[mou] Bird Banding Lab Species Codes

[douglas chapman]

Here is the web page for the USGS Patuxent Banding Codes. It's where I  
learned and at l;east used to be the definitive ones.


http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/MANUAL/aspeclst.htm

Doug Chapman
Sioux Falls, SD

On Oct 22, 2008, at 9:11 PM, Refsnider wrote:

> At the risk of further beating a dead horse, here are the rules used  
> by
> the U.S. Geological Survey's Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) for
> constructing 4-character species codes ("alpha codes") from the common
> names of North American birds.  After unsuccessfully searching the BBL
> web site, I obtained this material from
> http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/z/nom/bblrules.html.
>
> Perhaps more than you wanted to know, but a few folks had expressed
> interest in the "rules."
>
> ---Ron Refsnider
> ==========================
>
>
>    *The BBL code system: Rules for forming the codes*
>
> The US FWS Bird Banding Lab codes were introduced in:
>
>    Klimkiewicz, Kathleen, and Chandler S. Robbins. Standard
>    abbreviations for common names of birds. North American Bird Bander
>    1978, 3:16-25.
>
> Codes are formed using these rules:
>
>   1. If the name consists of only one word, the code is taken from the
>      initial letters, up to four:
>
>              DUNL  Dunlin
>              DOVE  Dovekie
>              OU    Ou
>              GADW  Gadwall
>
>   2. If there are two words in the name, the code is made from the
>      first two letters of each word:
>
>              AMWI  American Wigeon
>              EAME  Eastern Meadowlark
>
>   3. For three-word names where only the last two words are  
> hyphenated,
>      the code uses two letters from the first word and one each from
>      the last two:
>
>              EASO  Eastern Screech-Owl
>              WEWP  Western Wood-Pewee
>
>   4. For other names with three words, the code takes one letter each
>      from the first two words and two from the last word:
>
>              RTHA  Red-tailed Hawk
>              WWCR  White-winged Crossbill
>              WPWI  Whip-poor-will
>
>   5. For four-word names, the code takes one letter from each word:
>
>              BCNH  Black-crowned Night-Heron
>              ASTK  American Swallow-tailed Kite
>              NSWO  Northern Saw-whet Owl
>
> A /collision/ is a situation where two or more names would  
> abbreviate to
> the same code using these rules.
>
> The Bird Banding Lab decides what code to use in these cases. If one
> name is far more common than the other name or names involved,  
> typically
> the common species gets to use the name. In most cases (e.g., Lark
> Bunting and Lazuli Bunting) when both birds are common, the collision
> code is not used, and unambiguous substitutes are provided for both  
> forms.
>
>
>
>
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