Willet

About the Willet

The Willet is the gray bird that keeps a secret. Standing on the beach it is the plainest large shorebird on the Texas coast -- stocky, straight-billed, gray-brown all over. Then it opens its wings and detonates: a bold black-and-white wing stripe flashes with every wingbeat, so striking that the takeoff looks like a different species entirely. Add the ringing "pill-will-willet" cry and the plain gray bird turns out to be the loudest personality on the flats.

Texas actually hosts two forms: the Eastern Willet that breeds noisily in our coastal saltmarsh in spring and summer, and the larger, paler Western Willet that migrates through and winters on the beaches. April birds on the upper coast can be either, often side by side.

Willets are the self-appointed sentries of the shore, first to scold an intruder and famous for standing on fence posts and rooftops near the nest, yelling. These photos come from Bolivar in April 2022, where displaying birds were doing exactly that.

The photograph to wait for is the wing moment -- takeoff, landing, or the wing-raised display. The bird tells you when: the yelling always starts a beat before the wings come up.