Baby Willets Rescued

Menunkatuck member John Pfitzner was at the right place at the right time to rescue a pair of baby willets last week. Greg Hanisek chronicled the event:

The baby Willets were about to become a meal if they didn’t get squashed first. But John Pfitzner had other ideas. John was driving on Route 1 near Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison when he saw the small chicks out in the open, exposed and eyed up by some hungry crows. They were trying to cross Route 1, which presented its own perils, but John was able to collect them in a bucket, as shown in his photograph here. He saw their parents land in a field at the former Griswold Airport Property next to Hammo, so he deposited the little ones near the place where the adult birds landed.