Hi Patrick,

> A little while ago, I posted a message about our trip to Morro Bay,
> saying that I saw some shorebirds that I couldn't identify. Well, I
> finally got off my keyster and got them scanned in. The address is:
>
> http://www.uidaho.edu/~scott931/palouse/knowme.html
>
> The words are in French, but I'm sure they're pretty easy to translate.

I don't want to be pedant, but being a French myself, I think I can pinpoint
a few "bugs" in your french sentences.

1) "D'abord, un oiseau que je ne sache pas"
First, the grammatically-correct sentence would be "un oiseau que je ne sais pas".
The verb is at the present tense not at the "subjonctif" (whatever that is called
in English).
Second, the verb "savoir" is not the correct verb for this particular usage of the
English verb "to know". You'd rather use "connai^tre" or "reconnai^tre".
I would suggest "D'abord, un oiseau que je ne connais pas"

2) "Si vous me savez, dites a` Pat mon nom (parce qu'il ne le sait pas)"
I would say "Si vous me reconnaissez ..."
"dites a Pat mon nom" doesn't really sound like French, but I'm afraid I've been
away from France for too long to find a nice formulation. In any case, this is
totally understandable, as opposed to the use of savoir which will sound to any
French speaking person *very* weird (well, maybe except Quebecers :-)


> Anyone who can give me a hand with the first bird is welcome to join in.

Sorry, I'm not good enough in shorebirds to try and guess any of these guys :-(

Take care

--
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The Comet cometh, Gromit gromith.
Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA