I find the different names fun. Obviously, we want to communicate so people can understand what we have seen but over the years there have been some pretty interesting common names, 4-letter codes, names applied by hunters, names applied by "locals". Ivory-billed Woodpecker is obvious but I think Lord God Bird may be better....
Birding is supposed to be fun...


Hal Michael
Science Outreach Director, Sustainable Fisheries Foundation
Olympia WA
360-459-4005
360-791-7702 (C)
ucd880 at comcast.net

----- Original Message -----

Can't resist sharing my favorite bird-related acronym. I was a pretty hardcore birder starting at about age 12 thanks to Phil Schaeffer, who ran the Richardson Bay Audubon Sanctuary just down the street from where I lived in Tiburon. California. He and his wife Margaret took me and my buddies birding all over California. One of our annual stops was Eagle Lake in Lassen County.

Being kids, we came up with lots fun/silly things to commemorate our experiences. We celebrated one memorble sighting with what must be the world's longest bird-related acronym. I can still rattle it off without a hitch more than 40 years later.

BB3TWPITTBTLINCWIPOTUS

Any guesses?

Black-backed Three-Toed Woodpecker In The Tree By The Lake In Northern California Which Is Part Of The US

I still have a physical momento from the same era in a box somewhere. It's homemade silk screened t-shirt with a symbol of a bird and another acronym: B.A.R.F

The meaning?

Birds Are Really Fantastic

Mason Flint
Bellevue







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