Willet Head

“Symphemia semipalmata. Semipalmated Tattler. Willet. Adult in summer: Upper parts ashy, confoundedly speckled to greater or less extent with blackish; this sometimes giving the prevailing tone, but in lighter colored cases the blackish restricted to an irregular central field on each feather, throwing out angular processes and tending to become traverse bars. When such dark fields prevail, the upper parts become quite blackish, speckled with ashy-white, like Totanus melanoleucus, for example. Furthermore, there is often a slight rufescence. Under parts white, sometimes with a rufous or brownish tinge, the jugulum and breast spotted and streaked, the sides barred or arrow-headed, with brownish-black. Axillars and lining of wing, edge of wing and primary coverts, sooty-blackish. Primaries blackish, with a great space white at base, partly overlaid and concealed by the primary coverts, partly showing conspicuously as a speculum; shafts white along this space. Most secondaries white most upper tail-coverts white, the shorter ones dark like rump, the longer ones barred like tail. Tail ashy, incompletely barred with blackish; lateral feathers pale, or marbled with white. Bill dark; legs bluish.” Elliot Coues, 1884

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