When posting bird information on Internet listserves, it is considered good manners to use the full name of the species the first time that it appears in the post. If one wishes to use the name again in that post, it is okay to use the banding shorthand. I think so anyway. Van Harris Millington, TN On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Matt Smith <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Jesse, > > The four-letter codes were originally created as shorthand for banders. > There's a couple of different systems in use, but here's a good source that > lists the basic rules you can use to figure out the code for probably 99% > of species: > > https://www.carolinabirdclub.org/bandcodes.html > > And as for deciphering them, here's a handy alphabetical list: > > http://www.birdpop.org/DownloadDocuments/Alpha_codes_eng.pdf > > Hope this helps, > Matt Smith > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Jan 5, 2015, at 2:29 PM, "Jesse Yancy" <jlyancy@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > This might sound simplistic, but I’m often confused by the new > abbreviations that are often used in this forum (TRKI for tropical > kingbird, for instance) and I was wondering if there is some sort of guide > to these or are they just ones birders use as shorthand. > > Jesse Yancy > > > >