Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds

WikiProject Birds

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Crex

Merge proposal discussion under Crex talk page due to IOC taxonomy change....Pvmoutside (talk) 8:24, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Feral chickens and flight

See the most recent edit on feral chicken. It removed the claim that they fly into trees to roost. But they do roost in trees, and can fly well enough to get up there? 146.200.128.134 (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Taxobox source

Is there a page explaining the source of category names placed into taxoboxes? Example: Family taxon found in taxobox of Zonotrichia is Passerellidae. Where is the word ‘Passerellidae’ picked from? Wikidata item of Zonotrichia says parent taxon is Emberizidae, so Wikidata is obviously not the source. --Roarjo (talk) 07:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

The favoured source for taxoboxes is the IOC (see Family index and Passerellidae). This should be written up in the project pages somewhere. While Wikipedia articles should discuss alternative, for taxoboxes we have to make a choice and try and be consistent. In recent years a lot of new families have been carved out of the traditional Emberizidae. The split between American sparrows and Old World buntings was relatively recent but I think it is accepted by all the major checklists. I've added the reference to the article and taxonomy template. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, also for updating wikidata:Q914721. But where are the taxonomy data items stored, from where the template system is grabbing the parent categories in the moment Wikipedia pages are displayed and template system is processing? Wikipedia:Automated_taxobox_system/technical#Algorithm tells “the database”. Is this "database" a table in a page maintained within English Wikipedia, or is there a real-time lookup into worldbirdnames.org? --Roarjo (talk) 10:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

The structure for the automated taxoboxes is in a collection of templates of form {{Taxonomy/TAXON_NAME}}, in this case {{Taxonomy/Zonotrichia}}. Each template includes basic information about the taxon including the taxon rank and parent. The taxonomy in the taxobox is formed by following the hierarchy (from the parents) in the templates. You can see this by clicking the red pencil to the right of the Scientific Classification header in the taxobox. This shows the hierarchy and has links to the templates to facilitate editing. The system takes a bit of learning but is quite simple once you grasp the basics and people are always willing to help on the taxobox or project talk pages. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:23, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Note that the taxonomy templates have a parameter for a reference. This should be filled in, but often isn't (very few bird taxonomy templates currently have a reference). If a reference is given, it should show that the taxon is accepted, and confirm the parent taxon and rank shown in the taxonomy template. Some other language Wikipedias (e.g. Catalan) use Wikidata to generate the taxonomic hierarchy in a taxobox; there are so unavoidable bugs with this approach, but it may be a worthwhile trade-off for a Wikipedia language edition with a very small editor base that is unable to keep up with taxonomic updates. Plantdrew (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Moving American sparrow to New World sparrow

Please could someone with the necessary privileges move American sparrow to New World sparrow. I attempted to do this myself and received the message: "The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid."

The page "New World sparrow" is currently a redirect.

"New World sparrows" appears to be the usual name for the family Passerellidae. I've added a note on the talk page listing the reliable sources that I've checked see here.

Many thanks

-Aa77zz (talk) 11:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I've requested the page move at Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Technical_requests#Uncontroversial_technical_requests.—  Jts1882 | talk  12:14, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for that. The page has now been moved - Aa77zz (talk) 17:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Psittacula split into six genera?

I just noticed this 2019 study[1] that proposes splitting Psittacula into six genera, since various genetic studies have found it to be paraphyletic. Some subspecies are also split into species. This would have pretty big ramifications here, but I guess we shouldn't act on this (other than just mentioning it in articles), until other authorities apply it. Do we know if any plan to do so? FunkMonk (talk) 03:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

The IOC have this note: Psittacula may be paraphyletic relative to Tanygnathus and Psittinus. See Braun et al. (2016) for a phylogeny of Psittacula and allies. Braun et al. (2019) is the full paper follow-up for Braun et al. (2016) so I'd expect the IOC to make the change, although there is currently no mention in the diary and updates. As you say, we should probably wait until they do. BOW/Cornell also still have them in the one geneus. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:49, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Ouch, so Braun named one of the new genera after his wife, not exactly after himself, but close enough... Anyway, yeah, I guess we can start preparing mentally for the splits then... FunkMonk (talk) 10:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

The IOC often does not implement the exact changes proposed in an article. Bird taxonomy is still changing significantly - in version 10.2 the generic boundaries of the tanagers (Thraupidae) were revised. This involved resurrecting 11 genera, creating 6 new genera and the loss of 7. - Aa77zz (talk) 10:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh wonderful. The Alexandrine parrot isn't in Alexandrinus. That's gonna cause confusion. 146.200.128.134 (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2020 (UTC)