{"id":44515,"date":"2017-01-21T06:50:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T13:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=44515"},"modified":"2026-04-03T08:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:41:16","slug":"possible-eastern-and-western-willet-split-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/01\/21\/possible-eastern-and-western-willet-split-in-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Possible Eastern and Western Willet Split in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EasternEastern Willet in flight – Fort De Soto County Park, Florida, June 6, 2009 – Nikon D200, handheld, f8, 1\/750, ISO 250, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 330mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been able to photograph Western Willets here in Utah, Idaho and Montana and in Florida I photographed both the Eastern and Western subspecies, eastern during their breeding season and western during their nonbreeding season.<\/p>\n

\"WilletWestern Willet lifting off near White Rock Bay – Antelope Island State Park, Utah, April 26, 2013 – Nikon D300, f6.3, 1\/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday when I wrote about a possible name change for Ring-necked Ducks to Ring-billed Ducks<\/span><\/a> I mentioned that in the blog post I read at the\u00a0American Birding Association<\/a><\/span> (ABA) that there are proposals for potential splits at the American Ornithological Society<\/a><\/span> (AOS), one of those is the proposal to split the two Willet subspecies into two distinct species, Eastern Willet (Tringa semipalmata<\/em>) and Western Willet (Tringa inornata<\/em>). I may have written about a possible split in Willets before, this proposal comes up quite often.<\/p>\n

There are differences in the appearance of the two subspecies as well as differences in their DNA, breeding locations and calls.<\/p>\n

\"WilletWestern Willet on the shoreline of the Gulf – Fort De Soto County Park, Florida, November 2, 2007 – Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1\/800, ISO 200, Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 300mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

If this split happens birders who keep lists will add to their lists without even having to leave home if they have checked off both current subspecies.<\/p>\n

For me, as a bird photographer with photo galleries on my site, it will mean I will need to set up separate galleries for Eastern and Western Willets then go through my Willet images and put them in the galleries where they would belong.<\/p>\n

That is not hard to do for the Willets I have photographed in the western U.S. because we do not have the eastern subspecies here but I will have to go through the images of Willets I photographed in Florida carefully to separate them into eastern and western.<\/p>\n

The question regarding this proposal is… Willet happen?<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Willet photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question regarding this proposal is… Willet happen? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,27,1022,25,704,2000,26,308],"tags":[5619,4004,5617,5616,5620,5621,5348,4052,4122,5622,5623,274,5273,5268,4168,11478,11477,5349,4047],"class_list":["post-44515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island-state-park","category-avian","category-davis-county-utah","category-florida","category-fort-de-soto-county-park","category-pinellas-county-florida","category-utah","category-willets","tag-aba","tag-adult","tag-american-birding-association","tag-american-ornithological-society","tag-aos","tag-dna","tag-eastern-willet","tag-flight","tag-flying","tag-inornata","tag-semipalmata","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-species","tag-split","tag-tringa-semipalmata","tag-tringa-semipalmata-inornata","tag-tringa-semipalmata-semipalmata","tag-western-willet","tag-willet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/willet-eastern-flying-gulf-mia-mcpherson-4377.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-bzZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6294,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/10\/07\/eastern-and-western-willets-in-breeding-plumage\/","url_meta":{"origin":44515,"position":0},"title":"Eastern And Western Willets In Breeding Plumage","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"October 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had the good fortune to photograph both the eastern and western Willets in breeding plumage, the eastern in Florida and the western in Utah and Montana.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Eastern Willet in breeding plumage, Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-eastern-breeding-mia-mcpherson-7007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-eastern-breeding-mia-mcpherson-7007.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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Mexico, Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/willet-gulf-of-mexico-mia-mcpherson-8966.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/willet-gulf-of-mexico-mia-mcpherson-8966.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/willet-gulf-of-mexico-mia-mcpherson-8966.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/willet-gulf-of-mexico-mia-mcpherson-8966.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21389,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2015\/04\/06\/listening-for-willets\/","url_meta":{"origin":44515,"position":2},"title":"Listening For Willets","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"April 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I have often written how I long to hear the first Long-billed Curlew in the spring but I feel I should mention that I also anxiously await the first calls of migrating Willets too.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Western Willet in morning light, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-western-mia-mcpherson-1931.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-western-mia-mcpherson-1931.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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Pinellas County, Florida","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/willet-eastern-flying-gulf-mia-mcpherson-4377.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/willet-eastern-flying-gulf-mia-mcpherson-4377.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/willet-eastern-flying-gulf-mia-mcpherson-4377.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/willet-eastern-flying-gulf-mia-mcpherson-4377.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":47534,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/07\/02\/no-willet-split-plus-other-nerdy-bird-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":44515,"position":4},"title":"No Willet Split Plus Other Nerdy Bird News","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"July 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Just because Willets weren't split this year doesn't mean they won't be split in the future, who knows what changes will be made a year from now.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Eastern and Western Willets","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-no-split-mia-mcpherson-6077.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-no-split-mia-mcpherson-6077.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/willet-no-split-mia-mcpherson-6077.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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