On Mar 13, 2011, at 8:44 PM, Bill Anderson wrote:
> I have no problem with abbreviations as long as the bird is first fully named at the beginning of the e-mail. Agreed. > I have seen the term SORA used quite often and still don't know what it stands for.> Bill Anderson; Edmonds, WA. It's either a cryptic rail :-)Or the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/ For example, it's the place where you can find the original 1978 suggestion in a paper by Chandler Robbins for a standardized 4 letter species abbreviations for bird banders. http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/NABB/v006n02/p0046-p0047.pdf
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/NABB/v003n01/p0016-p0025.pdf The official list is kept at US Bird Banding Laboratory. http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/manual/aspeclst.htm This has been critiqued by quite a few people, especially by Shipman, as the four letter codes are not unique, easily confused by the casual user (and the occasional expert). http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/nom/bblcrit.html
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/nom/homepage.html The four letter part of the spec came from the preexisting standard banding field recording forms. From an information design point of view it is a poor design. There are more than 100 "collisions" in the US BBL code when applying the rules to a name gives the same code for two or even three different bird species. A lot of the collision codes are used as real codes so it's easy to make mistakes (pick the incorrect code for the bird you are observing that matches another bird) and difficult to catch or correct those errors.
Perhaps worse still the BBL codes are incomplete as they don't include game birds. So there aren't 4 letter alpha codes for all the birds on the AOU list which leads to other potential collisions. Other 4 letter alpha systems have been proposed and used. Curiously, the Breeding Bird survey has different one from the BBL (collisions are resolved differently)
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/nom/bbs.html And the "Birder's code" was suggested in Birding in 1992 is not much different from BBL codes. This was standardized for banders by Pyle and DeSante in 2003. The Institute for Bird Populations maintains an updated list of 4 letter alpha codes for common names and a 6 letter alpha codes for binomial names based on the current AOU species list using Pyle and DeSante's updates. http://www.birdpop.org/alphacodes.htm If you are going to use a 4 letter alpha code it should be from this list so everyone will understand what it means. There is an easier alternative for non-banders that avoids these problems that was suggested by Shipman: use a 6 letter alpha code.
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/nom/6home.html Bowman regularized that original idea and maintains a list of Six-letter Code for ABA Bird Checklist Species http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbowman/birds/sixlettercode.html I'd encourage people, at the risk of seeming less cool, to use Bowman's 6 letter code. See the end of the email for more detail. There are four easy to remember rules which generate only 9 collisions on the AOU list. You just have to remember the nine exceptions. None of the collision codes are "legal" so if you use an incorrect code in the field you can tell when it is incorrect. Very useful for field use and for use when abbreviated field notes are exchanged by people. It also permits Shipman-like extensions that are not included in the 4 letter codes e.g. an unknown buteo, "buteo spp", would be BUTEO.
This scheme is also extensible to bird fauna lists in other parts of the world: just follow the rules and define the standard alternatives for collisions against the standard checklist for that region. Birdbanders are cool after all and if you have the brainpower to accurately remember all the Pyle and DeSante alpha codes then one can use them. But as the new Crossley ID book, which uses 4 letter "alpha" codes extensively through the guide (to save space?) it is difficult to get them all correct even for as good a birder and author as Crossley. It turns out Crossley gets a couple wrong in the guide that passed through a few minds before publication. If he can't get them right ... http://www.crossleybooks.com/comments-corrections/ > p.464 The alpha code for Sharp-tailed Sparrow is SSTS and not STSP. Sharp-tailed Sparrow is now called Saltmarsh Sparrow.
>> p 462 Grasshopper Sparrow – abbreviation LESP near end of text should be LCSP (Le Conte’s Sparrow) I really encourage people to think about using the Bowman 6 letter code. It works well. And take little effort to learn it. Bowman's Six-letter Code for ABA Bird Checklist Species
------------------------------------------------------- STANDARD ABBREVIATIONS
"Words" in a species name are those parts of the name separated by spaces or hyphens. Ex.: "Bay-breasted Warbler" has three words. ¤ ONE-WORD NAMES Use the first six letters, or use the entire name if it is less than six letters in length. Ex.: Canvasback = CANVAS, Sora = SORA ¤ TWO-WORD NAMES Use the first three letters of each word. Ex.: Pectoral Sandpiper = PECSAN, Fish Crow = FISCRO ¤ THREE-WORD NAMES Use the first two letters of each word. Ex.: Great Gray Owl = GRGROW, Broad-tailed Hummingbird = BRTAHU ¤ FOUR-WORD NAMES Use the first letter of each of the first two words and the first two letters of each of the last two words. Ex. Black-and-white Warbler = BAWHWA, Black-crowned Night-Heron = BCNIHE Because nine instances of duplicate abbreviations result when the above rules are applied to the 969 species names in the American Birding Association (ABA) Checklist for the Birds of North America, special-case abbreviations are necessary for the 18 species listed below:
SPECIAL CASE ABBREVIATIONS Barn Owl BARNOWBarred Owl BARROW
Leach's Storm-Petrel LEACSP
Least Storm-Petrel LEASSP
Blackburnian Warbler BLBUWABlackpoll Warbler BLPOWAPalm Warbler PALMWAPallas's Warbler PALLWABlack-throated Gray Warbler BTGYWABlack-throated Green Warbler BTGNWAWilson's Warbler WILSWAWillow Warbler WILLWACommon Redpoll COREDPCommon Redshank COREDSYellow-breasted Bunting YBREBUYellow-browed Bunting YBROBUGreen-breasted Mango GNBRMAGray-breasted Martin GYBRMA Note that in each case of duplicate codes the duplicate code is used for neither of the special-case species. For example, BAROWL is used for neither Barn Owl nor Barred Owl. This lessens confusion and decreases errors.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbowman/birds/sixlettercode.html