Willet

The beach is full of cute birds who live at least part of their lives by the sea, and one of those birds is the Willet. Like many beach birds, it is small-ish, neutrally-colored, and can often be found walking along the waves. They eat things like crabs, insects, seeds, and small fish, and they will poke around for their food, not relying on eyesight alone.^[1,2] So, overall, the beach sounds like a great place for them to grab some lunch.

However, Willets aren't always found near the beach. They can also be found in marshes, tidal estuaries, and mudflats.^[1] Willets in the west, cowboys that they are, can be found on prairie marshes in the summer. The western and eastern groups of Willets are different in many ways: they have subtly different calls, breeding plumage, and sizes, with the western birds being larger overall ^[2,3,4]. Both are Willets, but they are different subspecies.^[2]

Standing, these birds appear mostly gray or brown with gray legs. However, when they spread their wings, they reveal a bold black and white stripe that helps identify them. I was able to see this stripe on the bird below even from far away. The stripe isn't pictured below, but you can see several great shots of it on the Cornell Lab's Identification page if you scroll to the right.

On a side note, this bird was fast! This moment was one of the brief times when it stopped to rest. The Sibley's Guide to Birds comments on the Willet's determined walk.^[5] So, the next time you're walking with a purpose, you can say to yourself, "I'm walking like a Willet!"

The Willet is also part of a conservation success story. Around the early 1900s, it was one of many birds whose population suffered due to over hunting, and at one point, there were almost none left in Virginia.^[1,3,6] One 1903 article interviewed wardens in Virginia about their impressions of the recovery of the shorebirds, and accounts of the Willets were mixed.^[7] However, the author below specifically mentioned concern for the Willet:

...since I have been acting as warden there are many more birds now than formerly, with the exception of the Willet and Marsh Hens, which are only holding their own. This is owing to the fact that they are slaughtered after the open season commences, which opens nearly a month too early. The law should be changed.
- Capt. J. W. Richardson, 1903.

Over ten years later, another author noted that "shorebirds have been so persecuted that vigorous measures must be taken, and immediately, to save them." ^[8] He also commented specifically on the Willet's decline:

The case of the willet is almost as deplorable, for its breeding range, which on the Atlantic coast once stretched from Florida to Nova Scotia, has become restricted to a few small colonies on the south Atlantic, while it has ceased to exist over most of the northern half of the plains, where it was once a common and conspicuous bird.
- Wells W. Cooke, 1915.

Protection for the birds came in the Migratory Treaty Act of 1918.^[3] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service explains that this act "prohibits the take (including killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport) of protected migratory bird species without prior authorization by the Department of Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service." ^[9] Their populations have since made a recovery, and they are now considered common.^[3,6]

I'm certainly glad these cute birds made a comeback. I enjoyed seeing these two walk near and in the waves, enjoying the beach like I was.

The Details: 

Common Name: Willet

Scientific Name: Tringa semipalmata

Order: Charadriiformes

Family: Scolopacidae

Seen: Walking along the shoreline of the beach.

Month: August '24 & April '25 (last two photos)

Range: At various points of the year, Willets can be found along most of the coastline of the United States, including parts of the Great Lakes.^[10] Inland, they can be found in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota, as well as almost all of the states to the west of those states (in Washington, they are still mostly along the coastline). Their range extends upwards into Canada and southward into the Caribbean islands and the along large sections of the coastlines of Central and South America. For a helpful visual representation, please see the range map on the Cornell Lab's website.

Learn More About Willets:

1. Kaufman, K. (1996). Lives of North American birds. Houghton Mifflin.
2. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). Willet: Identification. All About Birds.
3. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). Willet: Overview. All About Birds. 
4. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. (n.d.). Willet, Tringa semipalmatus.
   
5. Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley guide to birds (2nd ed.). Alfred A. Knopf. 
   
6. Alsop, F. J. (2002). (American ed.). Dorling Kindersley Limited.
7. Dutcher, W. (1903). Report of the A. O. U. committee on the protection of birds. The Auk, 20(1), 101-159. https://doi.org/10.2307/4070129
8. Cooke, W. W. (1915). Our shorebirds and their future. U.S. Government Printing Office.
9.  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (n.d.). Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
10. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). Willet: Range Map. All About Birds.