week in May, “among the low scrub, just back of the beach ridge. The
nests were placed in the midst of low bushes and were quite difficult
to find.” Arthur T. Wayne (1910) “found two nests on the top of a high
sand hill, in wild oats (_Zizania miliacea_)” and E. A. Samuels (1883)
says that it “has been known to breed in a rye field 20 miles from the
seashore.”
Willets which I have found breeding on the coasts of Louisiana and
Texas have proved to be referable to the eastern form. On Dressing
Point Island in Matagorda Bay, Tex., we found a few pairs breeding,
with heavily incubated eggs, on May 8, 1923. This is a large, flat,
grassy island on which we found black-crowned night herons and a few
pairs of Ward herons nesting on the ground. The willets’ nests were
well concealed under thick tufts of luxuriant grass.
Willets on their breeding grounds are among the noisiest and most
demonstrative of birds. No sooner does one land on an island where they
are breeding than an outcry is started and one after another the birds
arise and fly out to meet the intruder, until the whole colony is in a
state of great excitement. Regardless of their own safety they circle
about at short range, pouring out a steady stream of angry invectives
in a great variety of loud, ringing notes. And this performance is
kept up as long as the intruder is anywhere near their nests. They
often alight on bushes, trees, posts, or even buildings and keep up a
constant scolding.
_Eggs._--The willet regularly lays four eggs; as many as six, and even
seven, have been found in a nest, but these large numbers are probably
the product of two females. The eggs vary in shape from ovate to ovate
pyriform and they have only a slight gloss. The ground colors vary
from “deep olive buff” to “olive buff,” rarely “yellowish glaucous,”
in greenish types, and from “avellaneous” to “tilleul bluff,” rarely
pale “Isabella color,” in the buffy or brownish types; and there
are numerous intermediate shades between these extremes. They are
generally boldly and irregularly marked with both large and small spots
and blotches, but sometimes they are quite evenly covered with small
spots; rarely they are blotched around the large end only. The markings
are mostly in dark browns, “burnt umber,” “bister,” “sepia” and “clove
brown,” but sometimes they are in lighter, olive browns. The underlying
markings are in various shades of “brownish drab” or “drab gray.”
The measurements of 56 eggs average 52.5 by 38 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =60.5= by 38, 53.5 by =40=, =49= by
37, and 50 by =36= millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation seems to be unknown. Both sexes
share in the care of the young, which run soon after hatching. Arthur
T. Wayne (1910) says:
The young are hatched by May 29, and the parents sometimes
remove them between the thighs (as the woodcock is also
known to do) to a place of safety, fully a quarter of a
mile away. I observed this trait on May 29, 1899. I found
a nest in an oat field, which contained one young bird
just hatched and three eggs on the point of hatching. I
remained near the place until the eggs were hatched, and
the willets were greatly alarmed all the time. Presently I
saw one of the old birds remove a young one and fly with it
across three creeks and marsh land to an island a quarter
of a mile away. This was repeated until all the young were
removed.
_Plumages._--The downy young willet is rather prettily and quite
distinctively marked. There is a distinct loral stripe of brownish
black, a post ocular stripe and a median frontal stripe of “warm
sepia.” The chin and throat are white and the rest of the head is pale
buff, mixed with grayish white, heavily mottled on the crown with “warm
sepia.” The down of the hind neck and upper back is basally sepia with
light buff tips. The rest of the upper parts are variegated with pale
buff, grayish white and “warm sepia”; but in the center of the back is
a well marked pattern of four broad stripes of “warm sepia” and three
of light buff, converging on the rump and between the wings. The under
parts are buffy white.
The young bird begins to acquire its Juvenal plumage before it is
half grown, beginning with the scapulars, back and wings; then comes
the plumage of the breast and crown, and lastly the neck, rump and
tail. In the full juvenal plumage, in July, the feathers of the crown,
back, scapulars and wing coverts are “sepia”; those of the crown are
tipped, those of the back and scapulars are broadly edged or notched
and those of the wing coverts are still more broadly edged with “pale
pinkish buff”; the greater coverts are irregularly barred, variegated
or sprinkled with sepia; the rest of the wing is as in the adult; the
rump is “hair brown,” narrowly tipped with buffy white; the upper tail
coverts are white, indistinctly barred with dusky near the tips; the
central tail feathers are barred with “sepia” and “drab,” tinged with
“pinkish buff,” these markings decreasing laterally; the chin, upper
throat and belly are white; the lower throat, chest, and flanks are
suffused with “pale pinkish buff,” streaked on the throat and chest and
barred on the flanks with “sepia.” These colors soon fade until the
edgings become nearly white.
A partial molt takes place mainly in September, involving the body
plumage, the tail and some of the wing coverts; this produces the
first winter plumage, which can be distinguished from the adult only
by the retained juvenal wing coverts. This plumage is worn through the
winter and I think, in most cases, through the first spring. At the
next complete molt, the first postnuptial, the adult winter plumage is
acquired.
Adults have a nearly complete prenuptial molt in March, April, and
May, involving everything but the flight feathers of the wings, which
are apparently molted later in the fall or early in the winter. I have
not actually seen these feathers molting. The lighter portions of the
spring plumage wear away during the breeding season, giving the birds a
very black appearance above. The complete postnuptial molt begins with
the body plumage in August, or even July, and by September the plain
“smoke gray” winter plumage is assumed.
_Food._--The favorite feeding grounds of the eastern willet are on the
broad mud flats or sand flats in the bayous, bays, and estuaries on
the coast; it also feeds along the muddy banks of creeks and ditches,
or about the pond holes and splashes on the salt marshes. If disturbed
at its feeding it rises with a loud outcry, alarming all the birds
within hearing. W. J. Erichsen (1921) has noted that, although they
feed at all hours of the day, the nesting birds are seldom found on
their nests during the early morning hours, when there seems to be a
concerted movement from the breeding grounds to their feeding places. I
am inclined to think, however, that they are governed more by the tides
than by the hours, as most of their feeding grounds are covered at high
tide.
Their food consists of aquatic insects, marine worms, small crabs,
fiddlers, small mollusks, fish fry, and small fish. Some vegetable
matter is eaten, such as grasses, tender roots, seeds, and even
cultivated rice.
_Behavior._--The flight of the willet is said to be swift, but it has
always seemed to me to be rather slow and heavy, when compared with the
flight of other shore birds, though perhaps it results in better speed
than it appears to do. The willet is a heavy-bodied bird and its flight
is strong, direct, and protracted; it seems to fly more like a duck
than the other shore birds. Occasionally it sets its wings and scales
downward; and on its breeding grounds I have seen it hover on quivering
wings like a poised falcon. I have not found the willet particularly
shy, as compared with other large waders, though it has the reputation
of being very wary. When in large flocks in open situations, it is
useless to attempt to approach it; but I have often walked up to within
gunshot range of single birds and have frequently had small flocks
fly within range while I was standing in plain sight. On its breeding
grounds it is utterly fearless and bold.
Willets often perch on bushes, trees, fences, posts, rocks, or
buildings, where they can watch and scold at the intruder. Mr. Maynard
(1896) has seen them “perching on the limbs of pine trees, 40 or 50
feet from the ground, and sometimes, a dozen birds would sit side
by side on a single branch, presenting a novel appearance.” Being
partially webfooted, they can swim fairly well and probably alight on
the water to rest when migrating at sea. On the ground they are rather
sluggish, standing still much of the time, with heads drawn down. They
indulge in the bobbing or nodding motions less frequently and more
moderately than the yellowlegs do. Francis H. Allen has noted that “in
bobbing, the head is drawn back and the tail lowered at the same time,
the whole body turning as on a pivot, then the head is brought forward
and the tail raised to its natural level.”
_Voice._--On its breeding grounds the willet is a very noisy bird,
pouring out a great variety of notes. Its usual note is a loud,
vehement _wek_, _wek_, _wek_ or _kerwek_, _kerwek_, _kerwek_, varied
to _piuk_, _piuk_, _piuk_. Occasionally the whistling note, _pill_,
_will_, _will_ or _pill-o-will-o-willet_, is heard, suggesting the note
of the yellowlegs in quality, accent, and manner of delivery. Less
frequently another note is heard, which sounds like _beat it_, _beat
it_. John T. Nichols adds in his notes:
At this season one hears several variations of the _kiyuk_
flight note, one of these, _ki-yi-yuk_ suggesting the
loudest, most ringing call of the greater yellowlegs.
A loud, high-pitched _kree-uk_, which is infrequent,
suggests a note of the lesser yellowlegs. Similarly
_kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk_ in tern-like series from two mating
birds is probably homologous with the alighting and
flushing notes of the yellowlegs. The ordinary loud flight
note of the transient willet is a far-reaching, gull-like
_kiyuk_, repeated at intervals. A less frequent call
resembles the _wheu wheu wheu_ of the greater yellowlegs,
but is much lower pitched, not loud. It is likely to be
heard from a bird lingering at a given locality.
_Enemies._--Man has been the chief enemy of the willet and the main
cause of the restriction of its breeding areas. When it bred abundantly
in Nova Scotia and Virginia its eggs were collected in large numbers as
a legitimate article of food. And the birds were shot all through the
breeding season. Being a large, fat bird, it helped to fill the game
bag rapidly and so was a favorite with sportsmen or market gunners. It
does not come readily to decoys, but it can easily be attracted by a
skillful imitation of its notes, and flocks often fly by within range
of the gunner’s blind. Mr. Nichols tells me that it will decoy well to
the whistled imitation of the black-bellied plover’s note. As it is no
longer on the game-bird list, it will probably be given a chance to
increase.
Some colonies have been washed out by high tides and their natural
enemies, predatory animals and birds, have done considerable damage. P.
B. Philipp (1910), who visited Raccoon Key, S. C., says:
The birds had been badly persecuted by fish crows and
minks; broken and sucked eggs were found everywhere, and
two nests were found in which the skeleton of the bird was
lying on sucked eggs, the work of minks.
_Field marks._--The willet, while standing on the ground, is a
nondescript looking bird, almost devoid of characteristic markings,
especially in the immature and winter plumages. It is about the size
of the greater yellowlegs, but more heavily built, with shorter and
heavier, bluish-gray legs, shorter neck, and decidedly heavier bill.
Its drab colors match well into a background of sand or mud. But when
it lifts its black and white wings or when flying, no bird is more
easily recognized, for its color pattern is unique and conspicuous; the
black wings, with their broad white band extending across the base of
the tail, advertise the willet as far as they can be seen. Its notes,
described above, are also quite characteristic.
_Fall._--I imagine that the willets, which breed in Nova Scotia,
migrate at sea to the West Indies, mainly in August. I have never seen
an adult willet on the New England coast in the fall, and practically
all that I have shot are referable to the western form, but it is not
easy to recognize the two forms in immature plumage. Willets of some
form, in immature plumage, are quite common at times in southern New
England and on Long Island from the middle of July to the middle of
September. The main flight comes in August. I suspect that these are
practically all young western willets.
_Winter._--The eastern willet spends the winter on the south Atlantic
and Gulf coasts of North America, in the Bahamas and West Indies, and
on the more northern coasts of South America. It is therefore resident
or present the year round in much of its breeding range. It is rather
rare as far north as South Carolina, but abundant in Florida and on
the Gulf coasts, where the resident birds are reinforced by eastern
and western willets from the North. In Florida they are occasionally
seen about the ponds on the prairies or in the pine woods, but
their favorite resorts are the broad mud flats in the estuaries and
bayous or in the coastal marshes. In such places we often saw them
in large flocks by themselves, where they were very shy and utterly
unapproachable. Toward the end of March their numbers began to
decrease, as the birds left for their breeding grounds.
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--The Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America to northern
South America; accidental in Kansas, Bermuda, and Europe.
_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the willet extends north to
Texas (Corpus Christi, Houston, and Galveston); Louisiana (Calcasieu,
New Orleans, and Breton Island); Alabama (Grand Batture Island and
Bayou Labatre); and Nova Scotia (Digby, Halifax, and Sable Island).
East to Nova Scotia (Sable Island and Barrington); Massachusetts
(formerly New Bedford and Nantucket); Connecticut (Madison and West
Haven); New Jersey (Barnegat Inlet, Bridgeton, Beasleys Point, Sea
Isle City, and Cape May); Maryland (Berlin); Virginia (Chincoteague,
Hog Island, Cobb Island, and Norfolk); North Carolina (Atlantic and
Beaufort); South Carolina (Waverly Mills, Sullivans Island, and
Frogmore); Georgia (Savannah, Darien, and St. Simons Island); eastern
Florida (Fernandina, Anastasia Island, New Smyrna, Turtle Mount,
Mosquito Lagoon, Cape Canaveral, and Lake Worth); and the Bahama
Islands (Great Bahama, Abaco, and Inagua). South to the Bahama Islands
(Inagua and Andros); the West Indies (Grand Cayman); western Florida
(Indian Key and St. Marks); and Texas (Brownsville). West to Texas
(Brownsville and Corpus Christi).
The breeding range above outlined has become greatly restricted, and
while it is still reported as breeding in Nova Scotia, it is of rare
occurrence at this season on the coasts of the Northern and Middle
Atlantic States. Willets have been reported as nesting on Barbuda, West
Indies, but the record is probably based upon non-breeding individuals
which also have been noted in Cuba (Guantanamo).
_Winter range._--The winter range extends north to Texas (Brownsville);
Louisiana (State Game Preserve and Breton Island); Alabama (Coffee
Island); and probably rarely Virginia (Cobb Island). East to rarely
Virginia (Cobb Island); rarely North Carolina (Fort Macon); South
Carolina (Waverly Mills and Frogmore); Georgia (Savannah and Darien);
Florida (Fernandina, Mosquito Inlet, Indian River, Sebastian, and Royal
Palm Hammock); the Bahama Islands (Grassy Creek and Caicos); Cuba;
probably Haiti; Porto Rico (Boqueron and Anegada Island); the Lesser
Antilles (Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad); British Guiana;
and Brazil (Catejuba Island). South to Brazil (Catejuba Island and
Guapore River). West to Brazil (Guapore River); northeastern Colombia
(Cartagena); probably Panama (Rio Juan Diaz); Yucatan (Merida and
Cozumel Island); Tamaulipas (Matamoros); and Texas (Brownsville).
_Spring migration._--Early dates of spring arrival are: New Jersey,
Cape May, March 22, Long Beach, April 6, and Caldwell, April 7; Rhode
Island, Rock Island, April 27; Massachusetts, Nantucket, May 2, Dennis,
May 5, and Falmouth, May 11; and Nova Scotia, Yarmouth, April 22, and
Wolfville, April 29.
Late dates of spring departure are: Mexico, Tampico, April 11; and
Cuba, Trinidad, April 14, Siguanea, May 2, and Guantanamo, May 8.
_Fall migration._--Information is lacking of the early arrival of
the willet on the southern part of its winter range, but among late
dates of fall departure are: Maine, Sagadahoc County, October 25;
Massachusetts, Plymouth, October 4; Connecticut, Meriden, October 15;
New Jersey, Salem County, October 8, and Caldwell, October 17; and
Maryland, near Baltimore, about November 1.
_Casual records._--The willet has been taken once in Kansas (near
Hamilton, September 8, 1912); and one was obtained in Bermuda on July
3, 1848. It also has been reported on a few occasions from Europe, in
all cases without complete data: France (Abbeville, also two in the
Paris market); Dalmatia; and Sweden.
_Egg dates._--Nova Scotia: 4 records, June 5 to 19. Virginia: 26
records, May 19 to June 16; 13 records, May 27 to June 8. South
Carolina and Georgia: 53 records, March 10 to July 4; 27 records, May 9
to 22. Texas: 28 records, April 3 to June 10; 14 records, April 23 to
May 24.
CATOPTROPHORUS SEMIPALMATUS INORNATUS (Brewster)
WESTERN WILLET
HABITS
When William Brewster (1887) described and named the western willet he
characterized it as:
Differing from _S. semipalmata_ in being larger, with a
longer, slenderer bill; the dark markings above fewer,
finer, and fainter, on a much paler (grayish-drab ground);
those beneath duller, more confused or broken, and bordered
by pinkish salmon, which often spreads over or suffuses
the entire underparts, excepting the abdomen. Middle tail
feathers either quite immaculate or very faintly barred.
It is a bird of the western interior; its main breeding grounds are
in the Great Plains regions of the Northern States, west of the
Mississippi River, and the central Provinces of Canada. Nearly all
recent writers have recorded it as breeding on the coasts of Louisiana
and Texas, an oft-repeated error. All the breeding birds that I
have shot on the coasts of these two States, in May and June, were
clearly referable to the eastern form. And I have been unable to find
any specimens of _inornata_ in collections that could be classed as
breeding birds from these States. If the western willet breeds in
Texas at all it must be on the plains or prairies of the interior. But
it seems hardly likely that it would have a breeding range so widely
separated from the northern range as outlined below. The eastern willet
is strictly a coastwise bird and breeds, or did formerly, all along
the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. On the other hand, the western willet is
just as strictly a bird of the inland prairies and plains during the
breeding season.
_Spring._--The main migration route seems to be northward through the
Mississippi Valley, chiefly in April; most of the birds are on their
breeding grounds by the first of May or earlier and are laying eggs
before the end of that month. Birds which winter in South Carolina
and Florida probably join this route by an overland flight. There is
a northward migration through the interior valleys of California to
breeding grounds west of the Rocky Mountains, and probably some birds
cross these mountains to the interior plains.
_Nesting._--We found western willets very common about the lakes in the
prairie regions of North Dakota and Saskatchewan; but owing to their
habit of flying a long distance to meet the intruder and making a great
fuss everywhere but near their nests, we succeeded in finding only
one nest. This was on the higher portion of the open prairie, a long
way from any water, near Big Stick Lake, Saskatchewan. The nest was a
hollow in the ground, measuring 7 by 6 inches in diameter and 3 inches
deep, lined with grasses and dry weeds. It was in plain sight in short
grass; a few scattered dead weeds were standing around it, but no long
grass. It contained three fresh eggs on June 14, 1906. Ernest T. Seton
(Thompson, 1890) found a nest in Manitoba “which was placed in a slight
hollow, shaded on one side by the skull of a buffalo and on the other
by a tuft of grass,” on an alkali plain.
The western willet breeds commonly in Boxelder County, Utah. Three sets
of eggs in my collection, taken there on May 7, 13, and 16, 1916, by
the Treganzas, came from nests described as slight depressions in short
marsh grass; one was near an alkali flat, one near a water runway, and
one on a partially grass-grown dike.
This bird is a rare, or very local, breeder in California. J. Van
Denburgh (1919) reports five nests found on “a partially flooded
mountain meadow” in Lassen County on June 1 and 6, 1918. “The nests
were made of pieces of weeds rather carelessly built up on the mud.
Some were found where the water was a few inches deep and some where
the mud was drying.”
_Eggs._--The eggs of the western willet are indistinguishable from
those of the eastern bird. There is a slight average difference in
length, but the measurements widely overlap. The measurements of 56
eggs average 54.1 by 37.6 millimeters; the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =58.1= by 39.4, =50.5= by =39.7=, and 54.9 by =35=
millimeters.
_Plumages._--The sequence of plumages and molts is the same for both
races, but juvenal western birds are somewhat paler than eastern birds,
and they have less barring on the tail feathers or none at all.
_Fall._--From its breeding grounds in the interior the western willet
migrates in three main directions to the seacoasts, almost due east to
the Atlantic coast of New York and New England, southeast and south
to the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts and southwest to the California
coast. Probably the birds which breed east of the Rocky Mountains take
the easterly and southerly routes and those which breed west of these
mountains migrate to California. Most of the willets which we get in
Massachusetts in August are immature western willets; I have never
seen an adult. These young birds apparently come from the Great Lakes
region, where they have been recorded in Illinois and Ohio and as far
north as Toronto, Ontario. John T. Nichols says in his notes:
Along the bays and marshes of the south shore of Long
Island the willet is a regular late-summer migrant in
small numbers varying from year to year. Southbound shore
birds of other species are now following this coast to the
westward, but a large majority of the willet are moving in
the opposite direction; that is, from west to east. Its
maximum flight seems to come in the beginning of August,
and a peak of abundance for the species was reached
in 1923. At Mastic on August 4, 1923, 14 willet were
counted passing west to east in 3 flocks during 2½ hours’
observation.
I have examined a number of specimens of these Long Island
fall-migration willet, which have all been in the grey
unmarked plumage of birds of the year (which I would not
undertake to distinguish from adult fresh winter plumage),
and remarkably uniform in size. Their bills varied scarcely
at all in dimensions (slightly over 2¼ inches), being
decidedly too long for the short-billed Virginia breeding
bird, but much too short for the long-billed bird from
the Dakotas (unless its young of the year are uniformly
short-billed).
_Winter._--Western willets mingle in winter with their eastern
relatives on the South Atlantic and Gulf coast from Florida to Texas;
they are especially abundant in Texas. They also winter abundantly from
the coast of California southward. Bradford Torrey (1913) saw them,
mixed with marbled godwits, near San Diego, in such numbers that he--
mistook them at first for a border of some kind of
herbiage. Thousands there must have been; and when they
rose at my approach they made something like a cloud;
gray birds and brown birds so contrasted in color as to be
discriminated beyond risk of error, even when too far away
for the staring white wing patches of the willets to be
longer discernible.