Yellowlegs

Recently I decided to start a series of paintings of birds that are seen along our North Atlantic seashore. For the first of this series, I decided on a painting of a greater yellowlegs, a painting which I just recently finished.  So this week I decided to feature a print of my painting “Yellowlegs”.



Yellowlegs often stop in Our Cove for a few days in the spring and their way north.  We look forward to their arrival in late April or early May, as a sure sign that spring really is in the air.  They scurry about in the intertidal shore, busily feeding in the seaweed and muddy bottom from half tide down to low water.  We see them again in August and into September and even October, as they stop by to visit the sheltered shores of Grand Manan Island on their way south.

When the tide is high, there is not much for a yellowlegs to do but wait for it to recede to expose more interesting intertidal sea floor where a yellowlegs meal might be found.

I have depicted “Yellowlegs” standing on a rock just above high tide in the early morning, with the rising sun reflecting yellow-orange off the calm sea and giving the rock itself an orange glow.  Yellowlegs is patiently waiting, wishing the tide would hurry up and ebb, because breakfast is waiting, just as soon as some of that delicious seaweed and mud bottom is exposed.