I strongly feel that bird names *should* be capitalized. No other field has a systematic set of English names paralleling the Latin binomial. Because of this lack of standardization, other fields CANNOT use English. But in birding, we almost always mean a particular species when we use a bird name.

When I write Spotted Sandpiper, you know I'm not describing the sandpiper as having spots. Rather, I'm referring to _Actitis macularia_. When I refer to a Common Snipe, I'm not commenting on its abundance or ordinariness. In a recent Tweeters post, someone referred to a towhee which wasn't very spotted, so the poster didn't know if it was a Spotted Towhee or not. Imagine that message without the caps!

Until we all learn the Latin binomials, and stop using English when referring specifically to a species, we must use capitalization.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland WA
== MJCT_Hobbs at msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Don Baccus <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 8:59 AM
Subject: Re: Bird Names


>At 08:16 AM 10/26/98 -0800, Diann MacRae wrote:
>>Hi, Tweets
>>
>>Regarding bird names and capitalization, for those of us who are
>>professional writers (at times), we must go with the editor of whatever
>>journal or periodical we are writing for at the moment. There is no real
>>standardization here, some capitalize, some don't. My preference,
>>personally, is no caps, except of course for words always capitalized, but
>>I strongly feel it's correct either way.
>
>Certainly the world of print supports your contention. I usually submit is
>no caps except for proper nouns (i.e. spotted towhee, Townsend's warbler) but
>the reality is the editor of whatever rag I deal with does whatever they want,
>and as you note, their's no standardization.
>
>The capitalization of names is really kinda archaic, and it seems to be only
>the bird world that has hung onto the convention. I suspect that over the
>next
>century or so that the bird world will end the practice, just as we no longer
>write of Cats and Dogs or Roses and Pansies...
>
>
>
>- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
> Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
> http://donb.photo.net
>