Willet

Willets are commonly found on beaches and in saltmarshes along the coasts of North America. They primarily breed in grassy marshes in Canada and migrate south to winter on mudflats and beaches in northern South America. While willets are usually solitary, they may gather in flocks to migrate and roost.

Willets feed by probing with their bills into mud and sand flats, searching for a wide variety of invertebrates. They eat insects, crustaceans, mollusks, worms, grasses, seeds, and occasional fish. In the east, willets eat primarily marine coastal invertebrates, including fiddler and mole crabs. Aside from probing in the sand, willets also hunt by walking through shallow water and holding their bills open under the surface.

Each year, willets breed from May to July. They are monogamous each season, and males will even reunite with their previous mate if he can find her at their breeding grounds. To attract females, the males will fly with their wings high above their heads and use their “pill-will-willet” call. Females fly beneath them and sing back, before the pair flies to the ground together. Once a pair has formed, the willets stop displaying, mate, and search for a nest site together. Nests are simple scrapes in the grass. Females lay 3 to 4 eggs over the course of 6 days. Both parents incubate the eggs for slightly less than a month. Within hours of hatching, willet chicks are able to walk and feed themselves, and can fly within four weeks. Like many other shorebirds, the male, rather than the female, stays with the chicks longer.

There is no current conservation status for willets, as they have had no significant declines in population recently. However, habitat degradation in willets’ breeding, wintering, and migration areas (such as Delaware Bay) may put this species at risk.