Generally birders and ornithologists capitalize all of the words in a
species' name. (I think this is sanctioned by the AOU.) The convention for
newspapers is to capitalize only proper nouns.

I think that the use of capitalizations is the better style. For example:
"Yellow Warbler" clearly refers to a species, while "yellow warbler" can
mean that species or perhaps a Wilson's Warbler.
In regard to "widgeon", that is the formerly standard spelling of "wigeon".

Jeff Gilligan
Portland and Nachotta



on 2/13/06 8:17 AM, Tucker, Trileigh at TRI at seattleu.edu wrote:


Hi Tweeters,
I know we've got a lot of grammarians and spelling experts here - thanks
in advance for your advice. When writing about a species, I have been
assuming that it's not proper to capitalize the name in the course of a
statement: for instance, "The great blue heron landed on top of my spruce"
would be correct. Is this right? Or should it be written, "The Great Blue
Heron landed..."?
And while we're at it, is "widgeon" *ever* the correct spelling? I don't
think so, but I see it so frequently that I've begun to wonder!

Trileigh Tucker
Lincoln Park, West Seattle
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