The Western Willet 
their divinity, and who by their very devotion 
lulled the fears of that sleepy genius, 1 got quite 
decently near, say, within thirty feet of my object¬ 
ive. The fog just then was rolling in inter¬ 
mittently off the ocean, although it was high noon, 
and at times birds and photographer nearly lost 
sight of each other. By dint of sacrificing a pair 
of trousers, the photographer managed to keep 
low on the local horizon, and although the Willet 
showed some concern/ he was so-o-o sleepy that 
he deliberately took chances and napped — under 
fire, as it were. The shutter, however, got upon 
the bird’s nerves, and by the time of the third 
offense he edged away in good earnest. 
Western Willets are of common occurrence 
during migrations along the coastal marshes of 
California, and they winter sparingly from Santa 
Barbara, or even Eureka, southward. At this 
season they consume worms, “sand fleas” and 
other crustaceans, and the smaller varieties of shell 
fish. Bradford Torrey reports having seen thou¬ 
sands together in False Bay, and that as recently 
as 1910; but the ranks of the Willet have been 
sadlv depleted by gun fire and by reduction of 
breeding areas, so that small flocks, not over a A WESTERN WILLET ON GUARD 
dozen or so, and scattering individuals, are much more common. 
For the nesting season the Western Willets retire to the more secluded 
swamps of the interior. So far as reported, they nest nowadays only 
in Plumas, Modoc, and Fassen counties. I found them nesting very 
quietly in the swamps bordering Goose Fake in the summer ot 1912. 
Fike the Jack-snipe of the same section, the Willets mounted guard on 
fence-posts and observed the nester’s operations with wary dignity. I 
was unsuccessful in the quest, owing chiefly to disturbed weather condi¬ 
tions that year. But Dr. Van Denburgh, more fortunate, has left us a 
recent account 1 of a colony found breeding at Grasshopper Meadow, near 
Eagle Fake, in Fassen County. Here, about July 1st, upon extensive 
mud-flats surrounding a shallow lake, the “Academy” party found a 
dozen or fifteen pairs of Western Willets, and succeeded in locating five 
nests. The attendant birds charged and circled about the visitors, 
something after the fashion of Avocets; and their nests, in much the same 
fashion, consisted of weed-fragments carelessly built up on the mud. 
“The Condor, Vol. XXI., Jan. 1919, p. 37. 
12 73 
