en garde!

We have a number of noisy Willets on the creek as well as in and around our marsh. They are certainly breeding in the area but I am not sure where (I have found a Willet nest on Dune Road but never on our side of the bay). These big sandpipers seem to me to be semi-colonial and they defend a territory -- a marsh for instance -- as a cooperative venture with more than one bird shrieking and diving at the intruder. Another feature of Willet territory is that they post a sentinel to survey the area and warn of potential trouble. I have seen Willets rout an accipiter from our marsh. On Dune Road, the guard Willets will perch precariously on the phone/electric wires to perform this service, something that seems to me to be rather extraordinary (I've never heard of it anywhere else) We don't have any wires so a dead Red Cedar on the far side of the pond serves the purpose (see attached photo). I don't know if the bird that is inevitably at this post is always the same one or if several different Willets share the duties. What I have noticed is that this sentinel no longer regards me as a threat and remains at his post quietly in my presence whether I am walking, standing or sitting (I keep a chair by the pond directly opposite the dead tree).
Yesterday I was sitting on the chair waiting for a friend who had crossed over to explore the creek shore while the Willet on guard sat quietly, apparently surveying the scene. Suddenly she or he dropped down into the pond and, after dipping in the water a few times, managed to catch a fairly decent sized fish which he/she then wrestled to devour with his longish but relatively thin beak. Willet beaks are substantial for an oversize sandpiper but they are not Osprey beaks so he/she had to swallow that fish whole. A most serious challenge. After dropping the fish a few times and recapturing it, he managed to juggle it and chomp on it in such a way that it went down his/her gullet.

Here is a short list of some of the flowers that are coming into bloom: Catalpa, roses (Pasture Rose and Rambler Rose; Multiflora Roses are almost finished), Day Lilies, Vine Honeysuckle, Venus' Looking-glass, Blue Toadflax, at least two kinds of thistle (only one beginning to flower), several kinds of clover, Daisy Fleabane and more than one kind of hawkweed.

Eric Salzman