Greater and lesser yellowlegs

[Myer Bornstein]

I was able to capturea greater and lesser yellowlegs in-flight together. You can see the bill difference in the two birds.
Nikon D3S, 300 mm F4, 1.4 telly converter, ISO 800, 1/640 second, F8.0. Crop and adjust the in Lightroom and Photoshop. Levels and shadow adjustment.

[Doug Brown]

Really cool to get both of these birds in the same frame with good flight poses! Complete separation between the two would have been nice, but I like it as presented also. You made a good choice of aperture for 2 birds. It appears that you were a little underexposed; some noise was likely introduced when you tried to bring up the exposure in post. Sharpness isn't bad, but you didn't have much light to work with and these are fast fliers. I would lighten the top bird a bit.

[Jim Fenton]

Myer....

I'm not totally sold on the two being differing species but I could be wrong. It looks to me as if the lower bird is simply at a different head angle? if you look closely, both birds have slighlt upturned bills as well which is indicative of greater yellow legs. Most lessers would have less obvious streaking/ patterning to the neck and upper breast as well. Feather detail under the wings is darn near identical on both.

Perhaps Artie or John C will chime in here and give their thoughts.

As for the image itself, I think that birds are low in frame, especially with the square crop.

Subjects appear underexposed and I can see some noise in the bodies and underwings.

[Wayne Richardson]

Hi Myer

I have to agree with Jim's assessment that both these birds are Greater Yellowlegs.

It is actually easier to ID these 2 species in flight than on the ground, as the inner primaries & secondaries are spotted on Gt Yellowlegs (as in your image) & are plain on Lesser Yellowlegs.

Cheers: Wayne

[John Chardine]

Agree. Greater Yellowlegs. Have a look here for both species standing (I hadn't realised the differences in flight):

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?72881

Interesting image Myer, and not easy to get!

[Arthur Morris]

Great stuff above. Myer, you gotta add lots of light with white skies even with Nikon!