[Tweeters] Please decode your acronyms

[Chuq Von Rospach via Tweeters]

>

> If it is any consolation, I found the banding codes confusing when I first

> started to get seriously interested in birding.

>


As do basically all newer birders. As someone who’s worked with newer
birders a lot over the years (I ran the Santa Clara County version of
tweeters for over a decade, among other things) I’ve talked to and worked a
lot with our less senior partners, and when two senior birders start
chattering in this shorthand, it tends to make them feel excluded and
intimidated. It’s not a welcoming thing to birders trying to grow into
their adult feathers.

Because of that, I stopped using the acronyms in casual communications
where the new birders will be looking in long ago (or I’m careful  to
always put the term in context in the note) and I generally discouraged
random use of them in open forums like this. And I think, if you want new
birders to feel part of our community and grow up to be more senior birders
along with us, that we do so as well.

Chuq

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Chuq Von Rospach (http://www.chuq.me)
Silverdale, Washington
Birder, Nature and Wildlife Photographer

Email me at: chuqvr at gmail.com
Mastodon:  @chuqvr at fosstodon.org

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Warning: I have opinions
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