Willet

Overview

Willet: Large sandpiper with mottled gray-brown upperparts, white rump and lightly streaked and barred white underparts. Broad white stripes on black wings are visible in flight. Tail is white with dark brown tip. Legs are blue-gray. Flight is short and low, alternates rapid wing beats with glides.

Range and Habitat

Willet: Breeds from central Canada to northeastern California and Nevada and along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts south from Nova Scotia. Spends winters along coasts from Oregon and the Carolinas southward. Preferred habitats include mud banks, tides, coasts and coastal lagoons.

INTERESTING FACTS

Willets breeding in the interior of the West differ from the Atlantic Coastal form in ecology, morphology, and subtly in calls.
It is the only North American sandpiper whose breeding range extends southward into the tropics.
They are very territorial and will aggressively defend their nesting and feeding territory.
A group of sandpipers has many collective nouns, including a "bind", "contradiction", "fling", "hill", and "time-step" of sandpipers.

The Willet has a vast global range reaching up to roughly 1.9 million square kilometers. This bird can be found in an expansive range of locations including much of the Caribbean, Central and North America and parts of South America which includes Anguilla, , Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, the United States, Venezuela, and the Virgin Islands; with vagrant populations in Finland, Francy, Norway, Portugal and Uruguay among others. This species prefers wet and marine environments including bogs, marshes, swamps and peatlands as well as beaches and mud