Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds

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The aim of this WikiProject is to set out broad suggestions about how we organize data articles about birds and related topics. In general, these are only suggestions, and you shouldn't feel obliged to follow them.

Contents

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims to help organise our rapidly growing collection of articles about birds. Included in its scope are articles for all known species, genera, families, and orders of birds (both extant and extinct), as well as articles relating to bird anatomy, physiology, evolution, behaviours, diseases and parasites. Also included are articles relating to the study (ornithology) and the keeping (aviculture) of birds, articles on ornithological organisations, biographies of notable ornithologists and their works, and lists of birds found in various human-defined areas (i.e. countries, states/provinces, counties, etc.).

[edit] Related WikiProjects

[edit] Parentage

This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Tree of Life.

WikiProject Biology
WikiProject Tree of Life
WikiProject Animals
(WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, and then
WikiProject Dinosaurs, if you're a cladist)
WikiProject Birds
Domestic pigeon task force

[edit] Similar WikiProjects

[edit] Members

Please feel free to add your name in here.

[edit] Featured and Good Content

[edit] Featured topics (4)

3 articles
Good article Chough
Pyrrhocorax naumann04.jpg
Featured article Red-billed Chough
Featured article Alpine Chough


4 articles
Good article Crag martin
Ptyonoprogne fuligula 1 cropped.jpg
Featured article Eurasian Crag Martin
Featured article Rock Martin
Good article Dusky Crag Martin


3 articles
Good article Crex
Crecopsis egregia00.jpg
Featured article African Crake
Featured article Corn Crake


4 articles
Featured article Delichon
DelichonIbis.jpg
Featured article Common House Martin
Good article Asian House Martin
Good article Nepal House Martin


[edit] Featured Pictures (257)

Featured article star.svg Featured picture archive

[edit] Featured Articles (88)

[edit] Featured Lists (21)

[edit] Featured Sounds (2)

[edit] Good topics (1)

3 articles
Good article River martin
PseudochelidonSirintarae.svg
Good article African River Martin
Good article White-eyed River Martin


[edit] Good Articles (63)

[edit] Featured Article and Featured List candidates (2)

[edit] Good Article nominations (1)

[edit] Former Featured Articles (2)

[edit] Former Good Articles (5)

[edit] FA/GA help

The following are available to offer assistance with improving articles towards Good Article and Featured Article standard. Casliber (including maps now) · Jimfbleak (not graphics or maps) · MeegsC · Sabine's Sunbird . Shyamal (SVG illustrations) · SP-KP

[edit] Spoken articles

The list of spoken articles concerning WikiProject Birds is found here.

[edit] Wikiproject Birds Userbox

{{User WP Birds Userbox}} results in:

Ruddy-turnstone-icon.png
 This user is a member of
WikiProject Birds.

[edit] Guidelines for layout of bird articles

[edit] Bird names and article titles

In general, use the formal common name for article titles.

Sometimes exceptions need to be made; some individual creatures (usually newly discovered ones) do not yet have a formal common name. Some distinct groups are known only by their scientific name. Artamidae, for example, is a much better title than Woodswallows, butcherbirds, currawongs and the Australian Magpie.

The common name of a species is always capitalised to differentiate it from more general terms.[1][2] The phrase "in Australia there are many Common Starlings" indicates a large number of Sturnus vulgaris. In contrast, the phrase "in Australia there are many common starlings" indicates several different types of starling. This topic has been discussed often before and discussions may be found in the archives. (Examples: 10-1, 7-1, 7-2, 2-1, 2-2, 2–3). There is also a global committee set up as part of the International Ornithological Congress (http://www.worldbirdnames.org/) which has tried to standardize the English names of birds. (http://www.worldbirdnames.org/principles.html)

Article title make a redirect from
White-necked Raven white-necked raven
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike black-faced cuckoo-shrike
Prairie Warbler prairie warbler

When creating a new article for a species, make sure the title is correctly capitalised and always create a redirect from the uncapitalised form. For example, name the article Bald Eagle but create a redirect to it from bald eagle. See the table at right for more examples. Creating the redirect is not optional.

Note that the convention for capitalisation of names applies primarily to articles about birds, not to the whole encyclopedia. Contributors to other areas of the 'pedia (botany, politics, music, sport, and so on) cannot be expected to know or conform to the conventions of ornithology. Someone writing on a sports team called the "Christchurch King Penguins" may refer to "king penguins" without worrying about species capitalisation rules. And if they make an in-text link to king penguin, it should be redirected to King Penguin. It is the responsibility of the writer on King Penguins, not the writer on sports, to make the redirect.

Also, this convention does not necessarily apply to articles on taxa other than birds.

Per this discussion, the consensus way to write the combination of common name plus scientific name in the lead is:

The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a passerine bird....

Namely, bold common name followed by unbolded italic scientific name in parentheses.

Summary of naming guidelines – common names

  • The name of a particular species is always capitalised; Common Blackbird, Metallic Starling, Emu, Ostrich, Western Marsh Harrier.
  • The word immediately following a hyphen in a species name is usually not capitalised; Red-winged Blackbird, Black-backed Butcherbird. Exceptions include cases where the two sides of the hyphen refer to bird families and the species belongs to the group after the hyphen. Thus "White-throated Quail-Dove" being a dove rather than a quail has the "Dove" with capitals. The formatting of names such as "Black-headed Cuckoo-shrike" where the bird is neither a cuckoo nor a shrike are somewhat disputed. The IOC leans towards avoiding hyphens and using options such as "Cuckooshrike" or "Cuckoo Shrike" while other groups prefer the older system of hyphens in these cases.
  • The name of a group of species is not capitalised; birds, thrush family, kingfishers, turtle doves, marsh harriers.
  • Alternative names should be mentioned where appropriate; with bold type in the opening line of the article if they are in wide use, elsewhere in the article (with or without the bold type) if they are less-used. This is usually a matter for individual judgement.

Summary of naming guidelines – scientific names

  • Orders, families and other taxa above genus level are written with an initial capital and in roman (not italic) text: birds belong to the class Aves; ducks are members of the family Anatidae and the order Anseriformes.
  • The names of genera are always italicised and capitalised: Turdus, Falco, Anas.
  • Species epithets are never capitalised, always italicised, and always preceded by either the genus name or a one-letter abbreviation of it: Alcedo pusilla or A. pusilla, Cisticola juncidis or C. juncidis. The abbreviation is used only when it is unambiguous in the context of the article.

[edit] Regional lists

It is recommended for the sake of consistency that regional lists are named as List of birds of _REGION_ rather than List of _REGION_ADJECTIVE_ birds.

[edit] Article sections

Most of the bird species articles have a common structure which include various combinations of the following:

  • Taxonomy and systematics (including subspecies, relation to related species, history of naming, alternate names, and evolution)
  • Description (often including details on immature plumage, moult, vocalisations, identification, and similar species)
  • Distribution and habitat
  • Behaviour and ecology
    • Breeding
    • Food and feeding
    • Threats or Survival
  • In culture or Relationship to humans
  • Status

Additional sections may be included to cover aspects that are particularly interesting or well studied in that species.

[edit] Taxonomy and references

This is likely to be the single most difficult part of the project. Not only does bird taxonomy vary significantly from one authority to another, but it is in a state of constant change. Scientific names and classification are based on evidence rather than a specific list. There is no single authority to rely on; no one list can claim to be the list.

We do have a preferred standard for English common bird names: the IOC World Bird List (IOC) (http://www.worldbirdnames.org). We are in the process of moving to this standard, and changes to conform to it need to be discussed individually (or in small groups when appropriate). Controversial moves need to be listed here and at WP:RM. This should be used for all articles except those where consensus decided otherwise, and those dealing with a country or region, where the appropriate local official list should be used, as in List of North American birds and British Birds. Thus the article on Buteogallus anthracinus is called Common Black Hawk, following IOC, but in List of birds of Canada and the United States this species is called Common Black-Hawk, following the American Ornithologists' Union.

The major official sources include:

  • For Africa Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa has been recognised as the authoritative book on southern Africa's birds since its first publication in 1940. A new edition has been published. The list is available online here.
  • For Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa (i.e. the Western Palearctic), the nine-volume BWP or Birds of the Western Palearctic is considered the standard reference. It is also available as a two-volume concise edition. (See the publisher's site.) BirdGuides has combined the text of BWP, the text and plates of the concise edition, with text from the BWP Update journal, images, video and sound recordings into Birds of the Western Palearctic interactive DVD-ROM. The list does not seem to be available online, however.
  • Further suggestions are welcome!

There are also a number of family monographs (such as the Hayman "Shorebirds" and Harrison's "Seabirds" in the Helm Identification Guides series); some are available on line at Amazon using the Search Inside feature (which requires a free membership in Amazon). Although a mine of information, these books reflect the authors' idiosyncrasies and soon become dated.

[edit] Online resources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aves

A number of useful free to view online resources exist that are useful in writing bird-related articles:

Referencing (free scientific articles from ornithological journals etc.)

  • FreeFullText Alphabetical list of scientific journals with free full-text articles.
  • Ornithological books online by Tommy Tyrberg
  • SORA Searchable ornithological research archive, University of New Mexico. This site has decades worth of archives of the American ornithology journals, such as Auk, Condor, Journal of Field Ornithology, Ornitologia Neotropical, Studies in Avian Biology Pacific Coast Avifauna, and the Wilson Bulletin. Coverage ends around 2000, but still extremely useful. The ability to search almost all journals and browse issues exists on the front page.
  • Royal Society of New Zealand Free archive of several interesting journals until 2004. Link to Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand archive 1868–1961.
  • PALMM Textual Collections a State University of Florida project. Several monographs available via All Collections search, such as Pierce Brodkorb's "Catalogue of Fossil Birds".
  • Forktail Oriental Bird Club journal. Deals with South, East and Southeast Asia and surroundings. Several complete issues available.
  • New Zealand Journal of Ecology Often publishes bird-related articles. Like Notornis concerns itself with New Zealand and surrounding areas.
  • Marine Ornithology published by the numerous Seabird Research Groups, it is specific but goes back many years.
  • Notornis the journal of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand. Covers New Zealand and the South Pacific.
  • Ornithological Worldwide Literature Searchable reference database. Successor to Recent Ornithological Literature; no actual articles.
  • Birds of North America, Cornell University's massive project collecting information on all bird species breeding in the ABA area. It isn't free, but available for 40 USD a year. Access is sometimes available via university libraries.
  • Malimbus, The Journal of the West African Ornithological Society; as well as the even older Bulletin of the Nigerian Ornithologists' Society. Mostly covers bird distribution in sites across the area, but also notes on behaviour and ecology of obscure birds from a little studied part of the world. The Journal is bilingual and several articles are in French.
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library at [2] and [3], a digital repository of publications from the collections of libraries, museum, and research institutions.
  • Check-List of Birds of the World! This 16-volume (including index) work – For synonyms, authors, dates, type localities and so on – shows its age.
  • Papers in the Biological Sciences at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Contains many useful sources, including many books by Paul Johnsgard
  • Ross, Alexander Milton (1871), The Birds of Canada, Rowsell and Hutchison. ISBN 1146720726

Conservation status

  • BirdLife International The Data Zone has species accounts for every species, although only threatened species have any detail beyond status and evaluation. But there is still a lot of information to be had there.

Taxonomy

Images

Miscellaneous

[edit] Use a taxobox

Torresian Crow
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Corvidae
Genus: Corvus
Species: C. orru
Binomial name
Corvus orru
Bonaparte, 1850
Distribution of the Torresian Crow.

In general, bird articles should have taxoboxes. This is something we have inherited from the Tree of Life WikiProject. There are many examples there to look at.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage for the full details on constructing a taxobox.

Taxoboxes on the bird pages vary quite a bit from one another and could perhaps be standardised more than they are right now. This may or may not be a good thing. Discussion of this is welcome.

There are several example bird taxoboxes, suitable for cut and paste insertion into entries:

[edit] Distribution maps

A good way to show a bird's area of occurrence is to add a distribution map; see the above example on how. Species with tiny areas of occurrence should get larger maps which are displayed thumbnailed.

As for colors, the following are generally accepted as literature standard, for example by the Handbook of Birds of the World:

  • yellow for summer only
  • (dark) blue for winter only
  • green for all-year range

For species that do not migrate, a single color can be used as in the example. At-sea range of birds like albatrosses is usually marked in darker or lighter blue. Small islands can be marked with a larger dot and/or shown magnified in inserts. Migration flyways are often indicated with arrows. Areas of irruptive occurrence- more regular and plentiful than casual vagrancy, such as in crossbill species – can be indicated by colored stippling.

It is good to use basic, web-safe colors. If using nonstandard coloration (e.g. Arctic Tern or Silvery Pigeon), it is important to annotate them. Former ranges of extinct birds can be indicated in dark grey (HBW standard) or red (many other), the former is probably preferable due to unambiguity.

The "HBW standard" colors have one major advantage: they can also, due to differences in brightness, be distinguished by almost all people with some sort of color blindness.

[edit] Other infoboxes

[edit] Tasklist

  • Bird evolution
  • Check the country lists
  • Add {{Infobox Park}} to articles about nature reserves
  • Most genus articles lack a genus authority.
  • Merge GLAM/ARKive donated texts into articles about endangered species.
  • Assign project importance to all project articles currently tagged "Unknown" (for list, check "Category:Unknown-importance bird articles").
  • Update IUCN status references on all articles with broken links.

[edit] Species lists with redlinks

These are mainly missing redirects. Synonyms should be also added in the species' taxobox.

Many of the names on the IOC List do not yet feature here. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Missing IOC names.

[edit] Bird families with stub articles

  • Bring following articles up to start class:

[edit] Standing list of articles with several images but little text

Here is a list of short articles which have had images added and could benefit being beefed up with text to balance the image content. Please help if you can. Also, all are potentially easy DYK noms (hint hint) :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Standing list of articles with quality pictorial content

Here is a list of articles with either a Featured Picture, or a variety of pictures available, such as chicks, eggs, variant colour forms etc, which would be really done justice by a larger article.

[edit] Groups of articles heading towards featured topic (FT)

Further information: Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Josep del Hoyo, Andrew Elliott & Jordi Sargatal, ed. (1998). Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. p. 25. 
  2. ^ Potter, EF (1984). "On capitalization of vernacular names of species". Auk 101: 895-896. http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v101n04/p0895-p0896.pdf. 

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