Tweets,

Great minds think alike. The Four-letter Word thread appeared
simultaneously on Oregon Birders On-Line.

Convergent Evolution? Does this indicate that we are related species
according to the various genetic thoeries?

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 11:16:19 PST
From: Tom Crabtree <Tom_Crabtree at bendnet.com>
To: obol at gaia.ucs.orst.edu
Subject: Re: RE: bird guide

On June 26th, Carol Ledford wrote:

"For those of us not "in the business," these four-letter abbreviations can be
vague and confusing."

Let me assure you that to those of us that have been in the birding business,
actively for the last 20 years in Oregon, those damned codes can still be a
pain in the neck. As a fieldnotes editor I dread receiving reports that has
everything in those codes. They might be great for your own personal notes,
but when corresponding with others, particularly a group composed of people of
varying degrees of expertise it is unfortunate at best that people are in such
a hurry that they have to resort to a 4 letter code that half the audience
will not understand, rather than write out the full name of the bird. We owe
it to beginners in this hobby (as well as any of us at higher skill levels
that haven't found a use for the codes) to not speak in such impenetrable
jargon that they are turned off by it. So I vote for no use of 4 letter codes
in general posts to obol (or I guess I should say Oregon Birders On Line, not
to be hypocritical). Maybe after Mike has tallied all the Black-headed
Grosbeak results, he can do a polling on this issue.

Tom Crabtree Bend, OR tom_crabtree at bendnet.com