And you're entitled to your opinion, but dictating what others need to
learn sounds elitist to me. The newspaper convention suggested sounds
fine to me because there is not presumed knowledge there. If the
purpose of this list is to share information posting it in arcane ways
does not serve that purpose. Birding is a hobby for me, not a job, and
I don't need to clutter my house with another secret decoder ring or
constantly look up a website. I stand by my earlier comments that those
codes are "entre nous" communications which will turn off some newbie
types.

Arthur Berman
North Vancouver, BC

Joemeche at aol.com wrote:
>
> Arthur,
>
> "The elitist tone?" Did you not read what I said about having fun with the
> whole thing? There is no one that I know who is less "elitist" than I. I
> encourage people to have fun looking at and learning about birds. "Elitist tone?" I
> think not.
>
> Cheers,
> Joe Meche
> Bellingham