally three to five eggs. These are buff or gray-brown and are covered in spots of various shades of brown. On average, the egg length is about 1.5 to 1.9 in(3.9-4.7 cm), and the egg width is about 1.1 to 1.2 in(2.7-3.1 cm). They are incubated for 22-23 days by both sexes. Both parents brood and care for the precocial young, which leave the nest a few hours after hatching. They can feed themselves upon departure from the nest. They fly at 23 to 31 days.^[1]

Food and feeding

Lesser yellowlegs forage in shallow water or on land. They eat primarily invertebrates gleaned (such as flies, beetles, water boatmen, and mayflies),[12] small fish, crustaceans, aquatic worms, molluscs (such as snails), spiders, and seeds.[13][12] They are very active when foraging, moving quickly with a high-stepping gait, neck outstretched, to pick at prey with quick jabs of the bill. Less often, they probe into mud or sweep the bill back and forth through water. Sometimes forages at night.

A wide variety of avian predators put lesser yellowlegs as their food. Peregrine falcons, merlins, long-tailed jaegers, northern harriers, northern goshawks, sharp-shinned hawks, short-eared owls, and gyrfalcons are the main predators of Adult lesser yellowlegs and their fledglings. In addition, Adult lesser yellowlegs protect their nest and eggs(fledglings) in the way of attacking potential predators. Sandhill cranes, peregrine falcons, merlins, northern harriers, bald eagles, mew gulls, herring gulls, short-eared owls, common ravens, black-billed magpies, coyotes, and domestic cats are the predators who eat baby lesser yellowlegs and their eggs.

Lesser yellowlegs, when defending their nests and young from predators, will show aggression and enthusiastically fight with invaders, including joining together to fight with predators. Nesting Little Yellow Legs are very reluctant to leave their nests, only leaving when a predator is less than 1 meter away to fight and keep the predators away from their nest. They may swoop down to attack the predator or use distraction strategies to lure it away.

The lesser yellowlegs breeds across interior Alaska and northern Canada, extending eastward to central Quebec. Its breeding range lies primarily between 51° and 69° N latitude in appropriate wetland habitats.

The lesser yellowlegs is a highly migratory bird. During winter, lesser yellowlegs at the Atlantic coast of North America, from New Jersey southward, travel along the Pacific coast as far north as San Francisco Bay, and throughout the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California. They are widely distributed in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Antilles, with the largest populations found wintering in these regions. Smaller numbers also winter inland throughout this range. . This species is a regular vagrant to western Europe; in Great Britain about five birds arrive each year, mostly between August and October, with the occasional individual overwintering. Their breeding habitat is clearings near ponds in the boreal forest region from Alaska to Quebec.