Talk:Red-eared firetail

"barring that outline the distinct spots"

Cygnis insignis, I am copyediting the article and need some clarification since I don't have access to the sources. In the following sentence:

The feathers of the underparts—undertail coverts, abdomen and flank—are white with a black margin and barring that outline the distinct spots.

Does this mean that the feathers are white with both a black margin and barring? Or does the and signify that there is barring that outlines the spots?

PopularOutcast^talk2me! 17:21, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, The latter, in short. I notice now that discussion of 'spots' is repetitive too. I consulted a few descriptions just now, the superficial appearance or effect has been described as black, with white spots or 'scalloped white', and most mention the barring (black) at each feather that produces a spotted effect. Blah, blah, I went back to the source and it says, "… white with feathers subterminally barred, and terminal black margins to produce boldly spotted appearance; …" There is a good image at Grassfinches in Australia p.65 if you can jag a preview of a google book scan. cygnis insignis 18:21, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Additional question.

"The eggs were described as twelve by sixteen millimetres in size and oval in shape by Alfred North (1901–14), Forshaw gave the form as "ovate to elliptical ovate", a lack of gloss and a sample of forty six specimens from nine clutches noted as 15.9 to 17.8 by 11.9 to 13.2 millimetres to give average dimensions of 16.6 by 12.4 mm (Johnstone & Storr, 2004); a clutch of six eggs at Torbay (1959) and another of five closer to Albany (1967) were recorded as larger than this average size."

What does "a lack of gloss" refer to? Did North say they had a lack of gloss or did Johnstone & Storr? Does "a lack of gloss" contradict "lustrous" in the previous sentence or does gloss mean attractiveness in this context? PopularOutcast^talk2me! 18:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

There is little to say about white eggs, the level of gloss, lustre, is sometimes noted, Forshaw makes the comment, the measurements cite Johnstone, I now have another source and will see if that can be reworded, disposing of North and clarifying the contradiction. Nicely picked up. Apologies for overlooking that, and thanks again. cygnis insignis 18:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I will wait for you on this. I did clear up the former question with a couple of words. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 18:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

"Oval; finely textured, without gloss, white and unmarked, though … [the pink glow notes]" HANZAB, a standard text. I'm assuming that means the same in oology as it does to the lay reader, 'smooth, but not glossy'. I lumped too much together, separate sentence for colour and texture? cygnis insignis 20:39, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, okay, I will fit it in either as one sentence or two. Thank you! PopularOutcast^talk2me! 20:43, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Enjoy, editing my own copy is difficult. Note also that information is scant, and authors qualify most assertions with their single source, Immelmann being the key researcher (decades old) and inference from those in captivity. Signing off for 12 hours, if you need to know. cygnis insignis 20:54, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Some more requests for clarifications. I am going slowly through your article so no bother that you are off for twelve hours. I am pretty sure I will not be done by then. Am also fighting a cold.

• There are some links that don't match articles on Wikipedia. That is generally fine. I am wondering about Garnett, though. Is there any particular reason that you believe he should have his own article? Academics often don't pass notability guidelines set forth at WP:ACADEMIC.

Took out the link since an academic is not likely to meet notability guidelines.

IUCN think him as notable, but I'm not going to create the article. If someone else agrees they can add a link then.

• Should Wungong Creek be Wungong Brook? List of watercourses in Western Australia, W–Z Doesn't list a creek for this name, though it could be wrong of course.

Looked at source, it's Wungong Brook. Corrected.

I'll double check that someone's mention of the creek is the same thing.

• in the habitat section, the first sentence, at the and, is river modifying both frontage and gullies or just frontage?

Assumed gully is not modified by river. Put Oxford comma.

Thanks, [a Mediterranean climate, most 'water courses' are impermanent]

• Okay, the behavior area that talks about their movement, I just can't picture and YouTube is no help. Are they releasing both feet as in a hop? What part of their body is pivoting? If they nod forward, hanging (I assume) in a non perpendicular fashion, how does releasing their grasp make them pivot upright? It would seem to me that gravity would make them flip ... then again, I have no idea what the center of mass of a finch is. This whole thought process has amused the hell out of me.

This was tricky, I'll stop here to fix that. cygnis insignis 06:43, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

There is almost no mention of this outside the reference, I will admit that the manouvre is unclear to me. Perhaps reduce this with a vague mention of acrobatics and tumbling in their dense habitat. This is what HANZAB says

Fly and hop with great agility in and round low branches, over tree-stumps, fallen branches, and grasses and sedges; when moving along branches, pivot from side to side in small hops in an arc-like pattern.

…if you want a go at summarising movement. [another reason I am more comfortable with plants]

I changed this in the text a bit. I just grabbed the end of that sentence as a quote. Tried to rephrase it but it was either awkward or too close to the original.

Now why didn't I think of that, a neat solution and the perfect use of a quote (this is what was said, make your own mind up what it means). I got distracted with a well known plant whose identity has been bugging, mentioned here, and will do some more work later.

• Feeding: Is Lepidosperma actually the favorite or are there more? Should we take favorite out of this and just list what it eats. Is it known to eat other seeds when the ones listed in the article are not available?

Red-did those few sentences so there is less repetition.

a favoured monocot at the study sites and in captivity, everything else is just observed as eaten at least once.

• What is an identity call? Internet searches are fruitless. Then the same call seems to be named identity note. Which is it?

I left this as is.

Tried to rephrase and expand intro.

• Captive pair notes ... is the call only quavering for the female during breeding or are the notes changed for both sexes during breeding?

Changed this because I think it was trying to say that both the male and female's calls change during beeding.

I'm assuming you improved that

• Vocalisation section: Is intimate nest a quote from the text? Same paragraph, the text had tweet- ... which I changed but want to know what it was trying to imply so I can change it.

HANZAB classifies as "Intimate nest-calls" using a different font, and quotes Immelman. I don't know if term is standard for other estrildids or passerines.

• What does this mean throughout the day a seasons?

Took this out entirely because I am not sure that it is important that it may have happened through the day or seasons.

I have the idea it was both, all day and year round

• The vocalization section says there are up to five calls, but the text seems to indicate there are more - identity call, parenting call, intimate nest call, nest site call, conversation call/communication call, alarm call, and feeding call. I put them all in quotes because some were introduced as terms but they don't have to be in quotes.

Will leave that to your discreetion, er, discretion.

I took the double quotes out for these. I don't think they are needed. Also changed the link to the word song from songbird to bird vocalization.

All right I got this far today. Will probably have more questions when I work on it tomorrow. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 02:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@PopularOutcast: Up to here, so pleased with how much it is improved. Still working through, slowly.

More questions for reproduction section:

• In reproduction section "that appears to be pierced rather than held at the point of the bill by a fibre that he has been slightly torn near the base". I can't parse this. I don't know what the end starting at "by" refers to. So the piece of grass is pierced by the bill, not held by the bill. What's the rest refer to?

Corrected this sentence grammatically but needs work to make sense for the reader.

The long and dangling stalk appears to be pierced by the point of the bill, but is actually held by a tiny thread pulled from the base of the stalk. Is this where I am failing to convey the image?

That makes so much more sense now to me. I changed the page to reflect this.

• "usually a discrete fork in the branches", discreet as in unobtrusive or discrete as in not touching other things? So far in the rest of the article discrete has been used in place of discreet (which I corrected) but here I am not sure of the meaning.

I am going to assume discreet here since this was the word used in the rest of the article.

Tut, a silly error. Thanks

• General question. They are mated for life so is the whole production really a courtship display or just for nest selection?

Good point, as the bond is regarded as permanent, it is presumably the latter or, crucially in this region, to determine the timing of nesting activities. I will see if someone states that.

• "This followed a similar report by Carter (North, 1914) on a nest from the previous season in September at the paperbark swamps near Albany" Was the report in September? The nest found in September? Or the previous season consider to be September?

Assuming it was found in September and corrected for that.

I think you have this right now, "in September, igo8, I found a nest of the previous year, " Knowing how ocr bots read things, and then checking the image, igo8 is 1908 :)

• "These strips were between 40 and 50 centimetres at the exterior of the structure, those in the tunnels becoming progressively shorter at the interior, around fifteen to twenty centimetres in length." What strips? What does "these" refer to? PopularOutcast^talk2me! 17:34, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Assumed they were the strips from the previous sentence, of fringe-lily.

And HANZAB read it the same way, strips of the lily.

Cygnis insignis All right. I am done with the exception of the questions above. I will come back and look at the questions again a bit later and see if I can figure some out on my own. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 18:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I am correcting some one my own and I am doing them one by one so you can undo any particular one that is incorrect. The ones that don't have notes above are ones I cannot figure out on my own. Still have the more questions section to do.

Done. If you need more help, please get back with me and I will do what I can. I am going to take the banner off.

@PopularOutcast: Totally confident in your corrections and regard you as co-contributor at this stage, so bold edit with summaries are fine for the future. The general comments are also helpful, it is easy to get lost in detail, and my section structure is the result of experimentation with an overlooked stub, so your opinion on improvements to that and any other aspect of the article are also most welcome. I will read your comments again, but let me know if I have missed anything. cygnis insignis 16:00, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis Cool beans. Made one comment above. Also, right now all measurements are spelled out. They could be abbreviated but I leave that up to your personal preference. I will be happy to take care of it if you choose to go with abbr. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 16:21, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I meant to sweep through and abbreviate, go ahead if you are inclined. I'm not sure if conversions are de rigueur, but I find that rounding only confuses the quoted numbers anyway and makes a lot of clutter. As someone who probably uses the system, is it something I should apply? Or do most US readers know how to switch to non-US measurements these days? cygnis insignis 17:00, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, if it were an US bird, I would probably convert to inches (or put inches first). I wouldn't bother for this article. And the answer to your question is no, unless you're a scientist. I surely can't easily do it, but I have trouble visualizing measurements anyhow. Whatever system, I take out my ruler to get an idea. Didn't NASA crash a rover because some programmers had used metric and some had used Imperial? PopularOutcast^talk2me! 17:49, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

PopularOutcast, I've seen that incident used to damn the international system, it was not the fault of the US system that things got a bit muddled …obViously! I'm the same though, millimetres and fractions of an inch means looking at a ruler; I only remain familiar with both from reading antique (and US) texts. I could poke fun at the non-imperial imperial system, and may still do that, but dividing a unit into 12 parts is useful in some ways (10 divided by a third or a quarter are not whole numbers). In any case, I don't favour national solutions to content, "this article is in Glaswegian English and uses measurements based on sixteenth century barge poles and the weight of the stone of scone {and the quotation mark before the punctuation)". cygnis insignis 18:30, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, LOL. Well we can do inches if you like. I was thinking of the audience moreso that taking a nationalistic view. I would think most people visiting the article are from Australia or countries nearby that do use metric. American visitors interested in the content are likely already used to metric. My American bird field guide is interesting. Wingspan and length is in inches. Weight is in ounces but also has a conversion to grams. The lengths aren't converted. My American butterfly books have both, starting with inches. I will see how a conversion looks. The firetail isn't particularly small so it shouldn't get too weird with inches.

Cygnis insignis, I am going to have to get to this later this weekend. Not feeling well great and forgot a previous engagement. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 23:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

PopularOutcast You must, repeat must, apply the increasingly elaborate functions of the Convert template! I had some fun playing with the parameters detailed at /doc, with one or two tweaks I feel it could display a whole paragraph—with a table and sortable list—and gives me a cup of tea at the end. cygnis insignis 20:54, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, that is a pretty cool template. I used it to do some fractions on an article I expended. Object was so small that I had to use very small fractions for the standard measurements. I may take it out but I worked so hard on it that I had to leave it for a while. :o) PopularOutcast^talk2me! 20:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

All right, I made some changes to measurements where I thought it made for an easier read and mind visual. According to WP:UNIT, SI units are de rigueur for scientific articles. I think this qualifies but even if it didn't, non-scientific articles get the local treatment. That guideline talks primarily about US and UK. While Australia is not UK, I am going to be bold and assume that in this case they are alike. I would also take into consideration the sources. If the sources use metric then the article does. 15.9 mm (0.63 in) <-- conversion template output and really that's practically meaningless in inches. More meaningful would be with fractions which then becomes ugly --> 15.9 mm (5⁄8 in) or 15.9–17.8 mm (5⁄8–11⁄16 in). I will do conversions if still want them.

Was there anything else left for me to do? I feel like there was another major thing left but I can't think of it. Still sick, it's the middle of the night because the sickness is not letting me sleep so I am trying to be productive. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 10:05, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Metrication in Australia, the nation finished adopting the system about fifty years ago; I see it at facilitating communication and that is why the sciences, commerce, and people buying groceries were happy to adapt. Nevertheless, I try to be considerate of those who prefer things in the old money when possible.

The lack of images was a glaring omission, nice work gathering those. I'm cautiously approaching some pro bird shooters for some image sets for several articles. I also need to comb through the source I have to look for missing details—like using poo as a flooring material—and then put it up for review. Adding you as co-contributor seems appropriate, if you are comfortable with that, your improvements have gone beyond a copyedit and the article sings along now. There is very little in the offline sources that is not in our google sample, but I can probably arrange a scan of the ref for anything surprising. cygnis insignis 14:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, You are welcome! Take a close look at the map. I made that based on the description of range in the article but i may have missed something. I can change it and upload a new one.

PopularOutcast Good, that seems to indicate I have got something right in the discussion of range, phew!, geography is something I struggle to adequately describe. I have a map that shows red and pink for density, as it is rarer at the inland 'wheatbelt' and its almost complete absence from the Swan Coastal Plain cannot be distinguished from 'does not occur'. I've never seen one, but is it possible to use red and light red on a range map. I can have a go myself, learning how to do them is something I keep putting off, or forward an image to you (not sure how, maybe a throwaway mail drop) and allow you to show where the text can be improved.

See also a map at bie.ala.org.au, which is different again. cygnis insignis 10:43, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

If you send me the image, I will have a go at it. If you'd prefer to do it yourself, that's cool. I have no love or hate of doing it.

@PopularOutcast: Sent, cheers. I spent some time double checking my references, and there is one or two facts to add, but I will take a break from the firetail for a day and come back fresh. cygnis insignis 14:24, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis New map uploaded. It may need the lighter color area to be lighter. Let me know. What we need to do now though is make sure that the text has this information. MOS:ACCESS, MOS:ACCIM guidelines. We can't really expand upon it in the infobox but we can in the text. I will see what I can do with this in the text. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 16:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll also have a look with that guidance in mind. Great work with the map, lighten the shade if you prefer, but this may be a novelty and my preference may lose out to to standardisation by the birdies. This has all been good news for my little mates here, I hope they appreciate your efforts too. cygnis insignis 17:14, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I digitally approached a photographer who had some pictures up on eBird about contributing some of his less saleable ones to Commons. That was a couple of days ago. Have not heard back. Don't expect to but it never hurts to ask. As a photographer myself, I know that there are so many pictures that I take that will never be good enough to be sold but they are perfectly fine for Wikipedia. In any case, even if the quality of the pictures are excellent, there's little change of a sale anyhow.

Credit as co-contributor is cool but there's no big need to do that. Copyediting by nature is WikiGnome work.

Again, if there's more I can do, just let me know. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 17:56, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Taxonomy sentence could be clearer

"Gould's Handbook (1865) defers to Zonæginthus oculeus, giving a citation to the 1853 circumscription of Cabanis."

I am not an ornithologist so this might make sense as written. It does not make sense to me. Reading the entry, what I get is that ...

Gould's Handbook of the Birds of Australia names the bird Zonæginthus oculeus with a citation to Cabanis' 1853 description under the same name.

^^^^^My interpretation is probably wrong. In any case let's work on this sentence.

Note: I expanded the title of this book in the text. I can't believe I didn't catch this before.

This ought to be clear to anyone reading, and it currently is not, but your reading is correct … I think, I'd better double check that is what is happened and reconsider if it is important. cygnis insignis 18:28, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Before I go ahead and do it, I want to make sure it is okay with you. Handbook shouldn't be italicized unless it is the whole name of the book. I was looking at the PDF from Ian Abbott and he just refers to the handbook in lower case. I think this would follow the Wikipidea manual of style, but before I make the change, I want to make sure this is okay. If not, would you rather I expand it to Handbook of the Birds of Australia everywhere it is mentioned? Serventy and Whittell's (1948) handbook is also written as being titled Handbook. Looking at Birds of Western Australia it seems that the original title was much longer. I think the first reference should be to the full title and then use handbook after that. The citation in the article is for the longer, older book. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 17:23, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't know otherwise, not having read our MOS for years, so happy to follow what you think is best. The Serventy handbook I have at my side is the second edition, and I'll note that while this is a vintage text is still cited as one of the few reliable sources for WA avifauna; two gifted and careful ornithologists who produced a work that others strived to match. If it helps to navigate to the web of Australian ornithological literature, the major publications are Gould, then Mathews, then HANZAB. The first two were very sketchy on W.A. birds, what Hubert Whittell called "the barren years". As you might have guessed, there is an article idea brewing in the back of my mind, the short and interesting history of 'what we know about Australian birds'. Did you know, for example, the birdsong you hear in your backyard probably originated in mine? cygnis insignis 18:28, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, I did not know that! That would be interesting. I will changed it to handbook and make sure that it is referenced as Gould's or whomever. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 19:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

All right, I finished that. I thought the handbook was referenced a lot more. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 19:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Latin oculatis

Twice this is mentioned in taxonomy section with different translations. I mean that could be fine but maybe we should merge those sentences. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 19:29, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I was stuck until I checked Jobling Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology. I think it clearer, but now one long sentence cygnis insignis 16:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, It is clearer though I have changed it around a bit, some to meet MOS. But it brings up some questions that I had thought I had answered for myself earlier but was wrong. Reading the sentence in the way that you phrased it makes me think about two things:

1. Who is they?

2. Is sénégali oculé the name of the bird or a French phrase to describe the bird? I originally thought the latter. If it is the former, I think we need to capitalize Sénégali. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 20:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

@PopularOutcast: They is the authors of the first description, Quoy & Gaimard

sénégali is, or was, a name for finches (estrildids) (because occur in Senegal, I can't think where I read that at present), so like most common names an extant generic phrase and modifier eg. beautiful parrakeet. The systematic name lumped our friends here with known species to genus Fringilla as there was little revision of the numerous 'new' birds collected in these early scientific expeditions. To wander even further from a reply, but perhaps providing context, there was no formal European settlement for thousands of miles when they visited and the western third of the continent was almost unknown (to science, or whatever, the people living here understood it intimately). cygnis insignis 03:47, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, okay, I changed they but I think there is room for improvement. I think I misunderstood your earlier meaning, which I moved around. So how does this sound?

The specific epithet oculatus (marked with eyes, conspicuous) is a Latin term derived from oculus (eye) that was later interpreted by authors (Gould, Cayley) to refer to the white spots as eye-like; however, Quoy and Gaimard seem to have meant "conspicuous" when they named the bird French: sénégali oculé to refer to their highly noticeable red ear patch.

I know French is stuck weirdly in there. You originally had French in your sentence and I just incorporated it into the language tag. However, I can make the language tag not preface the italicized word with the language name. That's up to you. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 04:10, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

That is what I meant to say, thank you,. Demonstrating a misconception is the bit I was struggling with and I'm not sure why, maybe SYNTH. As for what is derived from what, my understanding is that latin > french > latin > english is the order of translation for conspicuous. cygnis insignis 05:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, should we add one more thing that I think may clear things up? At this point, the red ear patches haven't really been described if you read the article top to bottom. Also assume that you can't see the picture.

The specific epithet oculatus (marked with eyes, conspicuous) is a Latin term derived from oculus (eye) that was later interpreted by authors (Gould, Cayley) to refer to the white spots as eye-like. However, Quoy and Gaimard seem to have meant "conspicuous" when they named the bird sénégali oculé to refer to their highly noticeable, eye-adjacent, red ear patch.

Maybe there's a better way to say that. I think we need to match eye to ear here.

By the way, I love this. This is the type of thing I like to learn when i read about stuff. Things do get lost in translation. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 13:52, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a way to connect ear and eye, though the latter is a more obvious feature and I wonder if there is a little punning by the authors. My current reading is that they meant 'to the eye', 'catch the [observers] eye', noticeable, conspicuous, rather than eye-like spots [or has eyes!?], if I have not made that clear. This was a conundrum until I saw HANZAB, which states unequivocally [somewhat] "The specific epithet is from French name 'Sénégali oculé' given to this finch by Quoy and Gaimard (1830) with reference to its conspicuous red ear-patch (Latin oculatus, conspicuous)." And yes, mentioning the ear patch seems like a good idea, I say to smother my embarrassment in understatement. I'm reading about rocks and raptors today and intend to add some notes why they fresh, but will return to refinements here after that. I know that this article is in good hands and you have now have a significant investment in the text; don't be hesitant to make executive decisions if that needs to be said. cygnis insignis 15:32, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, okay, I will just add eye-adjacent. You had mentioned the ear patch before it just wasn't obvious that the ear patch was right new to the eye. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 16:50, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• Hey, just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know that there was a reference added recently to the reference section that doesn't have a name, it was a book by Michael Morcombe, it was creating a cite error and this article was listed at Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting, it's just temporarily commented out until it is given a ref name. Thanks. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:52, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

@Isaidnoway: Thanks, I think it is fixed, it actually uses the sfn template for that reference, the relevant pages are in several different sections and someone asked me to apply that in another article. cygnis insignis 17:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

PopularOutcast, I'm pushing this around as a way of soliciting review, refining my own style to wikipedia's proper and best practice, and was thing of invoking another process (Peer Review). However, it occurs to me that I would have benefited more from your substantial improvements and assistance if I had done that first. I snuck in a couple more facts since your efforts, so want to make sure the prose aspects you applied are not affected too much. Would you like a read-through before I submit to that PR process, or wait for the pre-FA process in the future? cygnis insignis 11:24, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, let's wait to see what the outcome of the peer review is and then we can go from there.

Thanks for pointing me to peer review. I've tried to get my articles reviewed by the respective groups that "own" them (US cities, lepidoptera, etc) and it hasn't happened. I think I will give the peer review folks a try on the next article I get into. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 14:58, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

PopularOutcast, if an outside view helps, I can have a say too. cygnis insignis 15:07, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, well you already did the major one, the city of Hawthorne. The other ones are quite small and I was looking more to make sure that I had the right points for the project. In the end, the others suffer from not-enough-sources syndrome. :) Thanks! PopularOutcast^talk2me! 15:13, 10 December 2018 (UTC)