The U.S. Bird Banding Laboratory has used 4-letter alphabetic codes for common English names of bird species on banding data for many years. (Six-letter codes are also available for scientific names—genus, species, subspecies—but are much less widely used by casual, English-speaking birding folks.) Some birders use the codes as shorthand when keeping their own lists or writing e-mails. Some listserves ask that you write the full name out the 1st time you use it and then use the code after that, which seems only considerate and polite to me. Going one step further, I tend to write out the name the 1st time and include the code in parentheses after it, to alert the reader that I’m doing that. (I usually only do that if I’m going to repeat the species name several times.) For instance, “I saw our first Ash-throated Flycatcher (ATFL) this morning. ATFLs are in the 3rd wave of cavity nesters here…” However, be aware that some people really dislike the use of the abbreviations no matter what, feeling that the person using them is trying to “put on airs” or seem superior. Personally, I use them a lot (with the convention mentioned above) because I like to save keystrokes. And I have fewer chances of misspellings.
The codes were determined following 5 general rules.
1. If the name is just 1 word, use the 1st4 letters. (How simple and lovely.)
- Mallard = MALL
- Killdeer = KILL
- Gadwall = GADW
2. If the name has 2 words, use the 1st 2 letters of the 1st word and the 1st 2 letters of the 2ndword. (Note that “Bluebird” is 1 word rather than 2 words (Blue Bird). This is true for almost all common names that end in “bird”—e.g., Blackbird, Ovenbird, etc.)
- Eastern Bluebird = EABL
- Juniper Titmouse = JUTI
- Carolina Chickadee = CACH
3. If the name has 3 words and the last 2 words are hyphenated, use 2 letters from the 1st word and 1 letter from each of the last 2 words. (Of course, this assumes that you know some of these weird hyphenations. That is a much more complex and controversial set of issues; I’ll write more on that on a different page. For now, just consult your favorite bird guide book. Odds are, it will have the correct hyphenation, if it’s been published relatively recently.)
- Eastern Screech-Owl = EASO
- Western Wood-Pewee = WEWP
4. If the name has 3 words without the last 2 words hyphenated, use the 1st letter from the 1st word, the 1st letter from the 2nd word, and the 1st 2 letters from the 3rdword.
- White-breasted Nuthatch = WBNU
- Red-winged Blackbird = RWBL
- Great Crested Flycatcher = GCFL
- Great Horned Owl = GHOW
5. If the name has 4 words, use the 1st letter of each word, regardless of hyphenation.
- Northern Saw-whet Owl = NSWO
- Black-crowned Night-Heron = BCNH
Of course, sometimes “collisions” occur—2 or more species names that, following these rules, would result in the same code (e.g., TRee SWallow and TRumpeter SWan would both be TRSU). In those cases, a few decisions have been made.
If one species is much more common (a rather subject determination that might vary by region), that species gets the code that follows the above rules. (Note that these are just a few examples; many more exist. The code that doesn’t follow the rules is in italics.)
- Canada Goose = CAGO
- Cackling Goose = CACG
or
- Song Sparrow = SOSP
- Sooty Storm-Petrel = SOOP
or
- Gray Flycatcher = GRFL
- Greater Flamingo = GREF
Usually, though, each species name resulting in a collision is assigned a code that uniquely differentiates the species from the other(s) in the collision.
2-way collisions (2 species names would result in the same BBL code)
- Barred Owl = BDOW
- Barn Owl = BNOW
or
- Tree Swallow = TRES
- Trumpeter Swan = TRUS
or
- Northern Shoveler = NSHO
- Northern Shrike = NSHR
or
- Prairie Warbler = PRAW
- Prothonotary Warbler = PROW
3-way collisions (3 species names would result in the same BBL code)
- Cactus Wren = CACW
- Canyon Wren = CANW
- Carolina Wren = CARW
or
- Bank Swallow = BANS
- Barn Swallow = BARS
- Bahama Swallow = BAHS
If you’re really into this sort of thing, you can find the BBL list of codes online. Actually, this Web page doesn’t cover all birds—only those birds that can be banded. You can find the rest of the codes here. You can also download a .PDF file that lists codes for >2000 species recorded in the American Ornithologists’ Union area. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.) This file is rather overkill for most of us. So I found a list of all of the accepted species in the state of Colorado and added the BBL codes to that file. You can download BBLcodes_co-bird-list as a .PDF file, if you’re interested. (Since Colorado has nearly 500 accepted species—pretty impressive for a state with no coastal or international borders—the print is a little small. But it all fits on a double-sided sheet of paper!)
