How do you know when a Greater Yellowlegs is near? It'll tell you. These gregarious shorebirds (Tringa melanoleuca) breed in boggy forest edges in the subarctic, along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska and in central Canada. Despite their conspicuous behavior both on the breeding grounds and during migration, Greater Yellowlegs are a particularly poorly understood species. While on-the-ground observations help us understand their range and habitat use at a species-level, until this year their migration had never been tracked from a bird's eye view. We didn't know the routes different populations use, what stopover sites are important, how they are connected and what an individual bird's migratory strategy looks like. Tracking data fills these gaps and informs our conservation priorities for populations.
