Is there an *official* list of the 4-letter codes that are frequently
used as shorthand for referencing birds -- I.e. SOSP for Song Sparrow?
While the rules are easy to follow, they sometimes conflict, as with
Trumpeter Swan and Tree Swallow.

The Check-list of Washington Birds on the WOS web-page uses TMSW for the
Trumpeters. Looking further in that list, I noticed that Blue Grouse
was BUGR, presumably to avoid conflict with Blue Grosbeak. Since Blue
Grosbeak is *not* in the WA Checklist, I inferred that the 4-letter
codes used there were taken from somewhere else. Where?

The reason I ask is that I use these codes for data-entry into my
birding database. The codes I have are very out-of-date and I was
contemplating updating them to reflect the name and classification
changes from the last 10 years or so, and I wanted to use the right
codes!

Any insight would be appreciated.


== Michael Hobbs
== Redmond WA
== mikeho at microsoft.com