Dear All,
We have covered this topic in detail on Birding-aus in the past. As a
reminder of past discussions, the International Ornithologists' Committee
(IOC) has the following spelling rules:
SPELLING RULES
The construction and spelling of English names of birds have a significant
history, including a seminal paper by Kenneth Parkes (1978, Auk 95:324-326),
thoughtful treatments in the authoritative publications of the RAOU, AOU,
and BOU as well as in many major field guides and handbooks. We strived to
unify, clarify, codify, and extend these building blocks.
Briefly, the rules that we adopted are as follows:
1. Official English names of birds are capitalized, as is the current
practice in ornithology (e.g., Yellow-throated Warbler).
2. Patronyms are used in the possessive case (e.g., Smith's, Ross's).
3. Names on this list do not include diacritical marks.
4. There are compromises between British and American spellings in this
list.
5. Those who adopt the list should spell and add pronunciation marks as
preferred.
6. Geographical words in a name may be in noun or adjective form but must
be consistent for that location (e.g., Canada , not Canadian).
7. Compound words conform to a series of rules that consistently address
relationships between the two words and readability.
8. Use of hyphens in compound group names to indicate relationships among
species is minimized, contrary to Parkes (1978).
9. Hyphens are used in compound names only to connect two names that are
birds or bird families (e.g., Eagle-Owl, Flycatcher-shrike) or when the name
would be otherwise difficult to read (e.g., Silky-flycatcher, White-eye).
Kind regards,
Stephen
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde NSW
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