: Not known to breed in our area but does just east of us in saltmarshes on Petit Manan Point and near Corea. breeding could occur at any time.
: in coastal marshes early-late May with from late Apr and to early Jun, and again mid Jul-early Sep. on the and Mount Desert Rock
Miscellany: Willets divide into two groups, the Atlantic/Gulf coastal marsh nesting ‘Eastern' Willets and the larger, paler, interior plains nesting ‘Western' Willets, a few of which have been recorded in fall on Mount Desert Rock. Through the middle of the 20th century, the eastern group nested in the marshes north to lower Delaware Bay with a small outlier population in Atlantic Canada. Since the 1960s, the gap between these two has slowly filled in. They'll never be common in eastern Maine - too few extensive salt marshes - but they're now common in southern Maine and a few pairs nest in marshes in Corea and Petit Manan.
In summer 2011, a Willet nesting in southern Maine was fitted with a tracking device which logged where it went but to review the data, the bird had to return, be captured and have the device removed and successfully analyzed. The bird did return the following spring to Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, and the device was removed and the data analyzed. It showed that on leaving Maine, it had flown about 5000 miles nonstop across the western Atlantic to northeastern South America!
Last Updated: June 6th, 2022