Really appreciated the GREAT compendium of bird ID advice recently posted.
Dovetails well with recent completion of the birding by ear course and will
help impress those sounds on my brain!!

However, I'm still being partially flummoxed by the widespread use of the
four-letter abbreviations for birds, I can usually figure them out but not
always (particularly if it's an area that has birds I'm less familiar with).

There are two possibilities - maybe tweeters who use them could be careful
to ID the bird's full name the first time, then use the abbreviation (lots
of people do this already). The other thing that would help me is if
someone would post where these come from, then maybe I could get a
comprehensive list for reference. That would help with postings from other
discussion groups like the bird ID guide.

Thanks!!

Teresa Michelsen
temi461 at ecy.wa.gov