Hi Mike Cooper at al., Re the three-digit numbers, the ABA didn't create them - it proposed to use the numbers in the AOU (now AOS) check list, which could be one-digit (e.g. Western Grebe, AOU #1), two-digit, or three-digit numbers (e.g. Java Sparrow, AOU #813). They could all be made three-digit numbers by padding the short ones with preliminary zeros. But that didn't take. Yrs., Bob Paxton
On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 11:15 AM Mike <mike...@optonline.net> wrote: > While I don’t remember the Birdwatcher’s Digest article that Shai refers > to, there was an article in N.A Bird Bander from 1978 which proposed a four > letter code pretty much like the one used today. > https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nabb/v003n01/p0016-p0025.pdf > > I also remember a stretch of time when the ABA tried assigning a (3 > digit?) number to each species. > Mike Cooper > Ridge > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Apr 23, 2021, at 9:15 AM, Shaibal Mitra <shaibal.mi...@csi.cuny.edu> > wrote: > > When Rich posted yesterday, I was anxiously awaiting any news at all > from him and read it immediately on the basis of the sender's name, > regardless of the subject line. I and many others appreciated his efforts > to re-find the Violent Green Swallow in the cold and wind. That said, the > "RWSW" in the subject line caught my eye. I haven't seen that code since I > finally tore myself away from it in the late 80s or 90s, but my old > childhood notebooks contain many such entries, prior to the standardization > of four-letter codes and the splitting of the Rough-winged Swallow complex > into several species, including our NRWS. I'm guessing that Rich's use of > codes goes back at least that far, and that his typo dates him to the > earliest years of this expedience. > > I vividly remember my first exposure to the idea of four-letter codes for > birds: an article in Bird Watcher's Digest around 1981. I thought it was a > great idea and adopted it in my own notes immediately. My early notebooks > need a little tlc to interpret: my "BWWA" meant Black-and-white Warbler, a > super-familiar species that nested behind my house, rather than Blue-winged > Warbler, which took me a couple of years to find in its much lower numbers > and more localized breeding sites within biking distance of my house. When > I finally found my first Blue-winged Warblers in the Great Swamp, I > realized I had a problem. Ditto for my discovery of a colony of Bank > Swallows at the Plains Road super fund site, which was accomplished only > after a couple of notebooks were filled with "BASW," referring to the > ubiquitous, chirpy, long-tailed one. > > Anyway, I'd like to commend the use of four-letter codes, not just for > note-taking, but for efficiently navigating eBird. Standard codes work in > eBird for any search at the species level, and, in certain kinds of > navigation, down to subspecies level, for those that have codes assigned > (e.g. searching media for "YPWA" brings up photos and recordings of Yellow > Palm Warbler). This last observation reminds me of a significant and > largely under-appreciated virtue of four-letter codes. Fluency in them will > teach you a lot about taxonomy and field-identifiability at the subspecies > and superspecies levels. Subspecies that have been assigned codes are those > that are distinctive enough that banders are expected to be able to > distinguish and record them as such. So why not birders, too? In fact, many > of the codes that were initially applied to distinctive subspecies, such as > "ETTI" (vs. Black-crested Titmouse), have since been split. In other cases, > it was enlightening to learn that I wasn't supposed to use "WIFL" when > banding the locally common breeding Empid, because of difficulties in > distinguishing it from "ALFL" i > > -- > *NYSbirds-L List Info:* > Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm> > Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm> > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> > *Archives:* > The Mail Archive > <http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> > Surfbirds <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L> > ABA <http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01> > *Please submit your observations to **eBird* > <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>*!* > -- > -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
