Burt Guttman wrote:

"This question comes up about, oh, roughly every two years, so I
guess we were due for it. Others who have replied have made the
principal points about distinguishing real names from nouns with
adjectives, and so on. I only want to point out that there is no
consistent editorial policy across all publications. Technical
ornithological journals use capitalization, but many popular bird
magazines, such as Birdwatcher's Digest, do not, and newspapers have
long had a down-style policy--only capitalize certain important
terms. Go figure. While we're on the subject, we ought to notice
that if the adjectival part of a name is hyphenated, as "Black-
throated" or "Yellow-rumped," only the first word is capitalized.
But oddly enough when the other part of a name is complex and
hyphenated, as "Ground-Dove" or "Night-Heron," both words are
capitalized. I wonder how this policy originated, as I don't see any
justification for it."
Burt, those capitalizations rules are well established by the AOU
Check-list Committee and, I think, similarly treated in other English-
speaking countries. If it's a dove, as in "Ground-Dove," the second
part is capitalized. If it's not that kind of bird, as in "Fairy-
wren," the second part of the name isn't capitalized. Very
straightforward. There are species with the name Rock-Thrush,
Whistling-Thrush, Quail-thrush and Shrike-thrush; the latter two
aren't thrushes. Lots of compound names get around it by being one
word: woodswallow, nighthawk, etc. I don't think there are any such
non-hyphenated compound names in which the bird actually belongs to
the group in the second part of the name. In other words, no hawk
would ever be called "nighthawk." If anyone knows of exceptions to
these comments, please inform!

There is a movement in other taxonomic groups to capitalize common
names of species wherever they are written, by the way. It's done
routinely in mammal, herp, butterfly, and dragonfly literature; I'm
not sure about fishes, as I don't have any fish journals here. I
think this is the way these names are heading, and I would be
surprised to see that momentum slowed or reversed. The news media
seem to be the last bastion of resistance to this, and most magazines
don't capitalize. I just looked in National Wildlife and Audubon, and
their common names are in lower case, but if you look in some of the
ads, they typically capitalize common names. I guess you wouldn't
visit the Florida coast to see a roseate spoonbill, but you might to
see a Roseate Spoonbill!

In respond to Gene Hunn's question about singular plurals, I believe
that is very much a British custom to speak of seeing a group of
teal, snipe, wigeon, etc., but as far as I know, it seems to be
reserved only for certain taxonomic groups, perhaps only or mostly
those that are game birds. They don't talk about seeing a group of
lark or woodpecker or swallow, etc. I think "geese" is always the
correct plural for "goose," Michael Hobbs' computer's aversion to it
notwithstanding! For some reason this has never caught on with me,
and I write and speak about groups of teals, snipes, wigeons, etc.

I think "widgeon" was an American corruption of "wigeon," the name
always used in the UK. You'll find "widgeon" in the older bird books,
but it was changed to agree with the earlier spelling.

Then there's Long-tailed Duck....

Dennis

Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382

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