Over the years, there have been several innovations that have aided birdwatchers in the field big time. First it could be argued was the more readily available field glasses or binoculars. That brought an end to the use of shotguns as a tool for identification of birds and brought birding to the hands of more every-day citizen scientists. The next would be the Peterson Field Guides which brought birding out of the dimly lit back rooms of museums to the farmyards, backyards and neighborhood parks of a whole new cadre of outdoor enthusiasts. Then perhaps it would be the digital camera, which made it possible for more and more birders to document their sightings, either for their own records and memories or to provide acceptable documentation of a rare bird to present to the rare bird records review committees. More recently, we have the entrance of the variety of birding apps which brought a library of encyclopedias to the hands of birders out there in the field for instant bird identification and for providing a digital record of their sightings. Oh, and somewhere inside that time-line, we have the introduction of the so-called “Four-letter Bird Codes”, also known as the “Banding Codes”. OK, so maybe it wasn’t as a momentous development as the Peterson Field Guide to the Birds. But, it was a nice turn of events. The codes were the brainchild of Kathy Klimkiewicz and Chandler Robbins of the USF&WS Bird Banding Lab. To save computer space, the codes became the required method of entering banding data. Recognizing the genius and utility behind it all, field birders quickly adopted the codes for their own purposes – saving time and space.
Simply put, the bird codes made it a lot easier to keep field notes in nice pocket sized notebooks by reducing the bird names to a simple (well mostly simple) four letters that is easy (well mostly easy) to encode and easy (well not always that easy) to decode. Then with the smart phone apps that came later, entering bird data had a very useful (yeah, really) tool ready to apply to enter data quickly while focusing on the next good bird to find. No more the haphazard scribbling of things such as Great-horned Owl, or Northern Rough-winged Swallow into the thin lines of a notebook. Now we could write GHOW, or NRWS instead. Big deal, right? Right. Now a birder could send a list of his or her twenty new life birds seen on a trip to Colorado on the back of a postcard. Whew!
Now down to basics:
The rules follow a formula which works for a good 90 percent (or so) of our normally encountered bird species. Here we go:
1. For species with a one-word name, use the first four letters. Mallard = MALL; Killdeer = KILL; Dunlin = DUNL; Merlin = MERL;
2. For species with two word name, use the first two letters of each word. Blue Jay = BLJA; American Robin = AMRO; Gray Jay = GRJA; Gray Catbird = GRCA and so on;
3. For hyphened names, use the first letters of each from the hyphened part and two letters from the family name. White-breasted Nuthatch = WBNU; Red-breasted Nuthatch = RBNU; Ring-billed Gull = RBGU and Black-tailed Gull= BTGU (hey, there was one up on Lake Champlain a few years ago);
4. For four word names, use each first letter of the name. Greater Black-backed Gull = GBBG; Lesser Black-backed Gull = LBBG; Northern Rough-winged Swallow = NRWS.
As I said, these formulas work for about 90 % (probably more)of the bird species found in our area.
But as you might suspect – there are a few exceptions.
For example: Barn, Bank, and Bahama Swallows would all have the same code if the given rules were applied. So we don’t use the given rules. For Barn Swallow, use BARS. For Bank Swallow, use BANS. And forget about Bahama Swallow around here. If I were to see one, I’d seek out a Trappist Monk and have him write it out in illuminated gothic script on parchment to submit to the records committee! Or, I’d put the name down as BAHS as the modified rules would allow. That is, that in such cases, the last letter would be that of the family – in this case “S”, for Swallows. The first three letters come from the bird’s first name, Barn, Bank and Bahama. That works for Trumpeter Swan, Tundra Swan, and Tree Swallow as well – TRUS, TUNS and TRES, respectively.
That brings us to the task of decoding the codes. To get through that puzzle, read backwards. Start with the last letter(s) to determine the family name and sort through the possibilities. After a while, the names will roll off your pocket notebook pages as happy recollections of fine birds seen – or as “I wonder what I saw when I wrote that one down”.
The important thing is to be sure you are using the full and correct name for a bird species. This way you are not tempted to write down KING for either Belted Kingfisher (BEKI) or Eastern Kingbird (EAKI), or BLUE for Blue Jay (BLJA) or Eastern Bluebird (EABL). It makes transcribing your notes much easier in years to come and for those envious friends who received your bragging-rights postcards.
Try it. You’ll like it. Maybe. Yes, in time, you may find yourself, as some birders do these days, naming a bird aloud using the Four-letter Code. Argh, indeed! I’ve heard use of “MODO” spoken aloud when a Mourning Dove flew by the windshield as we were driving down the highway. Hey, when searching for a big variety of birds, such as on a “Century Run”, dispensing with an ID as quickly as possible saves time. And frees us up to find that ECDO that may be next.
I was delighted to find an ORCHARD ORIOLE singing in the yard of a neighbor the other day. It was an Orchard Oriole that caused our carful of birders to stop in front of her farmhouse many years ago (make that 30 years or so). That day, as our group was out running one of our Century Runs, when I heard the oriole singing from a spruce tree in their front yard. After we all piled out and had our good long looks at this rarity, a fellow who we hadn’t even noticed but who had been watching us quietly from a rocker on the front porch, asked us in a rather somewhat amused voice if we had seen enough. That turned out to be a beautiful moment where we got to meet this lovely couple and establish a nice long-lasting friendship. Sadly, he passed away some years later. But the oriole song the other day brought back that magic moment which I was happy to recollect and share with my good friend, Marie.
OROR (Orchard Oriole) bringing back memories