[obol] BIRD NAMES

[Joel Geier]

Hello folks,

If my leaky memory of past discussions on this topic serve correctly, 
capitalizing NOTABLE BIRD NAMES in text is suggested as a helpful and 
courteous thing to do.

It has also been suggested that, when giving bird names in a list, the 
formatting already makes them prominent, and it is may be easier on the 
eyes to leave leave them uncapitalized.

Some have suggested that it is helpful to capitalize names of the most 
notable birds if the list is long, to assist the SKIMMERS.

Certainly each birder is free to decapitalize, misspell, or otherwise 
encrypt irdbay amesnay as they like, perhaps even as anagrams in bad poetry:

  Rotten wet weather,
  Under gray skies,
  Forgotten dreams of summer
  Flop miserably in the dead grass.

The gentle reader may judge whether this method is effective for 
communicating a sighting of a rare bird (not that I saw one).

I happen to like Roy Gerig's approach of just capitalizing the birds 
that he happens to like.

The impersonal computer program that I wrote to extract sightings from 
OBOL postings, for purpose of field notes, is indifferent to 
capitalization and common misspellings and archaicisms such as STELLAR'S 
JAY or SHITEPOKE.

The program only loathes one thing, that being the coinage of cleverly 
allusive bird names by excessively well-read individuals. In this 
regard, there is really only one consistent culprit on this list. I have 
fixed that by setting the software to ignore all postings by that 
individual, unless he includes the words "Eurasian Dotterel."

Good birding,
Joel

--
Joel Geier
jgeier at attglobal.net