It does vary more by context than I’d realized. In most contexts, yes, capitalize only proper nouns or the genus name if you’re giving the scientific name (Homo sapiens). But I’ve just looked through a couple of bird guides and, yeah, they’re always capitalizing the full bird names - I’d consider those a “style guide” exception. A popular science book about birds, The Seabird’s Cry (highly recommended by the way), doesn’t capitalize in that way.
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