An illiterate bird (in my vocabulary) is one that cannot read the bird books, bar graphs, and/or annotated checklists, so appears way too early, too late, or in the wrong place altogether. A semi-illiterate bird is one that may be able to read the bird books and checklists, but has difficulty with understanding a calendar or human-generated geographic divisions, so is somewhere a bit early, a bit late, or on the wrong side of an invisible line. These birds are what give records committees a reason to exist and things to do--like topics to discuss over beer, writing books, updating checklists and re-drawing bar graphs. Bodacious birding, Edge Wade Columbia, MO On Sep 10, 2015, at 1:04 PM, Larry Lade wrote: > That is a new one for me, a "semi-literate bird". One that can barely read and/or write? > > What am I missing here? Is that an "Edge-ism" or "Egg-ism" or ? > > Larry Lade > St. Joseph, MO ------------------------------------------------------------ The Audubon Society of Missouri's Wild Bird Discussion Forum List archives: https://po.missouri.edu/archives/mobirds-l.html ABA Birding Code of Ethics http://www.aba.org/about/ethics.html