I tried not to do this but it was nagging me... What we all have to
remember is that not everyone who subscribes to Tweeters is that familiar
with birds. This includes me. I spend countless hours at the computer and
when I see the excitement about a rare bird or one that is unusual to our
area it peeks my interest and I have to go get the bird book and look it up.
The four letter bird abbreviations really make it hard for me to read the
messages.

Being married to a computer professional, I get all the MLA's (Multi letter
acronyms) that I can handle at home. Please don't make me have to learn
more.:-)

My plea would be to go ahead and use the abbreviations in your field notes,
we all have our own way of noting things, but please take the time to write
the names of the birds out.

Melissa McKenzie


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Sgd24 at aol.com
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 2:20 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Four-Letter Bird Abbreviations


Well I'll throw my two cents worth in.
1)They are not neccessary in writing a message and could even go to the
extreme of poor style.
2)However for field biologists they are extremely neccessary. Here a good
example;

To identify a species should not be enough to quench one's thirst,
a proper thirst must seek to understand every facet of the bird's
existence.