I observed a Willet (Western) in Gilmer County on Monday morning at the Goose Island Lake. The bird was foraging along the north shoreline near high grass. It was hobbling some, so likely an injured bird. I lost sight of it not long after I found it. It did call out a few times, so it could have relocated to somewhere on the lake.
This appears to be the first record for Gilmer, and maybe the "tenth" record for the Blue Ridge ecoregion of Georgia.
I found the following nine records:
15 August 1969 (Towns, Loftin) - Annotated Checklist of Georgia
19 August 2012 (Cherokee, Flynn)
29 April 2018 (Fannin, Lupa)
28 April 2020 (Bartow, Konrad)
02 May 2020 (Fannin, Lupa/Zuckerman)
15 May 2020 (Rabun, Hanna)
17 April 2021 (Fannin, Zuckerman, et al.)
27 April 2023 (Fannin, Lupa)
02 August 2023 (Rabun, Elzey)
Happy birding,
Joshua Spence,
Murray County
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