Bird Codes

Are you looking for a way to speed up your field notes so you can focus on actually looking at birds? Do you see birders using codes for birds on listservs and want to look them up? Do you want to enter your eBird checklists faster?

Alpha codes are four letter abbreviations assigned to bird species as a quick way to refer to them. These codes are commonly used in field notes to quickly record sightings and other situations where writing down the entire species name is impractical. This app allows you to search and learn the alpha codes created using the Pyle and DeSante (2003) system which defines alpha codes for all 2078 species recorded in the AOU (American Ornithologists’ Union) area. You can quickly search by either the birds name or by the alpha code.