Thanks everyone for the useful info on the 4-letter codes. I agree with Van Harris that good manners calls for typing out the full name of a species at least upon the first usage in an e-mail. I also prefer species names in ALL CAPS when they are in a body of other text, so that they are easy to pick out. This practice is a rule on some other listservs, and I think it works well, but that is just my personal preference. Jason Hoeksema Oxford, MS On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:47 PM, Wayne Patterson <wrp6@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Crossley's Field Guide has an index of them, if you'd rather have it in > book form. The guide is pretty useful as well. > > Wayne Patterson > Shannon, MS Lee Co. > > > On Monday, January 5, 2015 2:40 PM, JR Rigby <jr.rigby@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Hi Jesse, > > These four letter codes are used by bird banders and often as shorthand > among birders. They suffer from being easier to use than to decipher > because most of them are constructed in a very regular and easy to remember > way (but this often leads to use of incorrect codes where they deviate from > the pattern... adding to confusion). > > The codes and their decoding are available here: > http://www.birdpop.org/DownloadDocuments/Alpha_codes_tax.pdf > Just use a simple ctrl-f search to find the common name or code of > interest. > > There is also a recent and exhaustive set of commentary about usage of > these codes by birders available on the ABA Blog: > Rich Wright: http://blog.aba.org/2014/12/the-code.html > Derek Lovitch: > http://blog.aba.org/2014/12/open-mic-the-deal-with-alpha-codes-part-1.html > Derek Lovitch Part II: > http://blog.aba.org/2014/12/open-mic-the-deal-with-alpha-codes-part-2.html > > Hope that helps, > > JR > Oxford > > On Mon, 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 > > > > > >