Hi Tweets,

Jim McCoy writes:

>My primary point was that we shouldn't scorn the usage of vernacular,
especially when such constitutes effective communication, as measured by the
audience's understanding of the message.

A straw man: nowhere in this discussion of molt-terminology has anyone
proposed eschewing vernacular; it just doesn't apply in discussing
molt-terminology--otherwise we'd be back to the days where every town and
county had a different name for the same species.

>I also was expressing a prejudice against technical terms that lack
clarity. Personally, I don't think the meaning of "definitive alternative
plumage" is intuitively obvious.

In isolation, of course not --no-one's telepathic-- one has to learn the
meaning and its context. Neither are the terms 'hard drive' or 'median
strip' intuitively obvious and they certainly lack clarity, but five gets ya
ten you use them comfortably. To be consistent with your expressed logic in
this discussion, do you intend to originate a personal vocabulary of
vernacular substitutes for non-intuitive computer jargon or highway-design
terminology? Of course not, you took the time to learn both meaning and
context in those instances. Why not birding?

If I walked up to someone and said 'asynchronous age-variant transience' out
of the blue, I'd deserve the baffled 'Wha--?' response I'd get. But if I
said 'In some species, adults migrate south before their young.', that
provides the necessary information and context the person needs to
understand the terminology. I have no idea if age-sorting in migration is
actually called that, I just whomped it up to provide an example.

Similarly, if you say "I'm against the H-P terminology because I can't
understand right off what 'Definitive Alternate' means", you're using a
convenient stick to beat the dog. Once you have bothered to give it an
honest appraisal, even if you choose not to use it afterward, you'll see the
dog has done nothing to deserve the beating.

>I shouldn't complain too strenuously in the absence of an alternative
scheme for plumage descriptions that is comprehensive, rigorous, and
crystal-clear, but that doesn't mean I can't lament the situation, and it
doesn't mean I can't resort to alternatives.

This reasoning is *so* frustrating since, compared to the other styles, the
H-P *is* "comprehensive, rigorous, and crystal-clear", since it describes
only plumage itself, so your alternative scheme is staring you in the face
while you turn your back on it and I mix my metaphors. Oh, what a long day
it's been....

Once past all the fear-mongering about its nonexistent difficulty, here's
how hard the Humphrey-Parkes plumage and molt-terminology actually is:

--a bird is downy, then it's in Juvenile/Juvenal plumage, then it will be in
either immature or Definitive Basic or Alternate, or in molt between them.
Period.

What's so hard and "opaque" --whatever that means-- about that? Heavens to
Murgatroyd, what could be *simpler*?

Most birds we know have regular molt periods and phases. The bird is in
juvenile (once), then alternates between Basic (roughly, 'non-breeding')
plumage --what it's in most of the time-- and Alternate (corresponding to
'breeding), its display plumages. Once the bird reaches a certain age, the
appearances of Alternate and Basic plumages don't change any more and so are
'Definitive'. This doesn't necessarily mean the bird is adult, that may or
may not --depending on type of bird-- take a further year or two more, but
it wears the same plumage patterns as the adult bird.

Say for a three-year gull or shorebird:

Down--> Juv--> pre-Basic 1 molt--> Basic 1 --> pre-Alternate 1 molt-->
Alternate 1--> pre-Basic 2 molt--> Basic 2--> pre-Definitive Basic
molt--> Definitive Basic--> pre-Definitive Alternate molt--> Definitive
Alternate et seq.

then bounces back and forth between Def Alt and Def Basic for the rest of
its life. You learn through books and experience what they look like at
different ages 'n stages, and I speak from direct experience to say that you
have a *much* more powerful ID tool at your disposal as well as a clearer
idea of how plumage actually works and how it changes over time; in other
words, how the bird transforms itself through its various stages from a
downy little critter to a crisply-patterned bright displaying adult. It's
one more thing to help give you a sense of the *bird* itself rather than
just its species identification. As well, for mamy, transitional plumages
are baffling, and the straight 'breeding/non-breeding' mindset actually
increases rather than lessens confusion in this area.

What could be clearer?

>I read recently that the editor of Science magazine is quite concerned
about this problem. Technical terminology among specialists can be
difficult to follow for those outside the specialty, even scientists within
closely-related disciplines. It is a problem when the language of science
impedes the flow of scientific information to society at large.

Then anything which lessens ambiguity and obfuscation and assorted other
obstacles to clarity is valuable. Which is why, in the area of Birders'
English, I find resistance to the H-P terminology and its simplicity so
baffling. I know some don't like it because they feel an implied need to
change and are comfortable with the older terminology. I mean, I don't care
if someone chooses not to use it: that's their god-given right; I just don't
want to hear about the need for clarity right afterward they've rejected it.

>We're not going to solve that problem here

Perhaps not, but I'm trying in some small ways to make things clearer not
for the experienced birder who's familiar with what our strange usages
actually mean, but the beginners who come in to birding familiar with the
generally-accepted and dictionary meanings but are unfamiliar with and
confused by the eccentricities of Birders' English.

>and I'm certainly not asking anybody to "dumb down"; in fact I usually find
myself on the other side of that particular issue. What I *would* like all
of us to do is to try to communicate effectively in our own several ways,
and not discourage others from doing the same.

It's funny: at one time, 'adult/breeding/nuptial/display/summer/spring' and
'immature/non-breeding/post-nuptial/winter/autumn/fall' plumage labelling
was considered technical and scientific and I've seen identical exchanges as
these somewhere in old (1910's--20's) journals in identical terms about the
very terminology you nowadays claim is comfortable and easy and
why-should-we-change? Ironic.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery, and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)