We thought we would have a little fun and ask folks that subscribe to any one of our newsletters how they would like to see bird names appear. The choice was Bald Eagle or bald eagle. Over 83% of you recommended sticking with Bald Eagle - so we will.

Surprisingly this is a very controversial topic! Most birding and ornithological publications favor capitalizing bird common names. But the general press (and now Wikipedia) do NOT capitalize bird names.   

As my friend Bill Thompson III, editor of BirdWatcher's Digest wrote in his response

"Yes it's correct to say that the birding mags typically capitalized all bird names. Interestingly they only do this for birds in most cases and not other non-bird species. So they have sentences like this:

The Red-tailed Hawk dove toward the eastern cottontail rabbit, missed its target, barely avoided a collision with a cocker spaniel, and landed in the red maple, next to a Great Horned Owl.  

No, BWD isn't changing. We stick to the larger rules of the English language and capitalize only proper names. Like Pete Thayer's gull."

Here are the actual Survey Results