Tweets - I've waded through all of the emails about this topic, and I was
not planning on commenting. But I'm giving in to temptation here.

I call the Montlake Fill the Montlake Fill because that's what *birders*
have been calling it forever. (See Washington Birds, issues #1 and #4 -
http://www.wos.org/WABirds2.htm) That some public relations types have
given it a new name seems pretty irrelevant.

I think the mouthful of a name - Green River Natural Resources Area - that
Kent gave to the mitigation area they created works against the use of that
name by many people. Shortening it to GRNRA provides no information to
those who don't already have their FLA's memorized (Five-Letter-Acronyms).
Hence many people just say "Kent Ponds", which at least includes the city.

And then there are the places without names, such as the mitigation ponds at
the Boeing facility in Kent. Birders have agreed by common usage to refer
to them as the Boeing Ponds for lack of a better name. But googling that
probably only nets you Tweeters archives and Audubon websites. It's not on
any USGS map...

The thing that would be very useful to everyone would be if Tweeters
supplied some context to locations - chiefly CITY *and* COUNTY. I don't
mean to pick on anyone here, but when the Monk Parakeets were first reported
from Yacolt, I think *every* Tweeter had to look that town up. Adding
"Clark County" would have helped a lot. Adding "northeastern Clark County"
would have been even better.

And there are place names like "county line ponds" which are used for
multiple places. Do you mean Grant/Adams or Skagit/Whatcom? It makes a
difference!

Remember that there are few bird sightings that are notable based only on
the species. If I post that I saw BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE in the town of
Zimgust, the significance of that post depends not on the magpie part, but
entirely on the Zimgust part. If Zimgust is in the Columbia Basin
somewhere, well --- yawn. But if it's in Western Washington, well -- OOH,
OOOH, OOOOH!

So - get used to the birder-specific lingo on the one hand, but add context
on the other. PLEASE.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net