Marbled Godwit

The Marbled Godwit is a large, warm cinnamon-buff shorebird, mottled and barred with dark brown throughout its plumage—hence the "marbled" name. Its most distinctive feature is a very long, slightly upturned bill that is pink at the base and dark toward the tip, used to probe deeply into mud and sand.

Sexes look similar, though females tend to have noticeably longer bills than males. In flight, the wings show warm cinnamon underwing linings, a useful field mark distinguishing it from other large godwits.

Once heavily hunted and much reduced, populations have recovered substantially, and the species remains a characteristic bird of both interior prairie wetlands and coastal shorelines.

Key field marks

• Large size with warm, mottled cinnamon-buff plumage overall
• Long, slightly upturned bill, pink at the base with a dark tip
• Cinnamon-colored underwing linings in flight
• Long, grayish legs

Similar species

• Bar-tailed Godwit and Black-tailed Godwit are grayer or more boldly patterned and lack the warm cinnamon tone throughout.
• Hudsonian Godwit is smaller and darker with black underwing coverts, not cinnamon.
• Long-billed Curlew has a strongly downcurved bill rather than an upturned one.

Marbled Godwits breed primarily in wet prairie grasslands and shallow marshes of the north-central United States and south-central Canada, with additional isolated populations in Alaska.

Outside the breeding season they winter along coastal mudflats, beaches, estuaries, and lagoons of both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, south to Central America.

Voice

A loud, harsh, repeated call often rendered as ga-wit or radica, thought to be the origin of the name "godwit"; also gives sharp alarm notes on the breeding grounds.

Feeding

Probes deeply into mud, sand, or wet soil with its long bill to extract worms, mollusks, crustaceans, and insects; on prairie breeding grounds it also eats aquatic invertebrates and plant tubers.

Nesting

Nests on the ground in a shallow scrape within short grass, often near wetlands. Both parents share incubation, and the species is known for aggressively mobbing predators, including flying at intruders near the nest.