Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 67

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 60

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Archive 65

500+ video's of birds from the Netherlands recently uploaded

Spoonbill at sunset

Apologies for cross-posting, but someone pointed out this great platform to me and this content-donation to Wikimedia Commons seems to me very relevant to what you are doing. I have recently finished uploading over 500 video's of bird filmed in The Netherlands by a professional film producer. This is a donation made possible by the Foundation for Nature Footage (Stichting Natuurbeelden) and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The collection contains beautiful and unique footage of different bird species, in a variety of landscapes displaying different types of behavior. The entire collection can be found in this category.

How can you help?

Some amazing work has already been done by the community of Wikimedia Commons, latin birdnames have been added as categories and the meta-data has been translated into English. It is now very easy to find the items and use them on the different language versions of Wikipedia.
Because the collection consists of raw, uncut shots, usage in articles on Wikipedia will often profit from the start-end functionality of the Wiki-syntax. E.g. "[[File:Filename|thumb|300px|start=5|end=12]]" will start a certain file at 5 seconds and will end it at 12.
For bird-enthousiasts that don't have a lot of experience in editing articles on Wikipedia, I made a brief ad-hoc tutorial on how to add a video from this category to an article. It can be found here, feel free to share.

Have fun browsing these videos and spread the word! Thanks. 85jesse (talk) 15:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks FunkMonk. Then allow me to elaborate a little bit: at present there are only 6 videos used on the English Wikipedia, another 580 are available! A tool has been developed that assists in getting an overview of the unused items in a category and suggestions to which articles to add them (thanks to Magnus Manske). A list of the unused video's can be found here. To get the suggestions for which article to use this press the "OR version" button and you will get the (unfortunately) Dutch Wikipedia article on that particular bird, on the far left the interwiki links to the other language-versions can be found. I hope this helps. Thanks again. 85jesse (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I see that the categorization into species categories has already been done. I think that a list of these videos alongside species names would be useful, and I plan to do some listing of this series of videos probably on Commons (where capitalized bird names are used) in the Autumn using semi-automatic methods. Snowman (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Revisions and WP:BIRDCON

Recently, I have been systematically checking the contents of Category:Passeriformes and revising letter case in harmony with WP:BIRDCON. I have either skipped the following, or had some sort of difficulty with them, so members of WP:BIRDS might wish to check them.

Category:Fictional passerine birds
Category:Chasiempis and ‘Elepaio and Kauaʻi ‘Elepaio
Category:Moho (genus) and Mohoidae
ʻĀmaui and Olomaʻo and ‘Ōma’o and Puaiohi and Ring Ouzel

Apart from those, I have checked everything in Category:Passerida except Category:Passeroidea and Category:Sylvioidea and Category:Nectariniidae and Category:Troglodytidae. Apart from those, I have checked everything in Category:Passeri except Category:Corvida and Category:Passeri stubs. Apart from those, I have checked everything in Category:Passeriformes except Category:Tyranni and Category:Passerine stubs. I am relying on the colors of links to avoid re-checking pages that I have already visited. I am reporting these things now, because I am organizing my records at the end of the month of July.
—Wavelength (talk) 03:15, 1 August 2014 (UTC) and 04:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Here is a link to a record of my recent contributions (1000 from June 27 to August 1).
—Wavelength (talk) 13:50, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

So, how does it feel to destroy the work of the experts that now have left because of the Cap Warriors? Why don't you go away and destroy the work of other peoples? 74.248.49.44 (talk) 02:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, anonymous IP, that's enough vitriol — you've been posting regularly and we all know how frustrated you are. And many of us sympathize. But your continued prodding isn't helping with anything — it's not making those of us who are still here feel any better, and it certainly isn't fair to level criticism at those (very) few editors who are trying to help clean up the mess left by the recent RFC. At least Wavelength is trying to help make the articles consistent, which is more than I can say for many of the RFC voters who "cared" so much about inconsistencies. MeegsC (talk) 11:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

In the first half of August 2014, I checked everything in Category:Nectariniidae and everything in Category:Troglodytidae. I am hesitant about starting the very large categories Category:Passeroidea and Category:Sylvioidea. Also, I am awaiting a decision regarding the use of definite articles with animal names incorporating possessive forms of personal names. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals#Definite article or not (version of 16:45, 17 August 2014). Here is a link to a record of 500 contributions ending at the end of August 14, 2014.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:44, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Wavelength:, I think you should probably be posting this information at User:Stfg/Sandbox4; that appears to be where most people who are downcasing articles are keeping track of their progress. For continuity's sake, it would be better to post there. MeegsC (talk) 18:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your advice.—Wavelength (talk) 19:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Library assistance

Having recently seen the vast libraries of the Natural History Museum at London and Tring and after speaking to the bird curator, Robert Prys-Jones, it seemed like working out a mechanism for editors working towards GA/FA to obtain copies of hard-to-get-sources on payment (possibly via the Wikipedia Library / User:Ocaasi - Wikimedia UK (attn. User:WereSpielChequers) might be an option worth discussing. The standard copy request form for reference can be found here Shyamal (talk) 07:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

WP Birds template as seen on talk pages

Should the recent imposition of lower-case bird names be included in some way on talk pages, perhaps in the WP Birds template? Snowman (talk) 18:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to say something along the lines of "Bird names in these articles should remain lowercased, per a recent decision by the Wikipedia community." or something like that, with a link to the RFC. Otherwise, some well-meaning birder will undoubtedly uppercase something and get flamed in the process. MeegsC (talk) 18:20, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I meant something like; "Use of lower case bird names was imposed on WP Birds against a consensus of active bird-page editors". Snowman (talk) 18:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's not flog a dead horse. —innotata 18:36, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I'd do something like your suggestion, Snowman. But I do think we should let editors know the names should remain uncapitalized, in case (as with a recent change at Canada Goose) someone tries to uppercase them. We could either add it to the template, or to a hidden message that only appears if someone actually edits the page. MeegsC (talk) 18:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

So we did end up going with an invented naming convention that none of our sources use? Doesn't that contradict Wikipedia:Article_titles#Use_commonly_recognizable_names which says "Wikipedia ... prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources"? I'm pretty tempted to write a greasemonkey script which at least fixes them client side. :P JJ Harrison (talk) 22:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, a short script could fix rendering of the page title and whenever that species is mentioned in the article, but it would take a long script to fix any other bird species that were included in the article. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 20:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Poicephalus fuscicollis

Should the Poicephalus fuscicollis article be renamed to 'Un-cape Parrot' (or Uncape Parrot)? I believe that this is the odd-sounding, but somehow-it-caught-on common name for this (super)species, which AFAIK is yet to receive an official name. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:17, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Not at the present time. Snowman (talk) 14:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Niam-niam Parrot

Niam-niam Parrot has recently been changed to "Niam-niam parrot" and then to "Niam-Niam parrot". The IOC name is "Niam-niam Parrot". Any comments? Snowman (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I would say that as Niam-Niam seems to be a proper noun, then the title is correct as it is - although there didn't seem to be a clear consensus when discussing whether the Amazon parrots should remain capitalized for similar reasons. Interestingly Zande people says that 'Niam-Niam' is now considered a pejorative term, so I wonder if the species will eventually be renamed (assuming that this uncited statement is accurate)? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Moorhen

Can someone please help me with Dusky moorhen. It was a nothing article, that I made into something, but could do with some help. 13:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZieRooAU (talk • contribs)

YEs, will take a look later today. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Genus move - Megalaima to Psilopogon

It seems like the new del Hoyo & Collar checklist may produce quite a lot of work. Just noticed that this 2004 study leads to the move to the older named genus Psilopogon... Shyamal (talk) 11:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

For your consideration

Maybe you have an opinion to this case --Melly42 (talk) 18:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Update: Article on Jannion Steele Elliott was kept. Snowman (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Some birds-of-country categories at CfD

There is a discussion about whether to merge some birds-of-country categories into a category for a larger area. Members of this project would be welcome to take part in the discussion. For info: Some previous discussions on this page about birds-of-country categories are this, this and this. DexDor (talk) 20:36, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Curve-billed Thrasher

Hello! The Curve-billed thrasher article that I worked on several months ago has been yet to be completed for its review. If anyone here can please step in to finish (I made my necessary edits around two months ago), it would be greatly appreciated. Just would like to see more articles reach the GA/FA status! Thanks for Reading! LeftAire (talk) 21:10, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Goura victoria

The size of this bird, the Victoria crowned pigeon, is described in that Wikipedia page as "typically 73 to 75 cm (29 to 30 in) long and weighs 5-6 kilograms". The weight has to be wrong. I imagine the mentioned kilograms in the text quoted are really meant to be pounds.

Cosmicaug (talk) 06:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I removed the item as it was unreferenced and contradicted the following sentence, which implied 3.5 kg was a high weight. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Amazon parrots capitalization again

See Talk:Amazon_parrot#Uppercase_Amazon?. Might be good to get some more opinions on this, so we can get this sorted out once and for all. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Colloquial alternative names

Would project members mind commenting at Talk:Canada goose#"Canadian Goose" is WRONG, not an alternate term? This argument has come up many times before regarding this bird's alternative name, and could apply to other articles: some users have insisted that the colloquially used name "Canadian goose" is incorrect, and we should say so (or not include the name) in the article. In my opinion we shouldn't exclude alternative names that are widely used: we shouldn't be prescriptivist, and standard, more common names do not preclude the existence of alternatives. —innotata 17:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Caique wrestling again

I'll just leave this here. I just saw this video today. I bet you've never seen a bird willingly play fighting/wrestling with a squirrel/gopher/whatever before, have you? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 11:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Fregilupus varius common name

What is the preferred common name of Fregilupus varius? We now use hoopoe starling, though the IUCN seems to use Réunion starling.[1] FunkMonk (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I would still use the IOC name which is hoopoe starling --Melly42 (talk) 23:05, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Where can that be seen? I thought the IUCN used IOC names under their common names? FunkMonk (talk) 01:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's here. Search on "varius". MeegsC (talk) 03:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Can't find it there, but I trust you guys! FunkMonk (talk) 06:23, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

There is an Excel sheet about Extinct Birds http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/extinct-birds/. Just download the file --Melly42 (talk) 07:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, somehow, I managed to insert an "s" where there shouldn't have been one. It's correct now. MeegsC (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Nice! They say it follows a Hume source, though he uses a different name in a later source. FunkMonk (talk) 17:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Ernest Preston Edwards

I intend to create an entry for my uncle who might be best known for his Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico or his Coded Workbook of Birds of the World. He wrote several other bird titles. I am new to this and am concerned that I may be disallowed because I am a relative or because my references come mostly from him directly. I would welcome a collaborator. I plan to model the page after that of R Tory Peterson, but I also have most of his surviving collection of slides, film, and DVDs of his travels in Africa and Mexico/Central America. I have CVs, knew him all my life and have access to other relatives and friends who knew him well.

Plyingfig (talk) 19:57, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Plyingfig. Are there any independent sources that have information about your uncle? Newspaper obituaries, encyclopedias, "who's who of ornithology" — that sort of thing? Sources like that would be acceptable as reliable sources. Your personal interviews with family members and friends would not be acceptable, because there's absolutely no way for anyone else to verify that what you write based on those interviews is actually what those people said. MeegsC (talk) 01:44, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I started the draft and actually cited a couple of independent sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Plyingfig/Ernest_Preston_Edwards

I also have a number of his documents including CVs and certificates, even report cards. You seem to imply that I should include nothing that cannot be independently verified. True? What about his military service. Must I dig up those records in order to include it? I don't really have the time to do that. And of course documents in my possession can't be verified by someone who doesn't have access.

Thanks!Plyingfig (talk) 04:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

There is an obituary in the Auk - http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1525/auk.2013.130.4.812 Shyamal (talk) 06:02, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@PlyingFig: Yes, you're correct — you can't use report cards, CVs, etc. that are in your possession and can't be verified by anyone else unless some reliable source (i.e. newspaper, magazine, non-self-published book) has already directly made reference to them. It's all to do with the very high standards required for biographies, in an effort to keep people from making stuff up about other people. MeegsC (talk) 19:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Anatomy

There is a discussion at the Anatomy Project about a mismatch between the title of the project and its scope. The title refers broadly to anatomy, but the project rejects all articles that are not primarily about human anatomy. Thus, for example, none of the articles in Category:Bird anatomy are accepted by the project. There is a similar issue with WikiProject Physiology. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:05, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you implying that WP Anatomy should be renamed WP Human Anatomy? Snowman (talk) 21:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Well that's not going to happen according to the participants in the project. The project is an offshoot of the medical project, with a focus on articles related to human anatomy. The discussion was closed without resolution. A new project catering to animal anatomy is forming now, and if you are interested your support as a founding member would be very welcome. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:11, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Gallicolumba article should be spilt into two articles

Gallicolumba (Bleeding hearts) and Alopecoenas (Indo-pacific ground doves) are now two distinct genera,

see:

Systematics and biogeography of Indo-Pacific ground-doves Jønsson et al. In Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2011 http://192.38.112.111/pdf-reprints/Jonsson_MPS_2011.pdf
Robert G. Moyle, Robin Jones, Michael J. Andersen: A reconsideration of Gallicolumba (Aves: Columbidae) relationships using fresh source material reveals pseudogenes, chimeras, and a novel phylogenetic hypothesis. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 66, 3,pages 1060-1066, 2013
IOC, HBW Alive, BirdLife, IUCN as source --Melly42 (talk) 21:03, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

List of birds of Germany

Im my opion there are some changes in the List of birds of Germany necessary.

E.g. add following species to the list, please: Podilymbus podiceps (A) Niedersachsen Oceanodroma castro (A) Oxyura jamaicensis (I) Egretta thula (A) Niedersachsen Grus canadensis (A) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Calidris subminuta (A) Zenaida macroura (A) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Apus affinis (A) Sachsen, Helgoland Apus pacificus (A) 28-05-2014 Niedersachsen / Mellum Prunella atrogularis (A) Anthus gustavi (A)

Please Chance: Aquila fasciatus to Aquila fasciatus (A) Calidris ruficollis to Calidris ruficollis (A) Larus cachinnans (A) to Larus cachinnans

Species e.g. on the list with question marks are: Accipiter brevipes Chlamydotis undulata Vanellus spinosus Charadrius mongolus Strix nebulosa ... Coracias garrulus (talk) 22:33, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Capitalisation of common names

It is some three months since I stopped editing over the issue of capitalisation of common names. I don't intend to start editing again but I wish to make some observations.

I own a very large collection of print reference books on birds, insects and plants. The only wildlife references I own that do not capitalise common names are some (but not all) of my mammal books. The major bird works HBW and BWP use caps as does A Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names (Jobling, OUP 91), Oxford Dictionary of British Bird Names (Lockwood, OUP 93), everything from publiishers Helm, Poyser, Collins and more.

WP is supposed to reflect secondary sources, not lead. By not capitalising the common names of birds (or insects or flowers), WP is misleading the reader. The seasoned naturalist knows that bird names should take caps but the busy student or journalist might quickly Google, for example, "Golden Eagle" and will be presented with the WP text "The golden eagle is ...". This is incorrect but will be reproduced in countless essays and articles until it becomes the norm. People won't bother to check because they will have absorbed the incorrect WP style and assumed it is correct.

WP should not be leading a change in style. It should be reflecting the secondary sources.

I doubt if anything can be done about this but I thought I should register my concern.

Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 18:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chuunen Baka:, the problem is that most generalist publications (including newspapers, encyclopedias, etc.) and some specialist publications (including the RSPB magazine, some zoology journals, etc.) use lower case. It's not really a matter of one way or other being "correct" (though we birders are certainly more used to uppercase names and the MOS boffins are more used to lowercase), it's just a matter of style. And the "lazy journalist" you refer to would be the one using uppercase names, as all the leading newspaper style manuals call for lowercase names. I was a journalist for many years, and always found it hard (and weird) to type animal names in lowercase, as we do now in Wikipedia. But we can all certainly adapt to whichever style is "acceptable" to the community. We just have to decide which is more important — getting the information out there, or standing on our principles. And each of us will have to make our own choice as to what we're willing to put up with. MeegsC (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC:. It could be considered just a matter of style but it would be as wrong as writing people's names without leading caps. The RSPB's Nature's Home is little more than a comic full of anthropomorphic animals; newspapers have traditionally been caps-averse; and some zoology journals go with the perverse convention on mammal names. It remains the fact that the common names of birds, plants and insects should have leading caps. The major literature fully supports that and WP is getting it wrong and will, undoubtedly, influence coming English-reading generations to also get it wrong.

Let me give the example of Aeshna where I carefully collated and cited common names where they exist, each with a cite. In each cite they have leading caps. Then someone comes along an down-cases them all. That is wrong. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:05, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chuunen Baka: Don't get me wrong; I too would prefer to see capitalized species names, because that's what I'm used to and because I think it makes things much clearer. But it is only a style issue. It's only well-established style that says it's wrong to lowercase people's names. That's why intentionally lowercased names (e.e. cummings, k.d. lang, etc.) are so eye-catching. Unfortunately, the heavy-handed diktat that led to the downcasing of bird names has emphasized style over content, and that's what I have a bigger issue with. When good contributors drop out because of the amount of vitriol leveled against them, it becomes an issue far more serious than style. MeegsC (talk) 12:56, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

And even I am uneven in uppercasing. Would you ever write "I took my Dog for a walk" or "Sorry I made a mistake, but I'm only Human"? I certainly wouldn't! :P MeegsC (talk) 12:59, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chuunen Baka: Yes, the whole way it went down was pretty galling, and at the end of the day each person has to weigh up how they feel about contributing. Overall, I am annoyed but have accepted it for what it is and moved on from it as I still think there is a benefit in what we do here. and enjoy it most of the time. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:24, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I've said it elsewhere, so I might as well say it here too: that discussion should probably be re-opened. It was completely dominated by a sockpuppet and one over-vociferous editor, and was an absolute travesty of what community discussion should be. That it directly led to the departure of three valuable editors is just icing on the cake. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:26, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers:, personally, I wouldn't recommend reopening this issue any time soon. Many of us are tired of trying to defend our side, and personally, I'd rather be doing the constructive work of improving articles than raising my blood pressure dealing with the astoundingly hostile reception we seem to get any time we suggest capitalization might actually be appropriate. Any new discussion will bring all the same players back to the argument, so what's the point? Give it a few years. MeegsC (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: so basically it will not be addressed and will never be addressed which is what I assumed. WP natural history articles are irredeemably broken. The only editors who remain will be those who are prepared to tolerate the ugliness and incorrectness of lowercase common names. As I stated in my post, WP will now be driving this as a new convention and, mark my words, soon people will be arguing that lowercase is correct because WP does it that way. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I was against the moves, though I don't feel strongly about it, but some of the proponents made at least one good point, which no one really addressed: National Geographic apparently uses lower-case for bird names. FunkMonk (talk) 09:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America uses leading caps. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 12:45, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Their website, however, does not. See the problem? There is no real consistency yet, though the move toward capitalization in literature has grown somewhat in the past few decades. That's why I suggested we give it time! MeegsC (talk) 13:23, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: But my whole point is that as time goes on, people outside WP will cite WP as an argument for using lower case. WP is setting a bad example and will set a trend. It will not get better and soon it will be unfixable. And since everyone here has admitted defeat, it is a done deal. The reason the bullying MOS gang could force it on this project was because very few bird editors knew how to play their game. That's not going to change either. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:03, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see a new proposal to use uppercase capitalization of animal names. As far as I am aware, there have been separate proposals for birds, dogs, horses and so on. I think that there should be a more general discussion about capitalization of animal names in general and all the involved WikiProjects can be invited to participate. Snowman (talk) 18:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

The anti caps mob kept going and going until they got the result they wanted. I have no doubt if WP:BIRDS brought it up again we'd be accused of WP:POINT. Sabine's Sunbird 202.8.13.71 (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Consensus can change (see WP:CCC), which is a reason why bird-page editors should make a new proposal to use uppercase. Snowman (talk) 10:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Here's a list of bird guides that all use uppercase for individual bird species. I haven't found one yet that doesn't capitalize the common names!

The Sibley Guide to Birds. Second edition.
A Photographic Guide to Birds of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
Kaufman Guide to Birds of North America.
The Lorimer Pocketguide to Ontario Birds.
Princeton Field Guides. Birds of Peru. and Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania.
Field Guide to Birds of Australia.
A Photographic Guide to Birds of India.
The Birds of Costa Rica. A Field Guide.
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds.
The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Revised edition.
Birds, Mammals, and Reptiles pf the Galapagos Islands.
The Birds of Britain and Europe with North Africa and the Middle East.
The ROM Field Guide to Birds of Ontario.
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America.
Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America. Sixth edition.

Dger (talk) 01:11, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

@Dger: can you find any non-specialist sources that capitalize bird names? That was the big stumbling block last time — only bird/mammal/herp books capitalize names, while encyclopedias, newspapers and other more generalized sources (including many books and journals) do not. I think, in order to get Wikipedia MOS boffins to agree a capitalization change, we'll have to show that other non-specialist sources do what we suggest. Otherwise, the editors that screamed walls of text at us last time are just going to repeat themselves. And I, for one, don't have the time or patience to go through that again! MeegsC (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: - which is exactly the point. I once thought WP was a worthwhile activity but it has forfeited the right to taken seriously when it comes to natural history articles. That's the reason why I have stopped editing. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 13:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

@Chuunen Baka:, fair enough; we each have our breaking point. Personally I feel it's more important to get information about birds out there than to worry about what common name they're listed under or how their names are capitalized, but to each their own! MeegsC (talk) 18:03, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

@MeegsC: I haven't found any online encyclopedias, etc., that capitalize bird names. It is inconsistent that one can cite and source capitalization of bird names from primary sources but instead weaker secondary sources are preferred. Elsewhere in Wikipedia primary sources are the best choices for citations. For example, the formatting of mathematical equations is based on math and physics journal standards – very "specialist" publications. Many butterfly and moth pages are still capitalized but there are some people going around changing them too. Considering some of their names are totally descriptive it helps to capitalize, e.g., Small White, Large Copper, Red-spotted Purple, Yellow Three-spot, Sharp-angled Carpet, etc. Dger (talk) 00:48, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's not rehash this debate again. Really, it was pretty horrible a few months ago. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:45, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

People are going around down-casing common names because they cannot add any more cited information. Wikipedia is nearly complete. There is very little left to add in the bird articles so all we can argue about is style and taxonomy. The MOS gang rule on the former and the avid splitters rule on the latter. I disagree with both so there is little I can contribute. I'm sorry to have dragged this up again. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 10:07, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia will never be complete, and right now we only cover a very small fraction of what we could. The majority of articles on extant species are stubs (even some European and North American birds), and then there's higher taxa, fossil species, avian anatomy, ecology, ornithological topics, etc. As far as taxonomy, we ought to discuss all major current viewpoints, and some history too, which will be a lot of work to add. That is why I'm still contributing. I can understand if you don't want to contribute though. Rightly or not, arguing about capitalisation is now beating a dead horse. Anyway, thanks for your contributions, I very much appreciate the photos you've added! (you'll still post on Flickr right?) —innotata 14:42, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The only things left to do are to dot the i's, cross the t's, and change the upper case to lower case, and then back again. Lets get all names to lower case and then we can change them all back to upper case. Snowman (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of birds of Yuma, Arizona

I've nominated List of birds of Yuma, Arizona for deletion. Feel free to comment. There are no municipalities list for regional bird lists. There is an article available for List of birds of Yuma County, Arizona. Although I think this too in not notable, there is precedent for other county bird lists, so I let that be.....Pvmoutside (talk) 13:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure about the AFD? I can see a "merge" tag, but that's all Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking an AfD will not be needed anyway (assuming there isn't one ongoing despite the tag) we can always redirect to List of birds of Yuma County, Arizona anyway, even if no content gets merged. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 16:38, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Videos of birds

Dear all, I am taking the liberty to refer to the videos of birds from the Netherlands in which more than 500 video's of birds have been added in June this year. Only 18 of these have been used on the English Wikipedia. I was wondering if you have any suggestions how we can stimulate the use of these files. On the Dutch Wikipedia more than 50% of the video's has been used in articles, creating a very rich reading experience adding information about behavior, sounds, habitat, movement, etc. all in one glance. As an audiovisual archive we would love to continue our cooperation with the foundation of Nature footage and together provide more material. The only real incentive that we need is for the material to be used. The meta-data description has been translated into English and the Latin categories have been added (great work by the community!). We appreciate your feedback. Regards. Beeld en Geluid Collecties (talk) 13:16, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I have added a couple (for example to Eurasian eagle-owl), but I think many editors only add new media when expanding articles, and even then, many just use what is already in them. So someone would have to systematically go through the videos and add them where they would be appropriate. Also a thing to remember, you can choose what frame to use as a thumbnail if you add |thumbtime=0:00|, if the default image is not interesting enough. By the way, perhaps doesn't help that the file names are in Dutch. Also, the captions of the two videos in this owl category seem to have been swapped:[2] FunkMonk (talk) 13:21, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

By the way, this discussion gave me this idea, which would make video thumbnails more useful as illustrations in their own right:[3] FunkMonk (talk) 13:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The donation to Commons of the collection of videos is very much appreciated. There are fewer bird editors here following the imposition of lower case bird names. Snowman (talk) 23:14, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

By the way, great idea FunkMonk, totally agree. @Beel en Geluid Collecties: It's probably too late to do it now, but the names being in dutch really don't help me get a quick idea of where to put them on the English wikipedia. Maybe a list (hosted in a sandbox or off-wiki) of the English names of the birds featured would make things be added more quickly. That said, the descriptions all have an English name in them as far as I can tell, so people searching the commons for the bird they are working on's name will likely turn up the appropriate videos, so they may well be slowly integrated into articles over time either way. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 14:58, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, it seems this is finally being implemented, so soon we can use vidoes in a much more illustrative way again (including the great Dutch ones): https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73438 FunkMonk (talk) 12:49, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Footage of an adult tending to a nest with juveniles

Looks better now, see right. FunkMonk (talk) 22:32, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Indian Ocean kestrels

is there any good reason why this should be an article? If they're not a distinct clade, it seems arbitrary to have such an article. We don't seem to have equivalent articles. FunkMonk (talk) 17:35, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's clear what to do, even though the article seems intended to highlight the article that is its only proper reference. Where we have had similar cases, it's usually been possible to redirect or merge. I'm not sure that's the case here. It's encyclopaedic and in tone and has an academic reference, so I don't think it can be deleted, and it would be certain to survive an AFD. The only other option is to merge the content with kestrel, but this editor has got there first and summarised the article content there too, with the same ref. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:56, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I can think of Parrots of New Zealand - and also Parrots of New Guinea (which I just found now by typing 'Parrots of...' into the search!), so we do have some articles like that. Are the Indian Ocean kestrels considered to be a particularly notable subset of kestrels? The article would suggest that they have adapted to a different diet... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 07:35, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, seems like a bit of a slippery slope to me though, an endless amount of articles could theoretically be made about any constellation of birds and geographic regions. FunkMonk (talk) 09:58, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree with most comments here, can redirect to kestrel. Since it is already covered there, not much work. Can be a different case for something like Galapagos finches. Shyamal (talk) 04:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Aren't the finches a clade, though? FunkMonk (talk) 08:52, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Even if they weren't, "Galapagos finches" is a notable constellation of birds. Shyamal (talk) 11:43, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

As far as you are aware (aimed at everyone), are the Indian Ocean kestrels ever considered as such too? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 10:01, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Aging and sexing

Many wiki bird article include links to a series of excellent articles by Javier Blasco-Zumeta and Gerd-Michael Heinze on aging and sexing. At present these links appear to be broken. The browser is redirected to a new site but not to the file itself. The files exist at a different location. For example:

http://www.ibercajalav.net/img/426_ChaffinchFcoelebs.pdf

(213.99.38.50) is redirected to

http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/img/426_ChaffinchFcoelebs.pdf

(82.223.208.253) which doesn't exist but the file is available here:

http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/wp-content/uploads/426_ChaffinchFcoelebs.pdf

This may be only a temporary problem. (or I may have got confused) Aa77zz (talk) 16:08, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't look like a temporary problem. There are a couple of hundred of these links: see here. I'll try and fix them before too many are removed as being 'dead'. William Avery (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

All are now changed. I hope this is permanent. Aa77zz (talk) 14:30, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps next time they will get their redirection correct. Their index page for the PDFs is at http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/contenidos-didacticos/identification-atlas-birds-aragon/ and the creator has made one at http://www.javierblasco.arrakis.es/families.htm William Avery (talk) 14:42, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Parrots of New Guinea

I found Parrots of New Guinea today, which is in a similar vein to Indian Ocean kestrels. Any thoughts on whether this one has merit? As it currently stands, it's not much — and it hasn't substantially changed since 2007, when it was started. Any parrot aficionado want to take it on? MeegsC (talk) 20:09, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

As above, I'd support a merge. FunkMonk (talk) 22:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I think many of these multiple species pages were created prior to Polbot creating separate pages for just about every bird species, which makes them largely redundant now. There may be the odd exception that is worth keeping. Maias (talk) 04:47, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Expanding a few articles......Spoonbill

I was musing over articles which could have sets of species all with images (much like in pelican) and came up with Spoonbill, Frigatebird and Sulidae, for which Anna Frodesiak made some nice species boxes. Anyone is welcome to buff any of them. Might be that one more more attracts enough enthusiastic editing to head it to GA status....maybe. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:09, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Also, if anyone has the HBW and wants to update general family-level information to any of these articles that would be great. Have begun on Frigatebird and others will follow at some point. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:31, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistent usage of "Struthioniformes"

Currently, the page Struthioniformes is a redirect to Ostrich, and the page Ratite says that Struthioniformes is now considered to only contain the Ostrich. However, other pages such as Ostrich and List of Struthioniformes by population treat the Struthioniformes as synonymous with the ratites. Wiktionary also seems to treat the Struthioniformes as synonymous with the ratites (e.g., at wikt:ratite and wikt:Struthioniformes). My assumption is that Ostrich, List of Struthioniformes by population, and the Wiktionary pages are just out of date, and that the current scientific consensus is that the Struthioniformes only contains the Ostrich (and extinct relatives). Is that correct? If so, can someone please fix the pages that are out of date so that they use correct terminology. Calathan (talk) 22:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

More dietary info for Sparrows

I have information that shows that more than one type of sparrow has been observed to eat seeds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DRtester1 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Good to know! MeegsC (talk) 03:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Genus names with parenthetical disambiguation

There seems to be disparity and inconsistency across animal article titles when the genus is a disambiguated title and there is no common name (e.g. Larisa (genus), Adela (moth)), and Carnarvonia (fossil)). Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna)#Genus names with parenthetical disambiguation for discussion of whether a new naming guideline should inform animal titles. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 19:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

authority for Fregatidae

....is given as 1867, but when you go to the work (see here) they have it as a genus not a family....stumped. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:30, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

This says Garrod, 1874, and I didn't see anything earlier at Google Books. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I'll write to some of the secondary sources and see what they say.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Got word from Richard Schodde himself 1867 authority is right as they have it listed in the Table of Contents as Fregatinae. Hence valid. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

puffbird

trying to expand this for DYK but I don't have much info on S American birds. If anyone can chip in it'd be appreciated. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Description

Writer says coloring displays "considerable variation even amongst species." Because variation in coloring among species is to be expected, I believe writer must have meant within species, especially because of that even. Since this is not an area in which I am expert, I am reluctant to make the edit myself and ask an owl expert to review the wording. Thanks! 66.108.207.31 (talk) 02:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)LINKBook

A Flock Of Genomes

Has anybody read the Flock of Genomes article? Are they saying they fully sequenced the genomes of 45 species of birds? Abductive (reasoning) 05:04, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Yup, so cool. Here's a list of their publications from that sequencing effort: [4]. I saw Bird and Neoaves already got updated with their phylogenetic tree. Narayanese (talk) 09:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah...read it...digesting. Alot of it was known though some of the isolated ones like tropicbirds have been problematic for a while...so good to get some more clarity. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:46, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Which tree in their article are they saying is the most correct one, seeing as how there's a lot of trees demonstrating flawed tree-building? Abductive (reasoning) 18:46, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@Abductive: - this one is the one to look at for summary/consensus/conclusion etc. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:43, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Elfin woods warbler

Is anyone able to brush up this FA, so it can avoid a Featured article review? If someone does the work, please leave a note at the talk page of WP:URFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

We took a look at this a while ago - hopefully less to do now.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

As the species is named after a place, "Elfin Woodland" where it was discovered (see here) the normal practice in English would be to capitalised the name as Elfin Woods warbler. Should I make this change? (I'm posting here for higher visibility as a similar reasoning may apply to other bird names). Aa77zz (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

If that were the case, yes. But such phrases as "This is typical of the Elfin Woodland on the higher peaks in Luquillo Forest" suggest to me that it is used there as an alternative term for the montane vegetation type, elfin forest, rather than as a place name. William Avery (talk) 15:02, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Transfer of Otididae from Gruiformes to Otidiformes

FYI, I have transfered the family Otididae from Gruiformes to Otidiformes, the latter I created today. After discussions on Wikispecies, a consensus was reached that Otidiformes is valid, and that the following references support the move:

I also created a new template Otididae, whch I submitted on all following groups mentioned in the navigation box:

What I still havnt done yet, is to change from order Gruiformes to order Otidiformes, since I couldnt find a template for the taxonomy in the taxobox. Are each and every taxobox individually updated, it seems a lot of work when a change of taxon takes place?

Dan Koehl (talk) 08:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Some are automated and some aren't. Looking at the tree in the latest megastudy, it seems pretty arbitrary that cuckoos, bustards and turacos are in three separate orders and nightjars/swifts/hummingbirds are a single order. Am half suspecting bustards and turacos to be sunk into an expanded Cuculiformes....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Bustards are treated as their own order by the International Ornithologists Union/Committee http://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/bustards/ In addition the French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish wikipedia articles have otidiformes as its own order. I agree with you that cuckoos and turacos most probably should be seperated from Gruiformes as well. Dan Koehl (talk) 14:04, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Errr, cuckoos were never in gruiformes...but anyway, I will be interested to see what comes out as the consensus for the order-level splits etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Cas, I'm wondering if part of that is the timing of the split. Cuckoos, bustards and turacos split prior to 50 million years ago, while swifts and hummingbirds split from nightjars after that time. I haven't finished reading all of the papers yet, but that (arbitrary?) year seems to be important enough to be marked on the new tree for some reason. MeegsC (talk) 14:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

(sigh) yeah - be interesting to see how this pans out. I guess part of it is how to make Linnaean taxonomy more illustrative of the diversification. So placing grebes and flamingos in a single order, and tropicbirds and sunbittern another, might be prudent to show the relationships, rather than single family separate orders....anyway, I have not read in detail and this period is patchy for free time for me....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:44, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Birdnet.cn

Dear bird experts:

Here's an old AfC submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable website and organization, and should the article be kept and improved? —Anne Delong (talk) 23:13, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Eastern Screech Owl

St. Petersburg, Florida Jan 3, 2015. We have a lone screech owl roosting in the back yard for about a week (that we know). It is an odd situation at the rear northeastern corner of the house. It is roosting in a patch of graceful bamboo 3 feet above the heat-pump HVAC unit. I see no evidence of a nest although I have several large Oak trees it could be nesting w/in 20 feet'. It seems odd that this 6-7"owl sits in this skinny flexible branches of a (pinky size stalk) bamboo all day - swaying in the breeze as the A/C unit blows the bamboo around. One would think they would prefer roosting on a solid perch. He has obviously mastered the technique and likes that spot... it's been 5 days since we noticed it. Beautiful creature. 72.185.106.239 (talk) 16:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

What a fine way to start the New Year's yard list! Sounds like one to keep an eye on — it could indeed be nesting in the area. MeegsC (talk) 16:53, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Popular avicultural fluffies, new three-way split

The White-bellied Caique is apparently now Green-thighed parrot, Yellow-tailed parrot and Black-legged parrot. Is this correct? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:53, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how they are broken up in aviculture, but the Pionites genus only has 2 recognized species according to the IOC, the SACC of the AOU, and Clements. The two species are Pionites melanocephalus, the Black-headed Parrot and Pionites leucogaster, the White-bellied Parrot.....The others are subspecies of these 2...Pvmoutside (talk) 03:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. As far as I'm aware, aviculture has always split them up as the Black-headed and White-bellied too. This is a new development, apparently sourced from HBW. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

New Strix.

A new Strix (genus) has been discovered, the Desert tawny owl (Strix hadorami).[5][6] However in the same article they claim the holotype for Hume's owl is not the same species as other Hume's owls, and may possibly be an Omani owl which is a nomen dubium, or closely related. Martin451 22:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Desert tawny owl is the English vernacular name for Strix hadorami (see also HBW Alive). Hume's owl and Omani owl are possibly the same species which will make Strix omanensis (2013) a junior synonym of Strix butleri. The redirect from Desert tawny owl to Hume's owl is not correct in my opinion --Melly42 (talk) 21:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Cozumel thrasher - Villanova picture link

Hello! I've been working of a few of the Toxostoma species, and I wanted to ask of the possibility of using the photo off a dead Cozumel thrasher (along with its closest relatives t. rufum and t. longirostre) since I cannot seem to find any live picture of the species, given its status as critically endangered. I will likely end up using the website to gather information to better the page anyway, but I didn't want to run into any potential trouble by using the pictures off of the site without permission.

Here is the link: Natural history of the Cozumel Thrasher

Would anyone on the page have access to photos of the bird? It isn't necessary for it to be recognized as a GA, but it could help. Just curious. Contact me on my page whenever you get the chance, and thanks for reading! LeftAire (talk) 15:24, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

You could certainly put a link to that picture at the bottom of the article, but you can't just lift a copy of it off the website. Sadly, I once had a (not very good) picture of that bird (I was among the last people to see it, back in 1998) but my damn computer crashed before I made a backup of it. Arg! MeegsC (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Have you still got the computer? 109.150.231.41 (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Long gone. I took it to a specialist company that tried to recover the hard drive, but it had melted(!!) and couldn't be accessed. A hard lesson to learn, but I make regular backups now! :-/ Next time I head up to the Academy of Natural Sciences, I'll take my camera; it may be a while... MeegsC (talk) 20:55, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It's alright. It'll be a little while before I actually get to work on the article like I want. In the meantime I'll look for other sources to help bolster the content of the page. Thanks for responding! LeftAire (talk) 20:39, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Le Conte's Thrasher

Hello! It's me again. I came here to ask if anyone would be able to find or have access to any songs and/or calls of the Le Conte's thrasher. I recently expanded the page significantly, but it's missing a few things, among those an audio file. I suppose a few more pictures (such as its nest, or on a plant) to have access to wouldn't hurt, but isn't as important. I'll eventually nominated as a GA, but it's not there yet. Respond whenever you get the chance, and thanks for reading! LeftAire (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Ara martinicus?

A user recently changed ara martinica to Ara martinicus at Martinique macaw [7], stating the former was incorrect. But as far as I can tell, most modern sources use A. martinica. Anyone else have an opinion on this? A bit hard to determine, as the species doesn't seem to be recognised by the IOC. FunkMonk (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

If Ara is indeed masculine martinicus is correct. The name was also proposed by Rothschild in 1907. --Melly42 (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Some other Ara species are masculine, so this should be too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, but couldn't it have been emended somehow, given that most recent sources use martinica? Or well, I'll look at the books when I get home. FunkMonk (talk) 09:01, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The question is who was the first person who changed it from martinicus to martinica and what was the reason? Rothschild only changed the genus name from Anadorhynchus (1905) to Ara (1907) and even James Lee Peters used Rothschild's combination Anadorhynchus [sic] martinicus in his Check-list of the Birds of the World (1937). --Melly42 (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way doubtful and hypothetical species are neither recognized by the IOC nor by the IUCN. And Ara martinicus seems to be a doubtful species. See accounts by Fuller (2000) and Hume & Walters (2012) --Melly42 (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Doubtful, yes, but that doesn't erase the names! Hume uses martinica, and so do Williams and Steadman 2001, whereas Wiley & Kirwan 2013 use martinicus. So I'm not sure what to do, even recent sources differ... Fuller only mentions the original name. FunkMonk (talk) 18:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the ICZN has a paragraph which gender is correct in which case. Unfortunately I don't know which --Melly42 (talk) 15:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If it is of any help Ara is apparently from vernacular French for macaws according to this discussion which is on a different topic, whether it should produce the subfamily name spelt as Arainae or as Arinae - see here. Shyamal (talk) 03:05, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

'Ara' means 'macaw' in several languages, FWIW. Maybe it comes from the sounds they make? Watch and listen... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 09:43, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Macaws are called aras in many languages, including my own (Danish). But it doesn't explain the binomial recombination of this case... FunkMonk (talk) 11:48, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Ara is a masculine term in German --Melly42 (talk) 12:22, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

British introduction of Little Owl

The Little Owl article states that it "was first introduced in 1842 by Thomas Powys". As this blogger [8] points out, Powys (b1833) would only have been 9 years old at the time. In a quick search on Google books most mention "late 19th century". But, as that blog points out (with photographic cite), Yarrell’s ‘A History of British Birds’ (1843) mentions a few records before then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.207.145.188 (talk) 15:24, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

English name vs. Scientific name

It is possible to move these articles back to the English name or is anyone opposed? --Melly42 (talk) 22:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I do not know much about these birds, but the person who moved the pages says that the scientific names are the most commonly used name in the edit summaries. If this is the case, then I would think that the scientific names would be kept. Snowman (talk) 22:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The question is whether we should accept (adopt) the common names proposed by BirdLife/IUCN or not (all these names are published in a new BirdLife-Lynx checklist published by Lynx edicions this month) --Melly42 (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

WP birds uses IOC bird names unless there is a good reason not to, but WP Birds has had lower case bird names imposed on it. I have had a look at examples of some of the pages on the lynxeds website and it looks like lynxeds use capitalized names. Snowman (talk) 17:54, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Good argument about IOC naming convention, except in the case of Mew/Common Gull. Common Gull is now used here, even though the IOC standardizes on Mew Gull. The good reason it stays as Common? Not enough people wishing the name to change to the IOC standard.......doesn't sound like a good reason to me.......Pvmoutside (talk) 18:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

BirdLife has now its own taxonomic check-list which lists several more splits than the IOC list (based on Tobias et al Quantitative criteria for species delimitation, IBIS 2010) and it lists newly described extinct species which are (still) not included in the IOC list. Though Hodgen's waterhen is not a new species, and the common name is mentioned in several books about the extinct New Zealand avifauna (e.g. Worthy or Tennyson) --Melly42 (talk) 18:15, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I hate the idea of 9998 bird articles at common names and 2 at scientific names. Truth be told I'd be happy with them all at scientific names really.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Umm…It's probably true that the scientific common names of these two particular species are more commonly used, because they are only known from fossils. —innotata 19:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Right; probably all articles on fossil birds and proto-birds are at scientific names, like articles on all fossil mammals, reptiles, fish, whatever. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

In case of the Bermuda flicker, yes (as it was described as new species in 2012 but even Olson used the common name in its scientific description, the same is for the Bermuda Hawk, the Bermuda saw-whet owl or the Bermuda Towhee). According Tribonyx hodgenorum we had several common names and scientific names, e.g. Rallus hodgeni, Gallinula hodgeni, Gallinula hodgenorum, and Tribonyx hodgenorum and common names are Hodgen's rail, Hodgen's moorhen, Hodgen's waterhen, Hodgens' waterhen or New Zealand Flightless Gallinule. As the epithet is referred to the Hodgen brothers (who owned the Pyramid Valley swamp) and not to a single person the correct spelling should be Hodgens' --Melly42 (talk) 21:12, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Most other articles about subfossil birds use "common" names (as in not their scientific names). Not sure why these should be different. FunkMonk (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the same. Best example are the moas, see also recent literature like The Lost World of the Moa (Worthy & Holdaway), New Zealand's Extinct Birds (Gill & Martinson), Extinct Birds of New Zealand (Tennyson & Martinson), Extinct Birds (Hume & Walters), Holocene Extinctions (Turvey), Extinction & Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds (Steadman) where you can find all the common names of extinct birds that are only known by subfossil remains --Melly42 (talk) 04:36, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

It is slowly going silent in this discussion without a consensus. So what are you going to do: Will you move these articles or will it all remain unaffected? And if you will do the latter. What will we do with similar bird taxa which still have no article? Should they created with the scientific name with the common name as redirect? (similar to many rodent articles) --Melly42 (talk) 17:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

These are fossil species, and have no common names in any meaningful sense, certainly not under WP:COMMON. IOC or whoever can made up vernacular names for them (why? are they going to do that with all the dinosaurs, too?), but WP hasn't any reason to use those names. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:19, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

It is perhaps worth pointing out that the researchers who described these species also suggested the common names; it was not the IOC. And no, I don't think the IOC is planning to "do that with all the dinosaurs too". :) MeegsC (talk) 01:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Whoever. It's not conventional to use vernacular names for fossil species, and it's unlikely they'd ever be used much in paleontology generally, only in a small corner of ornithology, and thus never become the WP:COMMONNAME. I wasn't making an anti-IOC poitn, I was making the point that we don't have to care what some organization (or some researcher, or whoever) prefers or advocates or did off-the-cuff; it's now how we decided to title and write articles. All our fossil fauna articles are at scientific names, and that's conventional not just in scientific literature but even in every-day mainstream reporting about them (e.g. major fossil find reported in local newspaper), so there's neither an internal nor external rationale for moving two of these articles to vernacular names. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

While the "vernacular names" may ahve been suggested, it takes looking at the usage in the literature to determine what name fills the outlines of wp:common best. With rare exceptions the binomial or trimonial is the more commonly used in writings about extinct taxa. Dinosaurs are a great example of the fact that binomials are NOT scary to the public unless they are made to be. I would be against moving of the extinct species simply due to the suggestion of a "vernaular" for it.--Kev min § 02:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. If we can determine that a name is are more commonly used, we use it. Usually, that should be all we need to ask. @SMcCandlish: Errrr… some vernacular names for fossil species definitely are used, so they can fairly be called common names; as has been mentioned a few times before, these names were suggested by researchers in publications about them. Indeed, the vernacular names for the moa-nalo species (known only from fossils/subfossils; the name of the group is a neologism, because there was no native Hawaiian memory of these birds) seem to be more commonly used than the scientific names, and the Wikipedia articles on them currently are under the vernacular names. —innotata 05:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay @Kevmin: and @Innotata:, which literature do you suggest we check? And how? I've read elsewhere that "google searches" are not appropriate for determining usage, so what do you suggest? MeegsC (talk) 11:09, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Re: "some vernacular names for fossil species definitely are used" that may be true... but are they used more often than the scientific names are? The key to WP:COMMONNAME is the comparative frequency of useage. If a scientific name is used more often than a vernacular name... then the scientific name is actually the COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 12:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

As an example of where common names are mainly used for subfossil birds in the recent literature, the entire extinct Mascarene bird fauna would be a good example. FunkMonk (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I also ask what Blueboar asked, since I was beaten to it. :-) Also, I would probably bet money that they're only "more commonly used than the scientific names" in ornithological publications, and that the neologistic vernacular is disused in broader paleontology, which is a more appropriate scope to consider. For subfossil vs. fossil cases, the obvious consistency/sanity case for Wikipedia is to treat genera/species/subspecies known only from the subfossil record as if fossil, but those that survived long enough to have known, historical native names and/or to be given Western vernacular names (e.g the dodo and the kiwi) to be at native/vernacular article title (the most common per WP:COMMONNAME, whether that agrees with IOC or not). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"Broader paleontology" does not exist, there are palaeontologists who specialise in extinct birds, and these are divided into two distinct groups, "recent extinctions, and "prehistoric" ones. The latter group is quite broad, and common names are used for many of the species that went extinct during the Holocene. FunkMonk (talk) 06:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Another good example is the Chatham kaka. It has a common name but it has no scientific name yet (we have to be somewhat patient as the scientific description will be finally published in late August) --Melly42 (talk) 17:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I just did a few literature searches — using various elements of Google, since no one has suggested any other way of looking. If I search the term Tribonyx hodgenorum, I get 139 total hits (excluding Wikipedia and mirror sites): 2 if I restrict it to (non-Wikipedia) books only, 1 if I do a Google Scholar search. If I search the term "Hodgen's waterhen", I get a total of 625 hits (excluding Wikipedia and mirror sites), 7 using the (non-Wikipedia) book search and 4 using the scholar search (2 more without the apostrophe). If we're serious about WP:COMMONNAME, then perhaps this article does belong at Hodgen's waterhen after all. Or is there some other literature search that should be done? MeegsC (talk) 20:22, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

A literature check: Ron Scarlett (1955, scientific description): Rallus hodgeni, W. R. B Oliver: New Zealand Birds (1955): New Zealand Gallinule (Pyramidia hodgeni), S. Dillon Ripley (1977): Rails of the World: Gallinulla hodgeni, Brian Gill & Paul Martinson: New Zealand's Extinct Birds (1992): Hodgen's waterhen, Extinct Birds of New Zealand (Tennyson & Martinson, 2006): Hodgens' waterhen, Extinct Birds (Hume & Walters, 2012): New Zealand Flightless Gallinule, Holocene Extinctions (Turvey, 2009): Hodgen's waterhen, Extinction & Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds (Steadman, 2006): Hodgen's moorhen, The Lost World of the Moa (Worthy & Holdaway, 2003): Hodgens' waterhen, HBW & Birdlife Illustrated Check-list (Collar & Del Hoyo, 2014): Hodgens's waterhen (IUCN Red List: Hodgen's waterhen). Other check-lists like IOC, ebirds/Clements or H&M didn't list this taxon at all. -Melly42 (talk) 21:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@Melly42:, did any of these references list the species in more than one way (i.e. scientific name and vernacular name)? Or were they all either/or? MeegsC (talk) 21:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

As I have written above there were various scientific names for this rail. Until recently the scientific names were Gallinula hodgeni or Gallinula hodgenorum (the latter is correct as this bird was named for two people). After Christides & Boles (2008) split Tribonyx from Gallinula the correct combination is now Tribonyx (see also the other native-hens which are in the genus). Apart from the first two references all other references list the vernacular and scientific name --Melly42 (talk) 22:14, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

A case where the experts can't agree on taxonomy would perhaps be a case for using a vernacular name here for a fossil species, but perhaps the only one, aside from cases where not even a tentative binomial or trinomial has been published yet. In such a case as the latter, it calls into question whether there should be a WP article at all, since it may well turn out that the specimen ends up classified as being of an existing species; such false alarms are rather frequent. Per WP:CRYSTAL, WP:NOT#NEWS and perhaps even WP:FRINGE, it isn't WP's job to "report on" bleeding-edge paleontological finds and theories that are tentative and for which there isn't yet any consensus in the external primary source literature yet on even what it is they've found. Such topics are arguably categorically non-encyclopedic, unless something external to the find itself is notable, such as controversy surrounding it. One such case is Flores man; the classification Homo floresiensis is tentative and disputed. However, note that once we did determine it was notable enough to have an article here, it was put at the binomial, despite any doubts surrounding that name. That's a precedent that strongly suggests that if an unclassified fossil or subfossil of any kind, including a bird, has a describer-invented vernacular name, and one or more tentative binomials or trinomials, we should use the best-accepted scientific name for it, not the vernacular one. A view that always put WP:COMMONNAME above all the other WP:CRITERIA no matter what, might actually put that article at Hobbit (hominid), because of how many mainstream but non-peer-reviewed sources (TV news, newspapers, etc.) used "Hobbit" to refer to them, only mentioning the binomial in passing if at all. It's a common sense matter, really.

If we're not doing that with H. floresiensis we shouldn't do it with Tribonyx hodgenorum or whatever (redir from its other, Gallinula, names). The Google searching, above, about that one produces misleading results, because it just pits one of multiple binomials against the vernacular, and Melly42's question is also important - how many of those sources gave both a vernacular and a binomial - while suggesting others, like were there other vernaculars (e.g. Hodgens' waterhen, with the apostrophe in the right place, or New Zealand flightless gallinule), and did any of them clearly prefer a binomial and only mention the vernacular parenthetically (or vice versa), and so on. Given that COMMONNAME is not 100% of the time the deciding factor, and we have a clear standard of using scientific not vernacular names for species only known from paleontology, there's no clear rationale to diverge from that here (not "because birds" as teh interwebs say lately, and not because of anything else). PS: It would also be a bad idea to use an incorrect name like "Hodgen's waterhen" ('s, not s') just because some "reliable" sources also get this wrong. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Many subfossil bird species from Hawaii or from the Pacific have vernacular names (see e.g. Extinct Birds by Hume & Walters, Hawaiian Honeycreepers by Pratt or Extinction & Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds (Steadman, 2006) and others got there vernacular names even before the official Scientific description (e.g. New Caledonia snipe (2013) or the Chatham kaka (2014)) but in many of these cases the vernacular names are also proposed in the Scientific description --Melly42 (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

My ideal I suppose is that very recently (post-1600) extinct birds would have a common name while older things are scientific...but I don't know how many creatures comply with this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

well the IUCN gave the 16th century (post-1500) for recently extinct species. But your idea will be mean that the lemmas of all pre-1500 extinctions (e.g. all moa species or the Asiatic ostrich or the Bennu heron) must be created with the Scientific name. I would propose to give vernacular names for all Holocene extinct bird species (i.e. 9000 BC to now) when they are mentioned in recent literature --Melly42 (talk) 13:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah happy to go whole holocene too, didn't ask as I thought it was too ambitious..... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:20, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. FunkMonk (talk) 06:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

AOU and Cooper Ornithological Society

The old link www.aou.org is now a redirect to the newly launched website www.americanornithology.org --Melly42 (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Papuan cassowary a distinct species?

It seems it has been confirmed (Casuarius westermanni) after a genetic study[9], could need an article. Relevant papers here[10][11]: FunkMonk (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Cool, looks like Naish is being cautious and it is a case of "watch this space" for the time being....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Dead?

Looks dead here...... All the regulars are gone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.248.60.155 (talk) 02:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Who are you? Rufous-crowned Sparrow disappeared without a trace during a FAC, not sure what happened. I tried contacting him through email as well, no response. Some have also left after use of lower case bird names was enforced on the project. FunkMonk (talk) 02:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Errr, I;'m here. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

and me Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Heh... around but still recovering from the needless style changes... Shyamal (talk) 07:20, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Me too. And Rufous-crowned Sparrow has gone missing before... MeegsC (talk) 15:43, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Still around occasionally but less active. WP is a great resource but it seems to be becoming calcified by style bullies. I have great respect for those who continue to plug away at creating significant content rather than fondling their egos. Maias (talk) 23:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Being a member

Line 8 the Pink (talk) 00:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC) How can I be a member there?

Add your name to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds/Members and go ahead and edit some articles about birds. That's all there is to it. Plantdrew (talk) 06:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Turkeys (Birds)

In the article about turkeys there were a lot of references to the cultural content of that bird. One gets hungry. Hungry for some biological, geographical - and maybe ethnological - facts/general discussion. Like: more precise: where do they live? "Forests of North America…" - Massachusetts? Maine? Minnesota? St. of Washington? - Don´t think so. But - WHERE DO THEY LIVE? Arizona? ---Yeah…Maybe… A few… By the way, to sign with tildes… Why? I have no in my software. Which is strange when you write in Spanish. I didn´t find it on your list either. Eric Wallin. Sollentuna. Sweden — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.113.133.62 (talk) 13:20, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Free issues of The Auk and Condor

The AOU offers open access to the archived issues of The Auk and Condor from 1/2000 until 1/2013

--Melly42 (talk) 20:13, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Carolina wren (GA)

The GA review could do with some NAm specialists. Shyamal (talk) 06:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Origin of birds

Last week, on the ABC Television scientific program, "Catalyst", an interesting segment entitiled "Where Birdsong Began" was shown, in which it was stated that songbirds, parrots and pigeons all evolved in Australia.[12] Should this be mentioned on the Ornithology page - and, if so, where in the article should the information be added? Thanks. Figaro (talk) 12:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The scientific research that it refers to is the reliable source that needs to be examined. The only thing that is relevant to the ornithology article would be the method used, if it were unique, but we already do touch upon molecular phylogeny. Also what "songbirds" refers to needs to be examined in the reliable source used by the TV program makers. Shyamal (talk) 12:37, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a video of the segment on the Catalyst page, so the segment can be viewed and heard - along with the printed transcript of the segment. In the segment there are comments that the oldest known bird fossil has been found in Australia (53 million years old - predating other fossils of birds by at least 25 million years). Also, there is a comment that DNA was part of the research used. The research was made by scientists who were very surprised by their findings. Figaro (talk) 08:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I have not seen the video (looked at the transcript) but this must be related to http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2001.1883 - followed up by more recent works - http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/4681/02_whole.pdf?sequence=1 - it seems like this particular research on the evolutionary origin would be best included in bird, Oscine = songbird (evolutionary history section really needing work), Passerida and Rifleman_(bird). The fossils mentioned by Boles must be in these publications: Shyamal (talk) 11:33, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Boles, W.E. 1993. A Logrunner Orthonyx (Passeriformes: Orthonychidae) from the Miocene of Riversleigh, North-western Queensland. Emu 93:44–49.
Boles, W.E. 1995. The world’s oldest songbird. Nature 374: 21–22.
Boles, W.E. 1995. A preliminary analysis of the Passeriformes from Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, Australia, with the description of a new species of lyrebird. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 181:163–170.
Boles, W.E. 1997. Fossil songbirds (Passeriformes) from the early Eocene of Australia. Emu 97:43–50.
Boles, W.E. 2005. Fossil honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) from the Late Tertiary of Riversleigh, north-western Queensland. Emu 105:21–26.

Thank you for this information. Figaro (talk) 10:21, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Pale Baywing

The pale baywing has become a seperate species. I changed the redirect from Pale Baywing to Baywing to Pale baywing. The best is to change the name of the item Baywing in an article Agelaioides as most interwikis do. My problem is to change nl:Bleke koevogel to Pale baywing. Now it is a redirect to Baywing which is incorrect.--HWN 11:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC) hwdenie — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwdenie (talk • contribs)

@Hwdenie: Not sure I understand it correctly but the Dutch article now correctly links to the pale baywing - via Wikidata (which is probably what you are having trouble with) - https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19598335#sitelinks-wikipedia Shyamal (talk) 14:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Indeed, the problem is solved by https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Supercarwaar, Bleke koevogel = Pale Baywing and Baywing is equivalent with Agelaioides. Greeting, Henrik, --HWN 16:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hwdenie (talk • contribs)

question for people who know more about birds than me

excuse me, by chance does anyone recognize what species of birds these are? they are different, and all I know is that the photographer is from Brazil. Thank you kindly. Earflaps (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Mexico

After our recent trip to Cuba, we thought we might try the Yucatan next since it's easily accessible from the UK via Cancun. We don't want to do an organised trip, so any advice or suggestions would be welcome. I appreciate that this is off-topic, so replies by email migght be in order Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:56, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Rare species of Penguin at WP:RFD

Please excuse me if this is not the right place to ask, but over at WP:RFD we are discussing the entry about Rare species of Penguin. Apparently the article for the Yellow-eyed penguin says it is the rarest but so does the Galapagos penguin, specifically ruling out the first-named. We're inclined to delete it as misleading, but I'd appreciate if anyone here contributed views of whether we could turn this into a list article. In 2007 there was just Penguin and it's kinda grown from there, but a bit higgledy-piggledy it seems. Si Trew (talk) 14:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

New article: Ottó Herman- Hungarian ornithologist & polymath

I'd like to call attention to the recent article Ottó Herman, which was a requested article on Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Article requests/People. The Hungarian language article is FA-class, and while most authoritative sources are in Hungarian, all are welcome to help flesh out this interesting individual, and increase his prominence to English readers. --Animalparty-- (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

@Animalparty: I'll have a go if you remind me, I live in Hungary and speak some Hungarian, not brilliantly but with the aid of translation tools and my Hungarian wife I tend to get it right after a few edits but it can seem awkward at first like with any translation, because one kinda concentrates on translating the words and meaning but forgets that the sentence structure is all in a different order (Hungarian tends to be OSV word order but sometimes is SVO word order) so it tends not to read so naturally, but any other editor can then sort that out. I will forget, though, hence leaving this as a reminder. Si Trew (talk) 14:55, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

List of birds of Belize FLRC

I have nominated List of birds of Belize for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Seattle (talk) 03:55, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

FLRC for List of birds of Oklahoma

I have nominated List of birds of Oklahoma for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Harrias ^talk 09:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

FLRC for List of birds of California

I have nominated List of birds of California for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Harrias ^talk 09:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Georg Forster FAR

I have nominated Georg Forster for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Horned Lark

Recently searching for the Shore Lark I stumbled upon the Horned Lark:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_lark

I took immediate exception to the first line which is as follows:

"The horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), called the shore lark in Europe, is a species of bird in the genus Eremophila."

It is implied that in Europe the name of the bird is the Shore Lark but it does not say where the name Horned Lark is used. I suppose the author assumes that people will automatically understand but unfortunately I can only guess. Secondly, being this the English version of Wikipedia shouldn't the English name 'Shore Lark' take precedence over any alternatives or modification made to the English language? What I mean to say is that "Shore Lark (Eremophila alpestris), also known as the Horned Lark in -input place- is a..." would be more appropriate. Having said that I am totally baffled by the reference to Europe. Many languages are spoken in Europe and I doubt very much they all use the name 'Shore Lark', rather I think 'Shore Lark' is the English name as accepted by the English and the U.K. If this is in fact the case then a revision of the page title should be made listing accepted variants after the correct name of Shore Lark as previously suggested.

Now having made my point I would like to point out that I haven't made any changes because the above is pure speculation and not an attempt to start a debate on the English language with non-native speakers of English (non-native referring to not being born in England.) If the name Horned Lark is indeed the correct English name then please let me know but either way please revise the above sentence to avoid ambiguity.

Thank you for your time,

Respectfully,

Jonathan.student.of.life and bird.enthusiast

Jonathan-student-of-life (talk) 10:41, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

No names in other European languages are relevant since this is English-language Wikipedia. Shore Lark is the name used by English-speakers in Europe, mainly in the English-speaking nations (not just England or the UK, don't forget the Irish Republic. Horned Lark is more common with North American English speakers. The article is at the latter name because we follow the IOC list on Wikipedia, which in this case uses Horned Lark. Both English names are current and widespread and need to be mentioned in the lead

I find it astonishing that you don't consider Scots, Welsh, Irish Americans or Canadians as native speakers of English — or are you making a political point (which is not appropriate here)? Native speaker means it's your first language, not where you were born.Jimfbleak - talk to me?

Image review/identification section?

Would it be an idea to have a specialised section of the project front page, not just occasional talk page threads, for review and identification of photos and illustrations? It used to be a recurring issue that people were unable to identify certain birds on photos, and sometimes photos are also wrongly identified (see for example[13]). Furthermore, the page could be used to review restorations of extinct birds, which we have a lot of, but they largely go unchecked. I've made a few, but the folks at the palaeoart review[14] are not necessarily experts in recent birds. Such a page could also be used to request photos/illustrations of particular species for example. Commons is also filled with hundreds of unidentified bird photos that could be potentially useful when identified here, but most people are probably not aware of those pages: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Unidentified_birds FunkMonk (talk) 20:18, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

(a) Yes, (b) thanks for the link Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:28, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow, this page is dead

Anything much happening in this project anymore? Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Not as much on this page at the moment perhaps, but we're still ticking along. We've got a handful of new editors, and some new additions to our "showcase", but a lot of us have been keeping our heads down since the big bust-up. Who wants to attract that kind of snarky attention again?! That said, you'd still recognize a lot of the regulars. MeegsC (talk) 03:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeed - if anyone is feeling collaborative, any input on frigatebird would be appreciated. Also some taxonomic interesting things...the banded stilt might be more closely related to avocets....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:27, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Still feeling pretty hostile towards Wikipedia. But Cas, there's a great paper on frigatebird movements cited on the Great Frigatebird page that you might find useful. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much what I thought would happen after the MoS zealots 'sploded everything. 68.187.45.82 (talk) 05:09, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

{{Thanks Sabine's Sunbird, will go look. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:51, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Merlin Bird Photo ID program

Cornell University and the Visipedia research project's Merlin Bird Photo ID program "utilizes computer vision tech to identify birds pictured in user-supplied photos." Upload a photo, draw a box around it, then click on the bill, eye and tail to establish orientation. [15] --Atsme^📞📧 13:21, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Article names

@SMcCandlish: can you please explain this edit, which was made unilaterally, without any discussion whatsoever with fellow project members? Whose reliable source takes precedence where conflicts exist? What counts as a reliable source? Is there a particular issue that caused you to change this longstanding directive, other than the desire to open another can of worms? MeegsC (talk) 07:02, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your usual assumption of good faith. <sigh> What's with the "unilaterally ... whatsoever ... open another can of worms" hyperbole? There is no worm can here, and it shouldn't take any explanation to make trivial copyedits of this nature. Since you insist:

Details, and some grousing I probably shouldn't have engaged in:

The International Ornithological Congress (IOC) which has tried to standardize the English names of birds uses capitalized names. Run-on sentence, so I added some commas.
English names – Ambiguous; made it English-language vernacular names. This isn't pedantic, as vernacular names often vary geographically, and there's no harm in always being clear whether we're talking about vernacular or scientific names (and not using "common" to mean "vernacular", as it can easily be confused with WP:COMMONNAME; we've all been over this before). [See #Horned Lark, above, for an active example of this sort of confusion happening right here.]
in lower case – Obviously raises the question "why?", so I simply linked to the guideline, at MOS:LIFE.
In the vast majority of Wikipedia articles the IOC names are used – Obviously raises the question "why would there be exceptions?", so I added the (only?) policy reason why this would happen (and why it does in fact sometimes happen): Wikipedia article titles diverge from the IOC list when the most common name in reliable sources is different from the IOC name. If there are any other reasons it sometimes happens, I suppose that can be mentioned, too, but the only cases that came to mind were COMMONNAME issues. Incoming editors should be aware of WP article titles policy where it may affect their expectations.

Are you seriously going to suggest that linking to the applicable policies and guidelines could possibly be a consensus problem? (Imagine me doing a really convincing impression of Lewis Black as I ask that, including the incredulous face-shaking.) I did not "change this longstanding directive"; nothing of a directive nature has changed. Actually, if you re-read the original text, nothing of it was directive to begin with; it's purely descriptive not prescriptive. And it still is after my edit. All I've done is made the description more complete, and easier to parse correctly. (And it shouldn't be prescriptive, anyway.)

I don't know why you're asking questions about how to define reliable sources; that's covered by WP:Identifying reliable sources, and nothing about my edit raises new RS questions of any kind. I didn't add a reliable sources requirement out of nowhere, I simply summarized WP:COMMONNAME as "most common name in reliable sources", instead of writing "when the WP:COMMONNAME is different", because people (especially new editors) get tired of ALPHABETSOUP shortcuts in their faces all the time, and we know that "common name" (in the WP sense) by itself can be confused with "common name" meaning "vernacular name". The full wording over there at WP:COMMONNAME is "the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural", which seems way too long for this context, and I believe I summarized the gist of it adequately for this context. And why on earth would you object to such a requirement anyway, even if you forgot for a second that it's already part of naming policy? Would you want an IOC name to be rejected in favor of unreliable sources suggesting an alternative? Surely not. You're raising an objection to something that serves your own interests! BTW, see #Horned Lark above, for just the kind of "what is the actual most common name, or is there one?" kind of discussion that comes up.

I also don't know who you are imagining with that "whose" in "whose reliable sources", or why you'd even cast any kind of possessive construction into the mix. Whatever that scenario is, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the wording of that passage, before or after my edit, nor with WP:AT policy, nor with WP:RS guidelines. Can you please explain ... what it is you're talking about? Or can we just drop this and get back to useful things? It's getting very tiresome to be ankle-bitten by one or another of the same handful of grudgeholders every time I touch a page they seem to feel proprietary about. I also fixed a dead link in that section; do I need your prior approval for that, too? Last I looked, policy says I don't. It's seriously lame to project onto me some "desire to open another can of worms", when there's nothing even vaguely suspect about these edits of mine, and you're the one looking to manufacture another pointless dispute. No thanks. My time is valuable to me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:07, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

PS: I just tweaked Wikipedia article titles diverge from the IOC list when to read Wikipedia article titles may diverge from the IOC list when. The earlier wording didn't say anything "directive", but I suppose someone could imagine the insertion of a "must" between "titles" and "diverge". They'd be making stuff up if they did, but weirder things have happened. It could also be changed to Wikipedia article titles have sometimes diverged from the IOC list when, or however weasely you want it. As long as it's not blatantly misleading, I really WP:DGAF. I have JSTOR access again and was thinking of working on some domestic bird articles, ~~but the usual suspects have just turned me off from any further involvement in this project's scope for a good long while, so I'll go back to other orders of animals for the nonce.~~ I'll try not to let it influence my editing work, per WP:DENY. Nice job inspiring collaboration! Especially after, a few threads above, someone returning from a long wikibreak complains (neutrally) about lack of activity and then suggests something productive about sourcing, but one of the same few fist-shakers used it as an excuse to attack other editors, including me, as "zealots". Cf. that link to psychological projection again, and check out self-fulfilling prophecy too, while rethinking your approach to other editors here, please. If your only activity here is to pop in as an anon every few months to insult people, please see WP:NOTHERE, and either return to productive editing, or go troll somewhere else.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC) Modified: 11:33, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, that's all I wanted. I could have done without the various "assume good faith" eyerolls, but whatever. The bird articles can use whatever help they can get — we have thousands that are mere stubs — and many of our formerly most prolific editors have abandoned the encyclopedia, so perhaps we can tone down the aggressive rhetoric on all sides and get back to writing? Or am I dreaming too much?! :P MeegsC (talk) 02:28, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

@MeegsC: Fair enough, and works for me. See also proposal below. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:27, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

After the last disaster which left this project nearly dead, a little bit of humility might suit you, SMcCandlish. FunkMonk (talk) 02:38, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: You can scapegoat me all you want, but it's dead-horse beating, and misdirected anyway. WP:BIRDCON was a pro-caps RFC, not mine, and I tried to stop it.

Review the actual history, not personal, selective memory:

Closed against caps by pro-caps admin DGG, the RfC some of you detest so much was launched by pro-caps admin Andrewa, not me (WP:BIRDCON#A new proposal regarding bird article names – and the overarching "Bird common name decapitalisation" heading above the entire meta-thread was added later). The RfC was an attempt to derail a different, guideline-copyediting proposal by me (WP:BIRDCON#Proposal), which Andrewa insisted "strikes at the heart of WP:Consensus" for some reason (after threatening me with a noticeboard action, on my talk page, BTW; he was the furthest thing from uninvolved). He was looking for a big debate, not me. Let me quote my proposal's intro for you: "It's clearly time to clean up WP:NCFAUNA, WP:NCFLORA, MOS:CAPS and any other relevant pages to stop POV-forking from MOS". I was also skeptical about an RfC on the capitalization matter: "Whether or not we want another RFC to try to change MOS (I doubt we do) has no bearing on whether or not to fix MOS:CAPS, etc. to stop contradicting MOS (yes, we do)." And I said why I was skeptical: "any such RFC will necessarily be nothing but a 'reenact[ment] of past battles' ...." I already knew how such an RfC would go, because of how went The WP:RM (did not involve me) and WP:MR (I commented, late) that led up to it. I warned WT:BIRDS several times it was probably best to avoid the RfC path, just WP:IAR if you must, and not get into another debate about it. My proposal wasn't entirely about copyediting to resolve guideline contradiction, of course. I spelled this out clearly: "If this current poll-like discussion [about my proposal – Andrewa's RfC didn't exist yet] concludes clearly against bird capitalization (which seems likely) and the wikiproject were to accept that (which I think is terribly unlikely), I would not be among those interested in de-capitalizing bird articles all day (I would be way more interested in decapitalizing every other kind of creature in bird articles, to stop the spread of the capitalization to rodents and fish and berry bushes and whatever). ... No one really cares as long as a) it's not spreading ... and b) the us-vs.-everyone wikiproject rebellion stuff stops, which is what I most care about. It's a WP self-governance problem."

I objected to Andrewa's RfC on various procedural grounds, under a new subheading, and Snowman also wrote "Abandon this discussion. This is a re-run of previous non-conclusive discussions, which are disrupting the work of those who edit bird page[s]." But some of you wanted to fight it out. And the claims several participants in this project have long made about wikiproject-wide agreement to capitalize are easy to disprove. From the same debate, a WP:BIRDSer wrote: "I'm a bird geek who will continue to follow the AOU convention of capitalization when I write for birding publications but I find the arguments for lower case in Wikipedia compelling." (Note "AOU", not "IOC", by the way; there's never been wikiproject-wide agreement on that either.)

"Humility" or lack thereof isn't the real issue here, though various wikiproject participants' attitude of "we're experts who know best, Wikipedia should be abandoned, and consensus processes here are just a stupid mob" (see most of /Archive 67 just for starters, but this kind of elitist factionalism goes back years) has a whole lot to do with why the WP:BIRDS "style war" (KvdL's term, not mine) didn't work out so well. Anti-collaborative fist-shaking is the issue. Let the grudges die. Lots of WP editors are prideful and argumentative, but not too many of them are long-term hateful, and none who are will help this encyclopedia very much.

BTW, I warned this very talk page more than once that pursuing such an RfC wouldn't go well. I also attempted to mitigate the fallout that would likely ensue, both in 2014 and the previous round of that debate in 2012, with a proposal that would allow everyone to eat their cake yet still have it. Revisited below. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:27, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Revitalizing capitalization compromise proposal

The summary version of the compromise proposal most everyone on both sides seemed to miss at WT:MOS in their rush to fight to the death in the WP:BIRDCON RfC, and a proposal which still stands as far as I'm concerned:

Somewhere in bird articles, probably the taxobox, give the IOC's and other authority-designated names, exactly as they published them, including capitalization and hyphenation particularities. I won't rehash the details of the idea here, please just review the earlier proposal and discussion, linked above (and note that the exact technical particulars aren't the important part, just the general approach; the proposal just coded up an illustrative demo, the sandbox code of which is still there and working).

If it makes sense to everyone, in the present WP context, let's re-propose it and get people behind it. The reason to go this route: Birders get to inform readers that the names are capitalized by ornithology organizations (following particular, sometimes conflicting rules), and that not all authorities agree on the same name sometimes; meanwhile any copyeditor types get everyday English in running prose. No more fight. The only "cost" to this is that the copyediting sticklers have to just live with the fact that orn. publications and organizations mostly promote capitalization whether anyone else likes it or not, and WP will not pretend this isn't true; while orn. editors have to just live with the fact that they can't push a style from most-not-all orn. publications onto all text in the encyclopedia. If anyone on either side can't live with such a compromise... well, you all know my take on that kind of entrenchment. (If you keep track of this stuff, you'll've note the departure, sometimes by "wiki-suicide", of several overly-involved MOS regulars over the last two years; failure to see the forest for the trees can happen on any side of any debate.) Well, there's the time cost of actually implementing it, but that's true of every decision anyone makes on WP.

I also proposed this in simpler terms in 2012 at WT:MOS, but KvdL torpedoed it, convinced WP would never decapitalize. In the 2014 version, a lot of interest was expressed, but the closure of the RfC distracted everyone from pursuing at least the basic idea further. The approach has much more general applicability than just birds and IOC, and could be used to work around a lot of perennial style debates. The main change I would make to it (based on the 2014 feedback) is to do this mostly in very concise form in the infobox (as illustrated at top of the demo infobox), then in main article text, do it in the taxonomy section, not the lead. For an infobox, it probably wouldn't be too hard to write code that even collapsed redundant entries, e.g. to "IOC, AOU: North-eastern Morepork". I could probably code that up in wiki template code easily, but it would probably be more efficient in Lua, which I suck at. Template:Taxobox is not in Lua yet (though arguably should be). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Clearer advice at "Bird names and article titles"

I'll lay out reasoning before daring to touch anything, lest more venting occur.

The extant wording in this section is in places unhelpful to anyone. I propose replacing this:

The common name of a species used to be capitalised to differentiate it from more general terms^[1] but following discussions, it has been decided that capitals will be used only for parts of the name that are proper nouns^[2]. The phrase "in Australia there are many Common Starlings" used to indicate a large number of Sturnus vulgaris. In contrast, the phrase "in Australia there are many common starlings" could indicate several different types of starling being common. Use a clear formulation. Add binomial names in brackets to reduce any ambiguity if necessary.

With this:

Ornithology publications usually capitalise the vernacular name of a species to differentiate it from more general terms.^[3] Following discussions, it has been decided that capitals will be used on Wikipedia only for parts of the name that are proper names, consistent with practice in more general-audience publications.^[2] In publications that capitalise, the phrase "in Australia there are many Common Starlings" clearly indicates a large number of Sturnus vulgaris, while the phrase "in Australia there are many common starlings" could indicate several different types of starling being common. Clearer formulation must be used in a non-capitalising publication like Wikipedia: e.g., "in Australia the common starling is numerous", vs. "in Australia many types of starling are common". Add binomial names in round brackets (parentheses) to reduce any ambiguity if necessary.

This explains the different approaches, without dwelling on what "used to" happen, and gives clear advice. It also corrects "proper noun" to "proper name" (since "noun" doesn't encompass adjectival usage, e.g. "European"). And the rewrite resolves an English usage ambiguity ("brackets" to North Americans means "square brackets").

Second, since we know that at least one camp or another off-wiki prefers to capitalize after (some) hyphens, and even the rationales for doing so can vary, and hardly anyone can remember this stuff, the table:

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

should be updated to recommend:

Article title	make redirects from
White-necked raven	White-necked Raven White-Necked Raven
Black-faced cuckoo-shrike	Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike Black-Faced Cuckoo-Shrike
Prairie warbler	Prairie Warbler

Converting to a proper wikitable is probably in order, too, but it gives me a headache. I left out Black-Faced Cuckoo-shrike as WP:Instruction creep; I don't think any of the capitalize-after-hyphenation rationales I've ever seen would arrive at that particular combination. Unless I've missed one, the rubrics are only one of the following 1) never, 2) always, or 3) when the word after the hyphen is also the name of a type of bird.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:44, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks good, SMcCandlish. Thanks for the clarifications. One question: do we editors need to make all these redirects? It seems like pretty much regardless of what capitalization I use, I get to the right articles already (without a "redirected from" message at the top of the article). For instance, I can type "ReD-THROated LooN" and get the right article; clearly no-one has set that up as a redirect! MeegsC (talk) 04:48, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a manual creation process, though some bot could probably do a lot of it. Even most of the really obvious ones don't exist yet. I tried "ReD-THROated LooN" and it didn't work. If it works for you, it must be something your browser is doing, or a user script perhaps. These things are case-sensitive for me in every browser I've used, Mac, Windows, Linux. Bot: It could just walk the bird categories and create redirs for any that do not exist, capitalizing first alphabetic character after a space. The only manual ones would then be the hyphenated ones. Actually, we could have the bot just create all of those too, including "logically impossible" ones like Black-Faced Cuckoo-shrike, since redirects are cheap. If we wanted to not have those ones we'd have to manually do it only for cases we did want, like Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike and Black-Faced Cuckoo-Shrike. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:01, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Frigatebird

..is at FAC if anyone would like to comment or let us know how we could improve it...cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC) ....very quiet over there :( Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure if there's some kind of conflict of interest by both GA and FA reviewing the same article, but if it falls through, I'll drop by. FunkMonk (talk) 15:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

No, there's no COI for that. thanks in advance...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

A link to the current version should be coming to your mailbox soon — as soon as I can figure out how to request that Wikimedia's new "message bot" send it! Meanwhile, here's the full version... MeegsC (talk) 15:17, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Tip Line

TWEET: The Birds WikiProject Newsletter
June 2015

It has been a very long time since we've sent out a project newsletter, and much has changed since our last (2009) issue. Among the project's biggest challenges has been the loss of some of our most productive members (who have left Wikipedia entirely), and the move of some editors to other areas of the encyclopedia. In an effort to revitalize the project, and to provide an area where we can pat ourselves on the back a bit for what is being accomplished, I've decided to restart our project newsletter. I've set up a spot to make suggestions (see the "tip line" link above) for future content or structure — or to let me know if I've forgotten to list something you've worked on! — MeegsC

Articles of note

Obviously, there have been many additions to our showcase since the last newsletter (in 2009). Here are the articles added since January 2015.

New featured articles:

New good articles:

DYK appearances:

Carolina wren • chat flycatcher • fasciated tiger heron • frigatebird • Le Conte's thrasher • mountain trogon • multicoloured tanager • necklaced spinetail • rufescent tiger heron • vermiculated fishing owl • yellow-browed sparrow • Yunnan nuthatch

New project members

Project news

The project's cleanup listing now includes nearly 2500 articles with a total of more than 3600 issues—some of which have been tagged for almost a decade now. From quick fix issues like dead external links and deprecated citation parameters to more involved requests for more information, there's plenty to keep you busy if you're looking for something to do.
The requirements for featured lists have changed significantly since most of the project's lists passed muster, and a number of the latter have recently been brought up for review. The lists for Egypt, Florida, Kansas and Massachusetts are currently under review and threatened with demotion, while those for Belize, California and Oklahoma have already been delisted. Insufficient citations and inadequate leads were the primary problems mentioned.
Casliber has nominated frigatebird for FA status. Any suggestions for improvement would be appreciated.

Bird news

A new Colombian species, Perijá’s tapaculo (Scytalopus perijanus) has been described in the March 2015 issue of The Auk. Although it was first collected nearly 7 decades ago, it has only recently been discovered (through morphological and DNA studies) to be a distinct species. Unfortunately, it is found in the country's ongoing conflict zone, which may threaten its long term survival. Read more here.
A recent Handbook of Shorebirds of the World blog post posits that Australia's Banded Stilt might actually be more closely related to the avocets than the other stilts.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service last month announced its intention to beef up the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in an effort to reduce the number of bird deaths caused by hazards such as uncovered oil waste pits, gas flares, unprotected communications towers and power lines. Read more here. Interestingly, the US House of Representatives has responded by removing all funding for enforcement of the act. The American Birding Association's explanation of the issue is here.
In Malta, a proposal to ban the spring hunting of Eurasian turtle dove and common quail was defeated on referendum. The BBC's article on the vote's outcome is here.

Newsletter challenge

Per a request dating from January 2015, we're looking for someone to expand the crested quetzal article. Here is a list of books which might prove useful. The editor who gets the article to DYK status (1500 words, not including citations; check the DYK rules) will be mentioned in next month's newsletter.

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 15:47, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Handbook of Birds of the World

Why is it that the Handbook of the Birds of the World online version (handbook bird of the world alive www.hbw.com) is not mentioned anywhere? I have had a look through the wiki project birds pages and can't see any mention of it at all. Surely this must be a fantastic resources for WikiProject Birds?! 79.239.79.178 (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Of course it is! Feel free to add it to our list of potential sources — but make it clear that you have to register to use it, and that it's not free. Our list of resources lists things that can be accessed without cost. BTW, many of us either own the book versions of HBW, or have access to them through university libraries. :) MeegsC (talk) 19:44, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Or have a subscription to the online version... Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:13, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Bird

Anybody else have a comment about the changes being made to the lead in bird? There's a new editor who is repeatedly changing the first sentence (without changing the second, of course) to say that the birds are theropod dinosaurs. Several of us had worked the information into the second sentence, but apparently this isn't good enough for this editor! Is this clearer? Or does it revert it to the lead that caused an earlier reader (see the talk page) to wonder if s/he was on the right page? MeegsC (talk) 00:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Agree with you MeegsC. The dino editor is taking things a bit too far. Most of the public I'm sure connotates dinosaurs as being extinct. Dino editor only confusing matters....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I have tried to be reasonable with the editor and have restored the long-standing consensus pending discussion. Interestingly the editor has a user page which states that he loves dinosaurs and birds as distinct entities! Shyamal (talk) 04:58, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Large hawk-cuckoo

Dear English-speaking participants, I add in the article the Complete list of Large Hawk Cuckoo's nest-host [16]. It was taken from Russian book - Numerov, A. D. Inter-species and Intra-species brood parasitism in Birds. Voronezh: Voronezh University. 2003. 516 p. [In Russian] Нумеров А. Д. Межвидовой и внутривидовой гнездовой паразитизм у птиц. Воронеж: ФГУП ИПФ Воронеж. 2003. C. 38-40. This is a generalization of different sources: Payne, 1997; Groebbels, Smythies and Baker according Makatsch, 1955. User:Bgwhite is disagree with me. Our discussion is here User talk:Bgwhite#Large hawk-cuckoo. I agree with Mr. Bgwhite in only one point, that this table is breaking the page, which is too short. Please add more information in the page, that the table doesn't break it. Hunu (talk) 07:03, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Might be a good idea to make some general statements on host families (like babblers, laughing thrushes) and leave at that especially since E. C. Stuart Baker's host records are considered very unreliable (see Walters 2005). Shyamal (talk) 11:55, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, all the images turn out to be of H. varius. The location where the pictures are taken and the season practically rule out sparverioides. Shyamal (talk) 12:00, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Article move without edit history

The article Mauritius parakeet was copy paste moved to echo parakeet (see edit history of new page:[17]), which means that the edit history of the old page (which went as far back as 2005) has been lost. As far as I know, this is not how to properly move articles, so I wonder if the article history should somehow be restored? I'll ping the mover ErikHaugen, to make him aware of the problem. FunkMonk (talk) 05:07, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

History restored. Shyamal (talk) 05:32, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! FunkMonk (talk) 05:33, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 30, 2015

A summary of a Featured Article tagged by this wikiproject will appear on the Main Page soon. It mostly follows the lead section; how does it look? - Dank (push to talk) 01:23, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

2 lists of ornithologists: worth keeping?

I don't see how List of ornithologists and their proper name contributions meets WP:LISTN or WP:NLIST criteria- all taxonomists name taxa, and this seems like simply trivial detail for the sake of listing: while individual biographies may list taxa named, I don't think "scientists and the taxa they've named" is commonly discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. Similarly, I'm not sure about the value of List of ornithologists abbreviated names: I don't think ornithologist names are standardized like botanical authors, and the list appears to give undue reliance to editorial decisions in a handful of publications. Unless there are serious objections I plan to nominate these lists for deletion. --Animalparty-- (talk) 18:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

The first is trivia, all of which can be merged to the bio articles (or discarded where there isn't one). The second is encyclopedic reference material; these abbreviations are used in sources and in other material in the real world (bird blogs, etc.), so they're information that people will look for. Also useful as an internal reference for editors. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated the first list for discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of ornithologists and their proper name contributions. --Animalparty! (talk) 15:46, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Expanded Drepanis genus

Drepanis currently consists of the two Mamo species Drepanis funerea and Drepanis pacifica (both extinct). Current research work suggest that also the genera Himatione (which consists also of two species) and Vestiaria should include in Drepanis. Should we adopt this assesment? See: Lerner, H.R.L., M. Meyer, H.F. James, M. Hofreiter and R.C. Fleischer (2011), Multilocus Resolution of Phylogeny and Timescale in the Extant Adaptive Radiation of Hawaiian Honeycreepers, Current Biology 21, 1-7. / and Knowlton, J.L., D.J. Flaspohler, N.C. Rotzel McInerney, and R.C. Fleischer (2014), First record of hybridization in the Hawaiian Honeycreepers: 'I'iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) × Apapane (Himatione sanguinea), Wilson J. Ornith. 126, 562-568. --Melly42 (talk) 08:27, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I haven't looked in detail at these particular articles, but my immediate reaction would be that we should wait and see whether the IOC World Bird List incorporates the changes. Aa77zz (talk) 08:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

But I welcome any proposal to lump rather than the current fashion to split into monotypic genera. Aa77zz (talk) 10:03, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree in waiting to see what the IOC does.....Pvmoutside (talk) 10:58, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting is that the debate whether Vestiaria and Himatione belong to Drepanis continued since the 19th century. See Gray 1849 for Drepanis sanguinea and Gray 1859 for Drepanis coccinea (adapted by the HBW) --Melly42 (talk) 11:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Drepanis coccinea for the 'I'iwi is also adapted by the AOU 56th Supplement to the AOU Check-list of North American Birds – July 3, 2015 --Melly42 (talk) 11:37, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I see the changes in the supplement. We've been using the NACC and SACC for any taxonomic changes for North America (including Hawaii) and South America. So OK to move forward with any changes associated with those continents.....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:17, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I've been using the IOC list. Perhaps the Wikiproject guidance page should be more specific - it currently reads: "However, the de facto standard for Wikipedia bird articles is the IOC World Bird List, (Currently version 5.2). This is preferred for all articles, although exceptions may be made in particular cases." Aa77zz (talk) 17:27, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

IOC has traditionally been used for English names. Many reliable sources have been used for tax, including the IOC, AOU, IUCN, and others..Pvmoutside (talk) 21:19, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

IOC Version 5.3 follows NACC 2015-A-10 and 2015-B-3a to 2015-B-4c. I've been attempting to bring the finch family into line with the IOC list and have changed the genera of around 50 species. And now the Hawaiian honeycreepers need reorganising - changed genera, new English names, promoting subspecies to species etc. Aa77zz (talk) 13:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
- Careful.....some of the proposals are accepted and some are rejected. Let me know if you need help....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
Just a reminder before going forward with large scale changes: rather than simply change ranks/genera/species names, it is always best to explain the changes and prior names (e.g. "formerly considered X until a revision in 20xx lumped it into Y") as there are likely a variety of names in print, and some changes may be tentative, controversial, or altered with the next revision (such is taxonomy). In this way, historical context is better accommodated, and understanding is (hopefully) increased for readers. --Animalparty! (talk) 15:54, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Taxonomic changes

A couple days ago I found that Pileated Woodpecker had been moved to the genus Hylatomus. This change was made to reflect a large revision of nonpasserine bird taxonomy done by the Handbook of the Birds of the World authors. These taxonomic changes are largely not recognized by the IOC, nor are the changes to birds of the Americas recognized by the North American or South American committees of the American Ornithologists' Union. I found that many of the proposed species splits and revisions of genera have been implemented in Wikipedia. Changing everything back to conform to IOC is a significant amount of work, and will require deletion of many pages created by these revisions. As an ornithologist who works on taxonomy, I can confidently say that the vast majority of these proposed changes will not be implemented by the IOC. Jmaley1 (talk) 17:09, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not up to date on bird taxonomy, but agree taxonomy and/or article titles shouldn't necessarily change based on cutting edge revision or phylogeny du jour. I think that where reliable sources differ, it is prudent to stick to IOC/ WP Birds convention for taxonomy and explain competing views in text unless compelling reasons for doing otherwise can be defended. Does this mean Hylatomus is a synonym of Dryocopus? If so, it might be better to redirect the former to the latter, with due coverage of history of classification. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

As you have already noted, Wikipedia doesn't always follow IOC taxonomy. However, I wouldn't advise moving everything to conform to IOC taxonomy without some extended discussion beforehand; Wikipedia moves quickly in some regards and very slowly in others! Why do you say they won't be implemented? Are they controversial? Unsupported by research? Is the pace of acceptance at IOC slower because of the long gap between meetings? Enlightenment would be good! MeegsC (talk) 18:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

It's also important to note that the project uses the IOC list for English names, not necessarily for taxonomy! And yes, I know that's fractured. HBW's taxonomy was the default standard listed until 2013, when @Maias: changed it to the IOC. I'm not sure if that was discussed beforehand (I wasn't very active on the project that year due to some RL issues), but I can't find anything in the project's talk page archives, so that may have been a unilateral change without the rest of the project's support. MeegsC (talk) 18:33, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd be careful around using only the IOC for tax changes, or any one source, for that matter. For instance the IOC recognizes species splits for Red Crossbill, Yellow-rumped Warbler and Fox Sparrow, where other sources (including the AOU) does not. I would not recommend splitting them either. However there have been recent changes by the AOU, for example to change genus for American Tree Sparrow, and splits for some of the Hawaiian Honeycreepers which have been implemented......Clements/ebird should be getting their changes up soon. If both corroborate (IOC, and Clements, then tax changes usually make sense.....Pvmoutside (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

There's so much disagreement among all taxonomic authorities that I think it's best to stick with one authority, and IOC makes sense. As noted, they split some species that AOU does not, but you can't stick with AOU when dealing with all of the birds in the world. I said they won't likely be implemented because they were based on a subjective scoring system using morphology and ecology (and excluding genetic relationships) that most avian taxonomists don't particularly care for. Typically, splits and lumps come after careful research on a particular system, not a scoring system applied across all birds. IOC is very up to date on taxonomic changes and typically very fast to adopt changes based on current scientific research. The three main taxonomic authorities that museums use are IOC, Clements/eBird, and Howard & Moore, and I don't expect any of these three to accept taxonomic changes based on HBW. A good reason to accept IOC (or Clements or H&M) is that it conforms with current scientific literature and field guides. I agree that perhaps the best course is stick with IOC and for species that have been split by HBW to explain that in the entry for that species.Jmaley1 (talk) 20:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I've generally waited for Australian bird splits until they appear on IOC...and they usually do with not too much delay. Maybe because there is at least one Australian on the IOC panel...I think we have to look at a few on a case by case basis but do lean to waiting for IOC...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:52, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I can see a 5x xpand a'coming on helmeted woodpecker.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:56, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Well Clements/eBird would be one I'd definitely recommend we avoid—they're ridiculously far behind the rest of the world in a lot of the lumps and splits. It's improving some since Cornell took over, but the updates are still largely New World centric. MeegsC (talk) 22:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Aaand just to make things more interesting...I find this....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:26, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of birds of Egypt/archive1

I have nominated List of birds of Egypt for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

The response I've gotten to a "what's the problem?" query is this List of birds of Thailand is closer to what they're expecting these days, especially with a more comprehensive lead. Kind of a tall order, honestly. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:34, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I have to agree that these lists are long past their sell by dates. Wikipedia standards have long since moved on! I've been working (for far too long!) on List of birds of Madagascar with an eye to nominating it for FL some day, and I've completely changed its presentation to take advantage of Wikipedia's sortable tables—seems to me that's the direction we should be headed. I'm also trying to make any picture captions appropriate for the country (rather than just the fairly useless "black-browed albatross" sort). Pictures on these lists is a bit of a bugbear of mine; we routinely include breeding plumaged pictures for species that only occur in countries as winter migrants, pictures of (distinctive) subspecies that don't occur anywhere near the region and pictures of things that have occurred there only once or twice ever. We can do better. MeegsC (talk) 12:53, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

At List of birds of King Island (Tasmania), @Rangasyd took a new approach to a list in a table. I don't know how if that could be extended to a larger list, but it was a new approach that I thought looked good. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 13:30, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

IOC/Clements changes

Looks like Clements/ebird revisions just got published. They are in agreement with the IOC.....Only changes needing to be done include a split of the Purple Swamphen and a split of the Blue-crowned Motmot........I should be able to whip those out over the next week unless someone objects......Pvmoutside (talk) 18:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

What species have been split? When such splits are made, Commons categories should be changed too. FunkMonk (talk) 18:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Ivory-billed woodpecker -> American Ivory-billed woodpecker?

A user recently turned Ivory-billed woodpecker into a dab page for both the nominal and Cuban subspecies of this rare bird, moving the species level article to American ivory-billed woodpecker, apparently without prior discussion. I feel this is premature, and perhaps unwarranted, given there are well over 50 incoming links to Ivory-billed woodpecker which, if kept as a dab, would require disambiguation. I feel like "Ivory-billed" most commonly refers to the species rather than any one species, and that a separate dab for 2 taxa widely (but not exclusively) believed to be conspecific seems redundant: the same info would be in the species article. But I will defer to the opinions of experts. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree....The Ivory-billed Woodpecker species page should be redirected from its present state. The Cuban subspecies page should be a see also page, and the genus page should be disconnected, as there are more species in Campephilus than just the Ivory-billed....Pvmoutside (talk) 23:50, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree, move wasn't discussed AFAIK. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:16, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I was also puzzled by the moves, so I support changing it back. FunkMonk (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Ivory-billed Woodpecker is the common name of the species. Many birds have subspecies, often described in their pages, but each one should not have its own page given the redundancy of the information. I support changing this back. Jmaley1 (talk) 16:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree—no need for a separate subspecies page. MeegsC (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like there is consensus. I will put in a move request to move the contents and edit history of American ivory-billed woodpecker back to Ivory-billed woodpecker, overwriting the dab/set index page. There is as yet no article for Campephilus principalis principalis (which would be the American Ivory-billed subspecies), so even if there were three articles (a species and two subspecies), the Ivory-billed woodpecker would introduce ("disambiguate") both the American and Cuban subspecies. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you pinged the editor who made the change? If not, you should probably do so to give him/her a chance to explain his/her reasoning, and to explain our reluctance (without further info) to endorse it. Otherwise, this is likely to lead to an edit war. MeegsC (talk) 18:51, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Good point. Looks like the move has already been performed, but pinging DN-boards1. I'm assuming the move was a good faith effort to improve Wikipedia. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:27, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Georg Forster

It would be great if folks could comment as to whether this article currently meets FA criteria at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Georg Forster/archive1. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:27, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Three unrelated questions about taxonomy

Here are some issues I've been thinking about for a while, and finally decided to ask about in one place, since the articles are little visited, and would probably not get swift responses on their respective talk pages. FunkMonk (talk) 08:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Pied raven taxobox

The article about the Pied raven currently has a taxobox, but since it is only considered a colour morph [18], should it really have one? Other colour morphs like black panther and Silver fox (animal) do not. Also, in spite of not being a valid taxon, do people think it could warrant becoming a featured article? FunkMonk (talk) 08:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that it should have a taxobox. The black panther is a good example --Melly42 (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll remove it then. FunkMonk (talk) 14:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Echo parakeet and Réunion parakeet merge

This was discussed before[19] without a real outcome, but perhaps it's time to merge the Echo parakeet and Réunion parakeet articles? At best, they're now considered subspecies of the same species, at worst, identical. Birdlife has long merged them:[20] Newer sources only list the binomial for identification purpose, not because they find it valid. Also, if someone wants to get the former to FAC with me, please ping me. I've never written an article about an extant species until now. FunkMonk (talk) 08:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I would keep the two articles. The Réunion Parakeet has its own story though it is currently considered as subspecies by the IOC. We have already other subspecies articles in Wikipedia like the Puerto Rican conure --Melly42 (talk) 10:14, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

We do have some subspecies articles where enough can be written about them, I worked on one myself, King Island Emu. But all that can be said about the Réunion parakeet can be said in a few parapgraphs, which could fit with no problem in the taxonomy and conservation sections in the echo parakeet article; nothing is known of its behaviour, and it looked identical to the living bird. As for the Puerto Rican conure, the latest paper about it seems to refer to it as a full species.[21] FunkMonk (talk) 14:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a recent paper from Ibis: Jackson et al: Ibis (2015), 157, 496–510 Micro-evolutionary diversification among Indian Ocean parrots: temporal and spatial changes in phylogenetic diversity as a consequence of extinction and invasion where they state that there is still a divergence between P. eques and P. echo. So it seems that they are still distinct. I can send you this paper. --Melly42 (talk) 00:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

What, did they finally test that one specimen (seems the provenance was uncertain)? Please send, do you have my email? FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Paper sent. Yes, they sampled Psittacula species from the Western Indian Ocean. --Melly42 (talk) 15:15, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I've pretty much been waiting for a paper like this for years! Here's the relevant part: "The close phylogenetic relationship and low but detectable nucleotide divergence between the single specimen of the extinct P. eques and the extant P. echo (0.2%) suggest that these island populations had evolutionarily diverged, but the low level of divergence suggests it is likely the populations on Reunion and Mauritius were only divergent at a sub-specific level. So it appears they are considered subspecies, in line with Birdlife. Interestingly the cladogram shows all the Mascarene species to nest among subspecies of Psittacula krameri and Psittacula eupatria. So either these should be split off as species (which seems most likely), or the extinct ones are all just subspecies... FunkMonk (talk) 15:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Lesser Antillean macaw validity

The Lesser Antillean macaw used to have an IUCN redlist entry[22] until about 2013, but it has since been deleted, perhaps because Birdlife International does not recognise the taxon anymore.[23] This is presumably because no physical evidence of the species existed at the time, but just a month ago or so, subfossil evidence was published that indicates the species existed after all.[24] So in that case, Birdlife might be outdated, but would it be misleading to link the archived version of the IUCN entry in the extinction field at the taxobox? Or would it be allowed to write that it used to have an entry, by using that archived link as a source? And would it be problematic to nominate such an article for FAC, when the species isn't officially recognised currently? FunkMonk (talk) 08:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Australasian swamphen

So I've begun the split of purple swamphen (IOC and Clements split). One of the splits is the above, but I've moved the article from Pukeko since there was no other previous article and much of the information pertains to this newly reclassified species. I'm changing the text where appropriate to reflect the good work already written. Perhaps someone can review to make sure I have the previous authors intent still showing for the article. I didn't think a separate article for the New Zealand birds warranted a separate article???....Pvmoutside (talk) 03:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

gadfium has pointed out to me a discussion regarding purple swamphen and Pukeko. So with the new IOC/Clements species split, the range and affected species for Australasian swamphen is substantially smaller. I've changed the Pukeko article to what it may closely resemble moving forward. I'd like to get a consensus before the article is reverted due to the new classification. If the consensus says to have both an Australsian swamphen article and a Pukeko article, then I'm OK with that....Pvmoutside (talk) 04:31, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I think they should be merged... FunkMonk (talk) 14:21, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of birds of Florida/archive1

I have nominated List of birds of Florida for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of birds of Kansas/archive1

I have nominated List of birds of Kansas for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of birds of Massachusetts/archive1

I have nominated List of birds of Massachusetts for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

Purple swamphen

In another somewhat controversial renaming, with the species split, the swamphen associated with Porphyrio porphyrio is now renamed western swamphen. I'd like to rename the bird that, turning the Purple Swamphen page to a redirect to all the new species pages (Australiasian swamphen, African swamphen, Philippine swamphen, western swamphen, grey-headed swamphen, and black-backed swamphen)...Pvmoutside (talk) 04:42, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:39, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Should be the best way to solve it. I'll check Commons for images. FunkMonk (talk) 15:09, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

What is the status of Porphyrio porphyrio viridis[25] and Porphyrio porphyrio caspius[26], which both have Commons categories? FunkMonk (talk) 15:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The easiest thing to do is to check the IOC master list. They list all the subspecies......P. p. viridis is a subspecies of the Black-backed Swamphen and P. p. caspius is a subspecies of the Grey-headed Swamphen...Pvmoutside (talk) 15:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok. I was changing some redirects from the purple swamphen page to the new pages, but I'm unsure what "Eastern swamphen" refers to?[27] FunkMonk (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Eastern swamphen refers to what now is Australasian swamphen. I've moved all the pages in your browser that should be moved to their correct pages......Pvmoutside (talk) 17:16, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Anas strepera --> Mareca strepera

According to H&M and BLI & HBW Illustrated Checklist (HBW Alive) (vs IOC checklist and Clements) the gadwall is now in the genus Mareca. What should we do? --Melly42 (talk) 14:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The IOC generate a huge but useful Excel table "Comparison of IOC 5.3 with other world lists" see here. It seems that some authorities split the genus Anas. The AOU use Anas see here. From the HBW alive page history I see that the genus was changed to Mareca in July of this year but there is no explanation of why. I suggest we keep Anas strepera until the AOU and/or the IOC make a change. Aa77zz (talk) 16:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

This is what the SACC state about the supporting of Mareca:

Livezey (1991) advocated resurrection of genus Mareca for the wigeon + Holarctic Anas strepera and Palearctic A. falcata, representing a return to the classification of Pinto (1938), Hellmayr & Conover (1948a), and Phelps & Phelps (1958a). Mareca was merged into Anas following Delacour & Mayr (1945) and Johnsgard (1965). Genetic data (Johnson & Sorenson 1999) confirm that Mareca is monophyletic but also suggest that the resurrection of Mareca might make Anas a paraphyletic genus (see also Eo et al. 2009). Peters et al. (2005) found that A. sibilatrix, not Old World A. penelope as in traditional and morphology-based (e.g., Livezey 1991) classifications, is the sister to A. americana. Dickinson & Remsen (2013), followed by del Hoyo & Collar (2014), resurrected Mareca based on the data in Gonzalez et al. (2009). Source: SACC

--Melly42 (talk) 20:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Terpsiphone

Seems like some changes are needed - doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.11.010 - anybody needing the full text - send me mail. Shyamal (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The key statement is "... we recommend treating them as three species: T. incei Gould, 1852 of East Asia, T. affinis Blyth, 1846 of Southeast Asia, and T. paradisi Linnaeus, 1758 of South Asia. This assessment corroborates the topological findings by Fabre et al. (2012). We agree with their suggestion for further study of this group, especially in the geographically complex T. affinis clade, which itself may represent multiple species." @Jophine89: made a move citing an Indian newspaper as the source and this was reverted by me at the suggestion of @BhagyaMani: - it probably needs some moves and reorganizations to deal with T. paradisi sensu stricto. Shyamal (talk) 16:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Fish eagles

The wikipedia topic Fish eagle lists a number of species. It links also to the Wiktionary definition of the term, which defines it as just one species, Pandion haliaëtus, which is not one in its list. Could something better be sorted out, in Wikipedia and/or Wiktionary coverage of this?

I am not a birder, i just visited in the process of clearing ambiguous links. I just converted its formatting from a disambiguation page into being a set index article, which allows for pictures and more identifying information.

Also help confirming that inbound links are proper, intending the general term, or changing them to link more specifically to one species, would be appreciated. There are just a few articles linking to the term:

Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park
Sattal
Manas National Park
Lake Chivero Recreational Park also linked there but I figured it meant African fish eagle and changed it to link more specifically.

--do ncr am 17:46, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Eudyptes chathamensis

The scientific name Eudyptes chathamensis is not available according to the ICZN. Because there was never a valid description, i.e. a case of Nomen nudum --Melly42 (talk) 09:45, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Strix omanensis --> Strix butleri

These articles should be merged as Strix omanensis is considered a junior synonym of Strix butleri. Reference: The rediscovery of Strix butleri (Hume, 1878) in Oman and Iran, with molecular resolution of the identity of Strix omanensis Robb, van den Berg and Constantine, 2013 (Source) --Melly42 (talk) 13:16, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

At the same time we would need to split S.butleri, which is an article about the holotype of S.b, along with the current population of S. hadorami (described 2015 [28]). Prior to 2013, the only known recorded observance of S.b. was the holotype collected from an unknown location. There is also the issue of WP:COMMONNAME, Hume's owl commonly refers to the population of S.h., not the birds previously described as S.o. Martin451 00:01, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

On the other hand, IUCN doesn't recognize S. hadorami as a separate species yet, so maybe we should wait before merging articles? --Deinocheirus (talk) 20:22, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

IUCN is no taxonomic body and I think there is no doubt that S. butleri and S. omanensis are the same species --Melly42 (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

The paper from Kirwin et al [29] says Hume's owl is two distinct species. This non-authoritative source[30] says Hume's Owl, Strix butleri, has been split into Omani Owl, Strix butleri, and Desert Tawny Owl, Strix hadorami based on Robb et al. (2013) and Kirwan et al. (2015). It's clear enough that there are at least two species here. It's somewhat less clear that they are hadorami and butleri, but it seems the best choice given current evidence.

So it would be worth considering moving Hume's owl to Desert tawney owl (S. h), keeping Omani owl where it is, but giving it the binomial S. b. Then creating a disambiguation page at Hume's owl. This would keep the current histories intact for the two owl articles. Apart from that I would suggest leaving the articles where they are for now. Martin451 17:18, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

The IOC world bird list declined to call S. omanensis a junior of S. b, and instead renamed Hume's owl to Omani owl. They also accepted "Desert owl" as S. h. [31][32][33] Martin451 00:39, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Please determine the species of tropical birds in the category below!

In c:Category:Undetermined birds from the Natuurkundige Commissie voor Nederlandsch-Indië i have collected drawings of undetermined Indonesian birds.
* Could you please help and fill in the missing current species names in this category? Thank you very much, uploader Hansmuller (talk) 11:49, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Examples:

Have added ids to the second and third files. Shyamal (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC). Thanks, took them out of the undetermined category!, Hansmuller (talk) 13:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

The first is possibly Podargus papuensis. Shyamal (talk) 13:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC). How do we know it's not one of the other Podargus? Hansmuller (talk) 13:22, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Could well be, I am not familiar with the birds of that region and was just guessing based on Internet based check for species in the region. Shyamal (talk) 16:28, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Second is possibly a subsoecies of Common kingfisher? FunkMonk (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

The images have changed - it appears that Alcedo valida is a nomen nudum Shyamal (talk) 16:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses

The headlined book apparently assumes its readers are already familiar. I am not. May I assume that the masses given for Mean, Min and Max are in grams? I read the whole introduction but failed to locate what I would think would be basic information about unit type.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:07, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

In the intro section, page 5, second paragraph says "All means and ranges are given in grams." :) MeegsC (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

So much for my careful reading:-) Thank you MeegsC.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions welcome on species-article writing handbook for university students

Hello all; I'm writing on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation, which works with instructors who assign university students to write or edit Wikipedia articles in the United States and Canada. We're developing a print handbook for students who will write or expand articles on a brochure - found here - about editing species articles, including animals, plants and fungi. I'd appreciate any feedback on the draft! It is open for comment until November 5th; after that we will set it to print. Thanks so much! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Important Bird Area

In the article Important Bird Area, there is a "clarification needed" tag that was added in August 2015. I wonder if someone in WikiProject Birds could clear that up. Corinne (talk) 03:37, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Pictures of Birds

I have a lot of pictures of birds (mostly in New Jersey but also other places around the world) the pictures are taken with a Nikon d700 and the images are 12.1 megapixel quality. If anyone is interested please leave a message on my talk page. --Have a great day :) , Sanjev Rajaram (talk) 16:33, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi, feel free to add them all to Wikimedia Commons, the they are likely to be found and used. FunkMonk (talk) 17:04, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

These sound like an extremely useful addition. When adding to Wiki Commons, please make the images more useful by writing in the location of each photograph preferably in the description somewhere. Snowman (talk) 19:29, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Birdsong from the British Library

The British Library is releasing some sound recordings at Commons:Category:Wildlife Sounds in the British Library so far the vast majority are of birds so I thought people here might be interested. There will be an editathon re this material Ϣere SpielChequers 21:42, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Manual of style advice for the BL edit-a-thon

Could I have some Manual of Style guidelines that we can use at the Europeana Sounds Editathon 7 November

Am correct in saying that a sound file should be added to both the taxobox and in the text directly under the subheading Description.
Looking at the description: There are several ways to add a sound file- [[File:Filename.ogg|thumb|Caption]], [[:File:Filename.ogg|thumb|Link words such as birdsong]], {{audio|Filename.ogg|Caption}}, {{audio|Filename.ogg|Caption|help=no}} {{listen | pos = right | filename = Filename.ogg | title = Caption | description = Text| format = [[Ogg]] }}. Which is the preferred method? Would it be sensible to have a custom template similar to {{pronunciation|Filename.ogg}} may be {{Birdsong|Filename.ogg}}? Some of these templates display a loudspeaker icon- should we have a birdsong-icon.svg or is this to be avoided at all cost?
Looking at the description:Is the sound bar coded above or below the section heading- I suspect the latter.
Looking at the taxobox: all the comments above apply but the solution could be different.
Looking at the taxobox: there is no parameter for sound, sound-caption. Does one need to added- where would it display the soundbar. I would say it is needed as it makes mechanical capture so much easier- look at Wikidata for example.
Looking at the taxobox: sound files can be added by a) using the image2 parameter, or b) embedding the sound in text usually image-caption. Is this right?

Any rate I need examples of good practice, and the project need to layout guidelines. So please can I have any suggestions. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 11:48, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I do not believe we have a guideline for sound file placement. I suspect a regular box in the behaviour section where the call is described would be the best place for the moment although I would like to see nice placement in the taxobox although it does not have a labelled field for the purpose. In the past some of us have used the image caption area. Shyamal (talk) 02:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
A little feedback.

We addressed the problem of how to add the sound-bar to 49 different wikipedias mainly by the image caption method. Here is the training booklet I wrote using the experience gained . It may be useful in formulating an official guideline as it works in 96% of the languages edited and looks neat.

Wildlife Sounds Beginners Training booklet Start here.

Other material.

* Wildlife Sounds Intermediate Training booklet

Further details of the day are now on Wikipedia:GLAM/British Library/British wildlife edit-a-thon 2015

The action still outstanding is the need to add a sound parameter to the taxobox Clem Rutter (talk) 11:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Dendroica -> Setophaga only partially done?

I noticed someone changing "The yellow warbler (Dendroica petechia)" to "The yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia)" and thought I'd check it out (jus' patrolling with a headache, so I'd be immune to more headaches). So apparently recently (2011) a large group has been merged into Setophaga from Dendroica. (search for 'setophaga')

Um, okay. So I scan over Setophaga#List_of_species and most articles have had that change done, at least in the lede text. Then on spec I searched for the old names and come up with usages in text, e.g. the first two checked: ~"Dendroica petechia" and ~"Dendroica pensylvanica" returned 29 hits. I didn't check the rest of the old names.

Would it be reasonable to change text mentions to use Setophaga? Would it be advisable or not to change to "Setophaga petechia (formerly Dendroica petechia)" ? I do see that done in some ledes.

A side question is, is there a place where genus name and other name changes are widely posted, such that the need for updates here at WP is more obvious? Shenme (talk) 02:23, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

We've been going off the IOC world bird list - see Parulidae here Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikimania 2016

In case anyone has missed it, the scholarship applications for Wikimania 2016 at Esino Lario above Lake Como are open. The region is apparently quite well wooded, wild and good in birdlife too ;) Shyamal (talk) 08:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Passenger pigeon for FAC

I'll be expanding passenger pigeon to prepare for GAN and FAC in the coming time, so it can also be ready for a potential September 1 main page appearance (the date the last specimen died). I'll start by focusing on description and taxonomy (the parts that interest me the most), but anyone is of course welcome to add and expand with anything they want, since it is a pretty big task and a pretty notable and important subject. Any takers? FunkMonk (talk) 01:39, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Now at FAC. FunkMonk (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Locustella genus common name?

Our article about the genus Locustella has the title Grass warbler, but the text refers to "grasshopper warblers". I can't find clarification on the web so I'm hoping someone with access to authoritative reference sources can clarify. Thanks. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 15:46, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Kevin Baker's monograph on Eurasian warblers calls them grass warblers, but he also applies that to related genera. However, they aren't all named as grasshopper warblers either, although all species named as such are in this genus. I'd suggest the latter name, or if that's contentious go for Locustella Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:24, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Winkler et al 2015 states grassbirds or locustellids (for the complete family Locustellidae) --Melly42 (talk) 11:58, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Torresian Crow

Most of the text in the article on Torresian crow (Corvus orru) that seems to cite the Readers Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds is not presented in that work, at least, not in my copy (1st ed. 2nd rev. 1982). If someone wishes to sort that out, using the same text, I would happy to supply a transcript or scan via email. cygnis insignis 03:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. I think I will get the HANZAB material and overhaul fully sooner rather than later then....another on the to-do list. My recommendation would be to remove or change what is not in original text. Email me if you want. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Cas. I would have just chopped out or tagged the unattributed info, added by an ip I think, but perhaps it is correct. I'll send you a transcript later. cygnis insignis 10:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

It is possible that the information comes from the second edition (1986) edited by Schodde and Tidemann - but HANZAB is a much better source (to which I haven't easy access). Aa77zz (talk) 11:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Mismatched Latin names in bird redirects

Over at redirects for discussion an editor has come across a number of redirects from Latin names of birds to target articles where the Latin name is slightly (or sometimes significantly) different from the redirect. Normally we would simply delete these, but I'm seeking your opinion as to whether these names are either close enough to warrant a redirect, or perhaps an alternate or archaic name of the species, in which case the redirect would serve a purpose for readers searching under those old names.

Redirect	Target	Latin name
Buteo tachardus	Mountain buzzard	Buteo oreophilus
Calandrella conirostris	Pink-billed lark	Spizocorys conirostris
Calandrella fringillaris	Botha's lark	Spizocorys fringillaris
Camaroptera stierlingi	Stierling's wren-warbler	Calamonastes stierlingi
Catharacta longicaudus	South polar skua	Stercorarius maccormicki
Catharacta parasiticus	Parasitic jaeger	Stercorarius parasiticus
Catharacta pomarinus	Pomarine skua	Stercorarius pomarinus
Colius indicus	Red-faced mousebird	Urocolius indicus
Cryptolybia woodwardi	Green barbet	Stactolaema olivacea
Eupodotis cafra	White-bellied bustard	Eupodotis senegalensis
Francolinus acricanus	Red-billed spurfowl	Pternistis adspersus

Thanks for your help. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:09, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Those are junior synonyms and new combinations, so should not be deleted. And such have never been deleted in the past either. FunkMonk (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks, I thought it was something like that. No action required, then. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 21:43, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

[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.

[MOS-2] Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 156#Bird common name decapitalisation and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms.

[3] 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.

[1]

[2]

[3]

v t e Bustards (order: Otidiformes · family: Otididae)
Genus	Species
Afrotis	Northern black korhaan (E. afra) Southern black korhaan (E. afraoides)
Ardeotis	Arabian bustard (A. arabs) Kori bustard (A. kori) Great Indian bustard (A. nigriceps) Australian bustard (A. australis)
Chlamydotis	Houbara bustard (C. undulata) MacQueen's bustard (C. macqueeni)
Eupodotis	White-bellied bustard (E. senegalensis) Blue korhaan (E. caerulescens) Karoo korhaan (E. vigorsii) Rüppell's korhaan (E. rueppellii) Little brown bustard (E. humilis)
Houbaropsis	Bengal florican (H. bengalensis)
Lissotis	Black-bellied bustard (L. melanogaster) Hartlaub's bustard (L. hartlaubii)
Lophotis	Savile's bustard (L. savilei) Buff-crested bustard (L. gindiana) Red-crested korhaan (L. ruficrista)
Neotis	Ludwig's bustard (N. ludwigii) Denham's bustard (N. denhami) Heuglin's bustard (N. heuglinii) Nubian bustard (N. nuba)
Otis	Great bustard (O. tarda)
Sypheotides	Lesser florican (S. indicus)
Tetrax	Little bustard (T. tetrax)
26 living species in eleven genera