Scott, thanks for your very thoughtful response. This discussion has
probably about reached saturation, but there is one point that I think
should be clearer than it seems to be in the birding community.

You're right, a great many birding spots, probably the majority, are
well-enough known that they don't need special identification.
Nisqually Wildlife Reserve is well-known and easy to locate, though
newcomers might have a problem with just "Nisqually," and most anyone
interested in birds will know what is meant by Potholes; indeed, a lot
of experienced birders might be lost if one said The Seep Lakes and
Columbia National Wildlife Reserves.

The problem arises with those local names like "Boeing Ponds" or "The
Fill" that don't seem to have any easily findable formal or generally
recognizable identity outside a very narrow field. For example, an
extensive Web search failed to turn up a definite location for "Boeing
Ponds." I now know that it is "about half-a-mile north of the Green
River Natural Area" (i.e., Kent Ponds) because Brett Wolfe kindly wrote
and told me so in the context of this discussion on Tweeters.

What we are dealing with here is a jargon and it goes beyond names of
places. For example, someone recently wrote that he recognized a gull
at Sequim by its "gizz." This was a new word to me, so I wrote back and
got a definition from him and then got to spend a happy, but ultimately
frustrating, hour on the Web and with the OED trying to find the
etymology of gizz in the birding context. (By the way, in case OED is
unfamiliar, it's part of my jargon as a librarian. It means Oxford
English Dictionary.)

Jargons develop inevitably within every specialty field and they may
serve as defensive tools for the field, keeping the outsiders outside.
Medicine and Law are two obvious areas where jargon is super-important
and heavily guarded.

The jargon of birding is extensive. I'm aware of this because I'm still
pretty-much a new kid on the block and have a limited vocabulary as
compared to the many masters on Tweeters. As a newbie, I always
appreciate it when the masters help me in the door with some
clarification of the jargon of place names. I don't expect help with
the general jargon of the field. I'll ask when I don't know words like
gizz.

Thanks,

Dale


--
Dale Chase
(AKA ravenintherain)
Seattle, Washington
ccorax at blarg.net