Feb. 9, 2020 - Willet Eating A Crab

This week I was on the beach at St. George Island and saw a Willet with something in its mouth. As I got closer, I could see it was a crab.

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The willet was struggling to eat the crab and even dropped it at one point. We looked in a book we have called “Florida’s Living Beaches” and discovered this is a Slender-eyed Mole Crab. It’s a favorite fishing bait here on the Florida beaches.

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The bird picked up the crab to try again.

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The crab looked big relative to the bird’s mouth so I was interested to see how this would turn out.

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The crab was eventually stuffed into the Willet’s mouth.

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But it was having a hard time swallowing the crab.

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Here’s a close-up view of the Willet trying to swallow the crab.

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There is a lump in the Willet’s throat, so I think the crab is on its way “down the hatch.”

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