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Missing topics page

Would you check Missing topics about Avians? - Skysmith (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Australian Magpie--Inconsistent Entries for Family

Hi All, I'm a mere amateur/hack at editing Wikipedia, but I am very much interested in information and in following related paths to and from that information. I noticed two different families listed for the Australian magpie and would like help resolving the issue, thus referencing the correct family. In this entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie, the family is Cracticidae. Yet in the "Magpies--Other" at this entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie lists the family for the Australian Magpie is Artamidae. Anyone have a definitive answer to which family the Australian magpie belongs? Thanks. Fiona Marissa 23:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fionaussie (talk • contribs)

Artamidae looks like an error in the Magpie article. I've changed it to Cracticidae. Aa77zz (talk) 13:07, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Okay, here's where things sit - the two groups (woodswallows) and (butcherbirds/Aust Magpie/currawongs) are closely related - and can either be categorised as two families (Artamidae & Cracticidae) or one (Artamidae). I posed this question earlier, as it might be easier to go with the second option as we have some isolated birds such as boatbills whose relationships within this group are unclear, but are clearly part of the broad evolutionary tree. Hence if we use Artamidae for the lot then we can slot in boatbills and a few other species rather than leave their family location in a state of flux. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:31, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Falconry images

Traite de fauconnerie (1844) is now available thanks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. These incidentally are the earliest plates by Joseph Wolf. If there are any identifiable falcon illustrations (needs a knowledge of French) here please let me know and I will extract them. Need help with a couple of unidentified falcons at commons:Category:Traité_de_fauconnerie. Shyamal (talk) 03:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the two falcons on Commons are probably Gyrfalcons, brown and white morphs, if someone can confirm that. Maias (talk) 07:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits to Aviculture

Just wanted to draw your attention to this, folks...

Over the past few days, Cherane (talk · contribs) and Laurella Desborough (talk · contribs) have made some major and apparently good-faith attempts to expand and improve the Aviculture article. However, in the process, the article formatting got terribly buggered-up and the whole lot has been reverted by Frze today.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aviculture&oldid=572046295 for the last version before it was revered.

I'd looked it over myself quickly last night, but I thought that I'd give them time to fix their formatting errors instead of rolling it back.

Is there anything there that we could add back to the article, do you think? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 13:16, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Andean snipe habitat and flight

The description of this bird's habitat as described closely follows that of the common snipe. However, in Ecuador at least, this bird can be found feeding and nesting on fairly steep slopes far from any mud. Often its presence can be detected where cattle graze by cow pies that are scratched and scattered, apparently as the snipe seeks fly larvae.

In flight the Andean snipe could learn a lot from its smaller cousin the common snipe. In the Ecuadorian Andes once flushed this snipe will fly down hill in a straight path, not deviating an inch, as opposed to the twisting, rapid flight of the common snipe. Peter Arnold arnoldp@sbbmail.com

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). As to reference these comments are drawn from personal observations in the field.

Unfortunately, we can't accept original research, can you find any published source Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
@Peter Arnold: Although your personal observations cannot be added, if you are able to upload one of your own photographs of the bird it would make a valuable addition to the article. Aa77zz (talk) 16:55, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
It depends on the quality of the image, but images are usually helpful. I note that the Andean Snipe species page does not currently have a photograph of the bird, so I think your photograph is likely to be a useful addition. Please let us know how you got on with uploading your images. Snowman (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Veterinary Science editathon in London, UK

I hope this is of interest to at least some people here: Wikimedia UK and Jisc are running an editathon at the Royal Veterinary College on November 20th. We will focus on common diseases that vets see in everyday practice, but contributions with any relevance to veterinary science are welcome. This is a free event, and in-person and online participation is encouraged. See the event page for more details. Cheers, MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 15:53, 11 September 2013 (UTC) (link changed MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 14:02, 19 September 2013 (UTC))

AfC submission

Mind having a look at this submission? Thanks! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Bird chromosomes

The "Bird" Wiki article has the Z and W sex chromosomes included, but nothing about autosomal chromosomes. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 21:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Birds to confirm identification

Confirm as male Monticola sharpei erythronotus Blue doesn't extend on to breast or shoulders, which eliminates the other two Madagascan rock thrushes and the nominate race of Forest Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. Shown on Wiki species page. First image of this species on the Wiki. Snowman (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Kate Vincent

I've just begun a stub for the above as it is in your to-do list, but I'm unsure how notable I can make it. Can an expert on the subject evidence her notability? As it stands, it will probably be deleted.... --S.G.(GH) ping! 18:17, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you are right, fails the prof test, the £5,000 isn't a major academic award (although nice for her!), and the only reference is clearly not independent. I don't know why this was a to-do Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:30, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
What about criteria 7 "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." at Wikipedia:Notability (academics). See news coverage of some of her work (I think some as co-author) listed on her own website. Snowman (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Mottled Owl

I have just expanded a stub article on the Mottled Owl. It is classified in Wikipedia as Ciccaba virgata but the accepted view now seems to be that it should be Strix virgata. I hesitate to make the necessary changes to update the scientific name without agreement from others, as it necessitates changes to several other pages - Ciccaba, Strix, True owl and possibly others. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

IUCN and IOC have all the former members of the Ciccaba genus placed within Strix, so the change would not be controversial, unless there is very recent research to the contrary. Interestingly, the article was started in 2006 and showed the Strix genus, see article on 2 March 2006, but it was changed on 10 March 2006. Snowman (talk) 09:46, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
We take IOC as the standard, so Strix it is Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:24, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
To reduce confusion; we use the best evidence for taxonomy and IOC for common names. IOC has Mottled Old for the English common name. Snowman (talk) 10:28, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I think I have made all the necessary changes. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Caracara plancus vs Caracara lutosa

Is there any reason why the Caracara lutosa article is illustrated with the Caracara plancus image? --Melly42 (talk) 15:32, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Woolworths (a large South African retailer) {www.woolworths.co.za} is using text from Wikipedia in a cushion cover design

A small design company in South Africa has complained that Woolworths copied her design. At the same time, she has provided proof that Woolworths is using a verbatim wiki entry on the cover of cushions in their Homeware section.

http://www.woolworths.co.za/store/fragments/corporate/corporate-index.jsp?content=corporate-content&contentId=cmp200788

http://toucheefeelee.net/2013/10/18/how-woolworths-really-operates/

105.237.28.111 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:26, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Requesting IBC Resource donations?

I've been noticing that many of the birds missing pictures on wikipedia have pictures on the IBC. Unfortunately although many of the IBC are released on a CC license, it is usually not a sufficiently free license for use on Wikipedia. I'm guessing there's probably a decent overlap between people on the IBC and people on Wikiproject: Birds, so I'm wondering if anyone over there actively participates in the forums or something if we might make a concerted effort to see if people at IBC (who tend to take excellent bird photos) or xeno-canto for recordings would want to donate media to Wikipedia. I imagine a forum thread or something would garner at least some interest and help us make progress on getting photos and recordings for bird species that don't have them.

Is anyone here an active participant over at IBC who might have a bit more clout than me in starting a request thread over there? Is this a horribly misguided thing to do for some reason? 0x0077BE (talk) 16:54, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It needs to be done with some tact - I have also asked people on flickr before to adjust their copyright tags with some positive responses. The licence puts some photographers off. I have thought of asking for photographic "off cuts" so that people may be more comfortable releasing those photos and reserving their best quality ones for selling. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:40, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Certainly agreed. While I think that individuals might want to ask IBC contributors individually (especially on articles they are improving), I was thinking that someone might want to open up a "Call for donors" thread over there so that people can opt-in; that is to say that we can say, "Anyone willing to donate media to Wikipedia - here are the critical areas!" rather than, "Hey contributor X, would you be willing to donate this particular photo to Wikipedia?". Edit: Did I just dream that they have a forum or something? Looking at it again I'm not seeing one. Maybe I'm thinking of xeno-canto? Given that I'm not seeing a forum on IBC, where do you guys think would be the best place to put an open call for this sort of thing out to birders who are not necessarily Wikipedians?
I like the idea of the "off-cuts" thing, because a lot of times we'd be looking for say a picture of a juvenile, male and female to show what the thing looks like, whereas the ones that you might be selling might be action shots or shots with a particularly appealing background. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:59, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Delete Category:Catharus thrushes

Resolved

I found duplicate categories, so I populated Category:Catharus since it was more true to form. Category:Catharus thrushes is now a page with no content and can be speedy deleted......Pvmoutside (talk) 12:11, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

HBW

HBW are offering on-line access to all their content plus videos and sound recordings for an annual €29.95. There's a €20 registration, but if you haven't got a code to waive this, they help you find one. Seems like a snip to me — I've signed up Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Can Wikimedia Foundation help widen access to editors? Shyamal (talk) 03:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I suppose that it might be worth a try, but the site's faq page makes it clear that there is no reduction even for people who own all the 17 print volumes. Essentially they are offering a rock-bottom price to attract subscribers, and I suspect that they are unlikely to actually make it free (I have to say that if I'd paid £2,000 for all the printed volume I might not be happy about the deal, which gives all the text and images, plus video, plus updates for less than the price of a magazine subscription). If you wanted specific text, just email me. As you probably know, it's the family articles that are the highlight, species text can mostly be found elsewhere. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:59, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The waiving of the registration fee lasts only until 31 December 2013. That means from 1 January 2014 it will be more expensive to get access to that database. It would be interesting to know when the new BirdLife-Lynx check list will be published. After that HBW Alive will have its largest update and that means there will be a lot of changes between the HBW print edition and the updated HBW alive assessments --Melly42 (talk) 08:51, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
They say "later in 2013", although, of course, that may slip into 2014 Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:06, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
According to HBW alive it is postponed to 2014 (for volume 1: Non passerines) --Melly42 (talk) 11:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Does it give access to all the HBW books? How did you pay in dollars from the UK? Snowman (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
You have access to the species and family accounts from all HBW books but not the other content (like essays, forewords, photos etc). --Melly42 (talk) 08:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
you do get access to the species illustrations and family plates, and to some videos and photos, many more are already available at IBC. If you pay with a credit card, you may be given the choice to be billed in £ or €; as always, chose the currency of the country which is taking the money rather than £. Not sure why you would want to pay in $ from the UK, Snowman, or how you could do it. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Do you mean that the price is €29.95 less €20.00 = €9.95? Should this be € or $? Snowman (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
It's Euros, Snowman, it's a Spanish publication. The full price is €49.95, but for the time being, till the end of the year, they are giving what amounts to a €20 discount, so you pay €29.95. You need an offer code, but they will give you one if you haven't got one already from an advertisement. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
@Melly42: - apparently German Wikipedians can request content via some subscribed users - see de:Wikipedia:Literaturstipendium/HBW Shyamal (talk) 10:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't read German, but I guess that in effect that's what happens less formally here and on the resources exchange page Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

GREAT SNIPE

Today 15th November 2013 i found a great snipe sitting on the pavement it seemed to be suffering from exhaustion as it was motionless and did not attempt to fly away when approached, as this was in a town center for the birds safety i took it to a local vets who identified it as a great snipe this was in Eastbourne East sussex England cant say i have seen one before. 80.47.15.191 (talk) 23:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)Ian Burgess

Well done, it's a rare bird. You should report it to your local bird recorder. The email address is recorder@sos.org.uk Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Cockatiel longevity

The Cockatiel article currently states that the maximum recorded age for a Cockatiel is 36 years - sourced from "Brouwer, K.; Jones, M.L., King, C.E. and Schifter, H. (2000). "Longevity records for Psittaciformes in captivity". International Zoo Yearbook 37 (1): 299–316.". Does anyone have access to that (paywalled) article to confirm? The AnAge entry for the species states a figure of 35 years, sourced from the same article. Just wanted to clear up that small discrepancy... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:35, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that they can live a long time. Someone in our street has one and they claim it is 28 years old. It looks healthy and it squawks a lot. Out of all the parrots common in captivity, I have heard that they have one of the highest rates of psittacosis, which could explain some that are short lived. Incidentally, if you have a large parrot it is sensible not to keep a Cockatiel as well because of the infection risk. Snowman (talk) 20:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Parrots by Jacques Barraband

I am processing some old illustrations from Francois Levaillant's works and these are typically in French without binomials. Would be great if folks can add the identifications and categories to all the images in commons:Category:Histoire_naturelle_des_perroquets. Shyamal (talk) 10:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There are 143 pictures to identify. I have identified about 40% of them to species level and one Amazon parrot to subspecies level. A few of them look like colour mutants or usual forms, so I doubt if I can identify many of these; although, the African Grey Parrot with extra red feathers seemed obvious. I think that I can identify more with the aid of a book on parrots, but some look very difficult or impossible to identify. I do not always agree with the captions in the original book. For example, the Eclectus Parrot is captioned in the book as a male, but it is obviously a female. Some are captioned as a male or a female including species where there is no sexual differentiation. Snowman (talk) 11:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, the parrot that apparently came from Amboina is different. I think that it is too presumptive to put it in taxa category. I am thinking about categorising it as an unidentified parrot. Snowman (talk) 20:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The classification is from Hume Walters 2012, it will never get more "mature" than that, unless a specimen is found. FunkMonk (talk) 20:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I would be interested to know what level of certitude Hume Walters gave to their proposed identification. Snowman (talk) 10:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
No real rationale given, just described as never satisfactorily identified. It's on page 390. FunkMonk (talk) 17:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Toucans, barbets, birds of paradise by Jacques Barraband

Another set of images at commons:Category:Histoire_naturelle_des_oiseaux_de_paradis_et_des_rolliers,_suivie_de_celles_des_toucans_et_des_barbus by Barraband for Levaillant which need species identification and categorization. Shyamal (talk) 08:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Possibly a representation of a Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise from a trade skin. Maias (talk) 23:13, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
As mentioned by Shuker, it is missing the yellow parts of that species. FunkMonk (talk) 13:21, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Common Raven TFA

Common Raven has been chosen as a Today's Featured Article for 10 December. We recently had a student project working on it which added masses of physiology. Although Good Faith, this created problems

  • It made the article very unbalanced
  • The physiology was over-detailedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds&action=edit&redlink=1
  • Most of it was general bird physiology, not specific to the Raven
  • In my view, these edits endangered the FA status, and certainly made it unsuitable for a TFA.

I have taken these actions

  1. Hived off nearly all the physiology as Common Raven physiology. You may wish to consider changing the name or making it Bird physiology
  2. I made these edits to the article itself

I picked up a couple of other things in passing, but it's some time since this passed FA and it could do with more eyes looking in the next few days. Please copy edit if you can.

Please review my action on the physiology. Do we need to keep even the bit I've left? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with the removal of almost all of it - in fact, what is left is still pretty general and not specific to the Raven at all. I'd be happier with removing it but feel a little sad at the work that has gone into it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps wait for a couple more comments before removing the physiology stub, although there is an obvious time limit. The GF work isn't lost, of course, it's just not on this page. I did advise the main editor at the time that his edits posed some problems. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
The raven seems to be incidental, being the model species for studies aimed to answer general questions on avian biology. A similar thing happened with the peafowl article and the whole sexual selection spiel taking too much screen estate. Shyamal (talk) 03:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Tagging @Agelaia: - bird editors are already characterized as being opinionated. Shyamal (talk) 04:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Update and correction. User:BarlowC4 was not a participant of any education program. Shyamal (talk) 13:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
@Shyamal: Cas and I both lean towards removing the paras that are left, although it's probably acceptable as an FA even with them in. Do you have a view on that? Less urgently, in the light of your comments, would you prefer to move the forked article to Avian physiology without the raven stuff? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)
As it stands - almost all of the physiology section is generic - and even confusing. A lay reader might interpret [T]he Common Raven is considered to be a homeotherm, an endotherm ... to imply that other birds were not homeotherms (homoiotherms?). Shyamal (talk) 13:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Another point to debate: The IOC lists the common name of the bird as Northern Raven rather than Common Raven. Given we use Great Northern Loon for Northern Loon/Great Northern Diver, I'd thought I'd bring up the debate to see if the group would like to change the name before the article is featured.......Pvmoutside (talk) 07:29, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I've removed the mini-physiology, since that seems to be the consensus. The name issue doesn't need to be resolved before the TFA (the initial notification was by a bot, I don't know if that's a potential problem). My inclination is to play safe and wait until after the TFA. Northern Raven sounds odd to me, but I'll go with any consensus (it's just "Raven" here anyway) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I think that removing the remaining brief section on physiology was the right thing to do at this juncture. To me, it seems that the small section on physiology had readability problems. It might be possible to add back something brief and suitable sometime in the future, but it might take a long time to decide what is relevant. Snowman (talk) 13:52, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:27, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Section structure - why is mythology not under cultural depictions. I might even consider removing the Christianity heading (since the text covers other religions too) and place the content under mythology (or if that hurts anyone, under cultural depictions). Shyamal (talk) 13:28, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Fine with me, I wondered about that too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:48, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Me too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:27, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Parrot upheavals

Two recent papers, fulltexts online are here and here make for fascinating reading - and some taxonomic changes are required. Essentially the genus Psephotus is now polyphyletic, with the Red-rumped Parrot (which happens to be the type species) divergent from the other psephotus species. The 2012 paper recommends some genus changes so we don't get left with a bunch of monotypic small genera, but haven't seen anything published yet - simplest is what jboyd has on his website which is other Psephotus species all converted to Psephotellus. Also Barnardius barnardi has four taxa which have all been lumped as one species for decades might end up being split again. Anyway IOC has yet to recognise any of this. Anyway, interesting times - anyone think we should do anything at this point? Trying to find if Psephotellus has been validly published....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:26, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

NB: I just emailed Leo Joseph who authored one of the papers and has been really friendly in the past...and is also on the IOC committee. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Here is the reference for Psephotellus - Mathews, G.M. (1913) New generic names, with some notes on others. Austral Avian Rec. 2:55-62. Shyamal (talk) 02:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Nah, all the crucial nodes are not strongly supported, and implementing this in Wikipedia would be inappropriate. 184.44.8.59 (talk) 04:58, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
The jboyd website sucks and is not accurate. 184.44.8.59 (talk) 05:10, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I use it as a bit of a heads-up for new papers really. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

An egg by any other name...

Egg renaming discussion here Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:00, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

IUCN conservation status

Have the IUCN made any changes since about 2012? It seems that the IUCN website is called "2013.1" now, but I can not find if they have changed any data for birds. I found a bug in my script (for script assisted semi-automated editing) which had the effect of not finding the IUCN conservation status for the first 1000 bird species and hence not writing to the corresponding Wiki species pages. No errors were made on Wiki pages, but it did not do hundreds of updates which it could have done. I fixed the bug yesterday and I have started running the script for the remaining 1000 species. Actually, it is not as many as 1000, because I accidentally introduced the bug when I amended an earlier version of my script to speed it up, by making data look-up easier in batches of 1000 from the IUCN website of 10064 recognised bird species. I think that I could write in "2013.1" in the IUCN template. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 20:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Yesterday, I scanned the IUCN website and did not find any differences in the conservation statuses of birds to those given in July 2012, when I last scanned the IUCN website. I will start putting "2013.1" in the template and also put in the new accessdate. The date of the IUCN assessment is still 2012. Snowman (talk) 10:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone know when the IUCN are planning to do an update of the conservation statuses of birds? Snowman (talk) 10:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Update: Over the last 3 days and today, I scanned the 1000 bird species pages in question and I updated many IUCN cite templates using script assisted semi-automated editing. Generally, I did not edit Wiki pages just to change the IUCN version from 2012.1 to 2013.1 unless done with other amendments simultaneously. Snowman (talk) 20:55, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I've made a request at the IUCN Facebook site. They wrote that the next update (2013.2) of the IUCN Red List will be published at 26 November 2013 (next Tuesday) --Melly42 (talk) 23:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Snowman, all the IUCN references now seem to be deadlinked.........Pvmoutside (talk) 11:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, they are. It is not my fault. The IUCN have changed all the page numbers again. Their pages now say version 2013.2, so they have done an upgrade. I amended the IUCN template on Hooded Parrot and it works with the new number. After a few days, I plan to have a look at the IUCN website with a view to finding out how to fix the external links on the Wiki. Any suggestions? Snowman (talk) 15:23, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The 2013.2 version of the IUCN website has updated conservation statuses, like for this Blue Paradise Flycatcher, which was NT and is now LC. I have manually updated this taxobox. IUCN might not have finished changing their website, so I will leave it for about a week before wondering how to update the Wiki with the new IUCN data. Snowman (talk) 14:14, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I have started updating the IUCN cite templates on bird articles. The IUCN date of assessment remains 2012 for most bird species, but a few have been reviewed this year. Hence, a few species will have "year=2013" in the template and most have "year=2012" unchanged. My script will put in this date semi-automatically together with the other updates in the IUCN cite template. If there are any problems please let me know. Most of the ref names are <ref name=IUCN2012> for the IUCN cite template, which I am changing to <ref name=IUCN>. Snowman (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Amur Falcon

Some recent events have led to some rather poor expansion to Amur Falcon - Last years they were trapped in the thousands and eaten in some part of India and this year they have seen a lot of activism and excitement due to real-time satellite tracking. Unfortunately I do not have enough sources for this species. Shyamal (talk) 06:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the whole section. It's unsourced, obvious cut-and-paste copyright infringement, too local for the length of text added, and unbalances the article. The facts are probably significant enough to merit a mention in a status section, but the onus is on the editor to provide suitable references. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
You beat me to it. Shyamal (talk) 08:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
It has been in the news; see national geographic. This should be a good ref for the article. Snowman (talk) 23:29, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Orphean Warbler

Looks like more and more people are accepting the Orphean Warbler split. Orphean Warbler becomes Western Orphean Warbler and Eastern Orphean Warbler changes from subspecies to species. Orphean Warbler page is locked, so if someone can do the honors...Thanks.....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:31, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Locked page

Strix omanensis should be moved to Omani Owl (common name) --Melly42 (talk) 22:46, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello,
Please note that Talking bird, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 01:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Type Locality

Hi, WikiProject Birds,
I was looking at some Wikipedia maintenance categories and came across Category:Type locality needed. I wasn't sure exactly what this referred to so I checked it out and all of the articles involve birds.
Maybe some WikiProject member who knows something about classifying birds can check it out and supply the missing information that would remove these pages from the Clean-up categories. Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 20:37, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Type locality is where the specimen that was used in describing the species came from. See Type_locality_(biology)#type_locality. Not sure if this is a category to worry much about, one can consider a number of such missing info categories. Shyamal (talk) 06:23, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

More locked pages

Evidently the IOC has moved some Ibons back to White-eyes:

.....Pvmoutside (talk) 13:03, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
The latter is Streak-headed White-eye on IOC and Streaky-headed White-eye on IUCN. Snowman (talk) 17:28, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Rock Dove

Is gathering some avian physiology bits that again are not suitable for the species entry although the studies are possibly based on that species as a model. Does anyone know if this is part of an "education program"? Shyamal (talk) 02:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I note that the main Bird article has an anatomy and physiology section, and that Bird anatomy is a separate article. Maybe, if it this is indeed part of some educational program then this general physiology stuff could be put into a new Bird physiology article. Maias (talk) 04:11, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree. Shyamal (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Add Ostrich to the list. Shyamal (talk) 07:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
And we have already had Common Raven. I thought someone had notified the uni concerned? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
The expansion of the Ostrich article reminds me of the expansion of the raven article. I think that a large part of the ostrich article could be split off to make a new page on the A and P of the ostrich. Perhaps, a new category called "Anatomy and physiology of birds" is needed. Snowman (talk) 18:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Réunion Pink Pigeon

The IOC accept the Réunion Pink Pigeon only as subspecies of the Mauritius Pink Pigeon http://www.worldbirdnames.org/n-sandgrouse.html. So what do you think? --Melly42 (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't change much, does it? At least the new classification is accepted (though as a lower taxon), instead of the huge mess we had before. FunkMonk (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Would be interesting to know the reference for the treatment as subspecies. Hume (Systematics, morphology, and ecology of pigeons and doves (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands, with three new species, Zootaxa, 2011) wrote: "More material is needed to confirm this taxon’s distinctiveness from N. mayeri." --Melly42 (talk) 20:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Housekeeping. Redirect for deletion or keeping?

Re Khướu đuôi vằn Vân Nam. I presume that this is a foreign language name that should not be on the en Wiki and that it should be deleted. It is a redirect to Spectacled Barwing. Snowman (talk) 15:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Looks Vietnamese or something. FunkMonk (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
... In which case it should be deleted. Snowman (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
From looking at the page history, the redirect appears to be the result of a mistaken pagemove. Reversed a minute later by the same user (maybe had windows open on two different versions of WP?). However, if this is the actual Vietnamese name for this species, and the redirect is otherwise causing no other problems, then it could still potentially be a useful to the reader. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I think that it should be removed. I recall that guidelines say that Wiki pages should be removed when they are not written in English on the en Wiki. What if there were redirects to bird pages in 100s of different languages? Snowman (talk) 19:47, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Deleted as an implausible search term on en-wiki Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Birds portal

The link to the source for the eagle image on the bird portal template is dead, so its copyright status cannot be verified. Since this template may be on thousands of article, it needs a new image Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is this suddenly a problem any more than any other WP:DEADLINK? - The Bushranger One ping only 08:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
because an image review at FAC has challenged it. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
A link to the template would be helpful. Snowman (talk) 11:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I have traced the image from User Jimfbleak's edit history. I have found the image on open clip art and fixed the link, so I have returned the portal template to the waxwing page. Snowman (talk) 11:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Snowman Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Broken edit history

Chrysococcyx is Greek for golden tail, more or less, and this book says it's an alternative name. Not sure it's common, however. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Avibase has nothing under Golden Cuckoo although some non-English names include copper or bronze. Apparently caprius is an old typo for cuprea. From Google it would appear that it is a breed of chicken - Cuckoo Marans. I think that redirect should be removed or redirected to the chicken. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:24, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
There is also a Golden Cuckooshrike. I've deleted the redirect since it's probably wrong and is unlikely to be used as search for the Diederik Cuckoo. It could be recreated as a redirect to Marans, but I don't know enough about chickens to tell if that's justified Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:07, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Chrysococcyx is Greek for "golden cuckoo" (Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names) but I still don't think the redirect should stand. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 17:38, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

IUCN templates

I have been completing the IUCN template with the actual title (binomial name) of the IUCN page. Sometimes the IUCN and the Wiki use different synonyms of the binomial name, so the binomial in the infobox of the Wiki species page and the binomial in the template are sometimes different. The recently completed Major Mitchell's Cockatoo IUCN template is an example of this, however, confusion is reduced on this page, because the synonym is in the infobox also. I estimate that this will occur on about 1 in 50-100 wiki articles. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 14:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Having a different synonym in a cite is not that big a deal, is it? More annoying is that the IUCN keep changing the species id every few years. Because we use a template rather than {{cite web}}, the links don't get archived. You need their synonym to look up the new id. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 14:12, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
I am not sure how often it happens. I have also found examples with Fairy Martin, White-eyed River Martin and Tree Martin. The martins have had recent taxonomic changes. Snowman (talk) 21:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Lists of birds

User talk:Birdsaregood has been adding a second WP banner to bird pages. See this edit. After a quick inspection, I think that this has happened multiple times. I have informed the user on his or her talk page and left an invitation to participate in the discussion here. Snowman (talk) 17:29, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Move

Could someone please move Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike to Black-faced Cuckooshrike per the IOC standard? Maias (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Merry Christmas. But I should just point out that this specific move has been contested and reversed twice in the past, and I assume it probably will be once more. This probably really needs to go through the full Wikipedia:Requested moves process. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 08:52, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Some relevant discussion here. There was more somewhere else, I think. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 08:59, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
I am not certain, but I think that this bird's IOC name might have been controversial in Australia. I recall that, a while ago one editor commented on the move to the IOC name and the Australian name was kept. However, currently the IOC and the IUCN both use the same common name of "Black-faced Cuckooshrike", so I presume that this name is no longer controversial on the Wiki. I would support the recent move to the IOC name. I have updated the species page with a new url to the IUCN's website, now at version 2013.2. Snowman (talk) 11:46, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
I thought we had consensus to go with the IOC name every time unless, in particular cases, there was strong reason not to do so. Maias (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike has been moved back to its original title by Bidgee (talk · contribs), as I expected. If anyone feels strongly enough about this issue to spend several days discussing a hyphen, then put it through the full WP:RM process next time so that a decision may finally be reached. I know that I argued for the conures to continue being known as conures in the past, but in cases like this, I really find it difficult to be fussed either way... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Category:Animals described in 1234

These categories are being added to the bird pages. This results in a category like this one; Category:Animals described in 1859. Would these be better as a list, such as in page called "List of birds described in 1859"? Snowman (talk) 21:48, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

These are long-established and accepted categories (~2009 etc.). And (even if they were not) discussion regarding them would need to take place at WP:CFD. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:16, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Creating even more nested categories by year will not benefit most people. I think a list article would be just as bad. Can't we build better content about birds? Or would that require such unpleasant chores as reading about birds, and understanding birds, and a much lower number of edits per hour? Nikswerdhond (talk) 20:47, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
What's your point Nikswerdhond? We are building better content about birds. Are you helping? Or just criticizing? The categories in question are not bird-specific; they include to all animal species. If you have an issue with those categories, take it up with the project that created them. This project didn't! MeegsC (talk) 22:11, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Be fair, extensive research and hours of deep study obviously went into these bird edits, which will be of great assistance to all English Wikipedia users (; Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
I really think that all those redirects on the English Wiki featuring German bird names should be deleted. As far as I understand the Wiki guidelines, pages in the wrong language are deleted. Snowman (talk) 21:05, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
What damage does it do? FunkMonk (talk) 22:37, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
I think it's Afrikaans actually, Snowman. I'm not bothered as to whether they are kept or not Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:29, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Excuse my ignorance, I am not very good at recognizing foreign languages. My South African bird books each have a separate index using the Afrikaans names, and I would expect that they are included for good a reason. Snowman (talk) 13:42, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
I think having at least native names as redirects is a good thing. Now we're at it, is there any systematic effort made to redirect all junior synonyms to the respective articles (This? [7])? I just noticed that this field is quite lacking, and I'm making redirects for some of the FAs I've worked on. FunkMonk (talk) 22:46, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone know how accurate that bot is? I have been thinking about adding redirects from synonyms, but I would not do it from the taxobox, since the information may be incorrect. I would cross reference it with lists on websites. I would also find out which synonyms are alternative names for more than one species. Snowman (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
It would be good to redirect from synonyms. Nikswerdhond (talk) 04:18, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
  • If "Category:Animals described in 1234" is useful, then should there be "Category:Birds described in 1234"? Adding species pages to these categories could be done semi-automatically. Also, pages called "List of birds described in 1234" could be made semi-automatically. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 10:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
"Category:Animals described in 1234" seems so unwieldy. "Category:Birds described in 1234" seems more manageable to me, however I don't know the history.....Pvmoutside (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
"Category:Animals described in 1234" is a broad topic and includes snails, moths, butterflies, eels and so on, so it is a little difficult to focus on birds, which seem to be quite sparse members of this category. Snowman (talk) 11:22, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Lilacine Amazon - forthcoming reclassification as a separate species

According to this BBC News article the Lilacine Amazon (or Ecuador Amazon as the article calls it) is expected to be given full species status in the Spring 2014 update of the IUCN Redlist. Any thoughts on whether the article should be updated now, based on the above - or is it best to wait for the official announcement? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Well spotted. I think that it is too early at the moment to change it. Snowman (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I actually thought that it was its own separate species already. Then I realized that I was thinking about the Mealy Amazon... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
The split has been rejected by the SACC http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=1671 This edit - unsigned by User:Melly42 on 1 January 2014.
That is a useful reference on BirdLife. A. a. diaderma is a subspecies on the Wiki. Snowman (talk) 11:59, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Uncontroversial blocked species name moves

The following need the target page deleted so that the files can be moved: Snowman (talk) 10:11, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Also: Snowman (talk) 15:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Trinomial as page name

Re Ceyx lepidus margarethae. This is the title of a Wiki page about a bird. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 15:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

merge with main article --Melly42 (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
There isn't enough content in either to justify two articles, merge Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:04, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
As a policy, only species have implicit notability - anything else such as varieties, mutants etc. need to prove notability. Here, clearly a case for a merge. Shyamal (talk) 07:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

IOC name redirects

There are 468 English IOC names that are redirects on the Wiki. Some of these are due to the accents and USA/UK spelling differences and so on. I might attempt to remove redirects due to these sort of differences to reduce the length of the list and present the relevant ones here. The accents make it a more difficult to compare the IOC and Wiki Englsih names and I have not found a semi-automatic way of separating them yet. By looking at the list and following about 60 of the links, I would think that about 60-70% of these redirects are not due to accents and simple spelling differences. A lot of the redirects seem to be due to the IOC having split species that the Wiki lumps together. For example, IOC have two ostriches while the Wiki and the IUCN have one. Actually, this list is much shorter than I expected, which is of course due to the drive towards IOC names and improved nomenclature. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 17:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I have now got a shortened list of IOC English common bird names that are redirects on the Wiki. Accents and USA/UK language differences caused a lot of these redirects, and I have filtered these off the list. There is a list of about 200 lines remaining and also about an additional 50 lines for Hawaiian birds names. I do not want to bulk this talk page unnecessary, but I am willing to show the list here, if anyone would be interested in analysing it. I think that most of the remaining redirects are due to taxonomy differences between the Wiki and IOC, new classification, or controversial classifications, and I would think that almost all of the affected redirects are probably best kept unchanged at present until research leads to clarification. Snowman (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

IUCN references

Update: Page watchers may have noticed my amendments to the IUCN citation template made in November and December 2013 and early January 2014 done with semi-automatic script-assisted AWB edits. I kept my edits on the safe side and only updated IUCN templates when bird names matched satisfactorily. The new version of my script edited some species pages that it had not edited previously, but it also rejected some pages that it had edited last year, because my script did bird name matching slightly differently. The new script included some shaky quick-fix work-arounds for accents in Hawaiian bird names without doing it with a binary input; however, the edits seem to have worked. In-the-round, I think the run went well. I made a few mistakes, but I think that I have fixed all the edits that went wrong and found out why my enhanced script behaved unexpectedly. Nevertheless, if anyone sees any problems with any of the edits, please let me know, because I would like to analyse any mistakes. AWB and my script are not set up as a bot; every edit has been visualised and checked by me before it is saved. Snowman (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Nice work, Snowman! MeegsC (talk) 01:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Birds for identification (155)

Are these Bramblings male or female? Snowman (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
The second one looks like a female to me, the others I think are OK for winter males (more colour on breast, salt-and-pepper head and the ghost of the black summer hood Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:47, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I have moved the second one to File:Fringilla montifringilla -England -female-8 (2).jpg. Snowman (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Update: someone on Commons identified bird as a Greater Blue-eared Starling and moved file to File:Lamprotornis chalybaeus, Mpumalanga Rural, Mpumalanga, South Africa.jpg. Snowman (talk) 10:27, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Looks like Greater Vasa Parrot (Coracopsis vasa). Has largish bare cere. Snowman (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. To answer your question: My rough estimate is 40–45 cm. I have another picture providing a size comparison with a Rodrigues flying fox. --Leyo 11:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
My identification guide says that the Greater VP is 50 cm long and the Lessor VP is 35 cm long. I downloaded the image to my computer and viewed the image with an ordinary image viewer and varied the magnification until the bird food in the dish looked life size. Of course, this is only an estimation, because grapes and sunflower seeds come in different sizes and because of perspective; however, I think that the parrot is quite big. Snowman (talk) 14:37, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for playing detective. --Leyo 20:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Update: file description amended and file moved to File:Coracopsis vasa Masoala-Halle.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 14:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Andean Tyrant

I do not know much about the split of the Andean Tyrant. However, the IOC and IUCN have not listed the split at this juncture. Is the evidence convincing or is the idea still at a proposal stage? Snowman (talk) 14:07, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

IUCN is no taxonomic body. But if the split is accepted by the SACC IOC might be follow soon --Melly42 (talk) 17:58, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Has the split been accepted by SACC? Snowman (talk) 21:55, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Here is the proposal http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop573.htm --Melly42 (talk) 05:42, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
I have seen that, but I am not aware of the final conclusion nor the reception by other authorities. Snowman (talk) 10:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, the proposal is just a few weeks old, but due to the number of Yes voters I think it will pass. According to the reception, I think it would take some time in particular do to the fact that the updates of the international taxonomic check-lists will be published anytime this year. I am curious how the new Lynx-BirdLife-Taxonomic-Checklist (scheduled for publishing this summer) will treat this case. --Melly42 (talk) 14:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
Guys, as a point of reference, once a proposal from the SACC has been voted on in the majority, the bird is added to the SACC list, so there is no further process to be accepted by the SACC (unless as future proposal and vote decides to lump or remove a particular species). I've been only adding/lumping species that occur in South America only in regard to the SACC, since they appear to be the authority for South America, as the NACC is for North America. The NACC publishes yearly, the SACC publishes throughout the year. For proposals for species that occur in a more cosmopolitan range, I've been waiting until other authorities rule on status before creating species pages (ie. Herald/Trindade Petrel split - proposal 582 http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop582.htm

Category 'Birds of Ukraine'

I just noticed that a whole lot of articles are getting tagged as 'Birds of Ukraine'. I see other articles have long had '... of Europe', '... of America'; is there any policy on 'Birds of <country>'? It could easily snowball into a hundred tags per article, which seems absurd. See e.g. Red Crossbill. What is the right thing to do here? Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:05, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I was going to mention that yesterday, but I forgot. Wasn't there some previous discussion on here about whether those 'Birds of...' categories were appropriate to use at all? Or whether they should all be deleted entirely? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:59, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
A related issue is packing the lede or distribution section of a species (especially African) article with a long list of all the countries it has been recorded from. Maias (talk) 02:13, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
The whole region categorization thing on Wikipedia for fauna and flora is a terrible source of irritation. There are some vandals who use it to promote breakaway political regions. (note: User:TeaDrinker is a veteral editor) The list articles allow for citations which makes them far more suitable. Ideally I think geocoded polygonal regions need to be definable (via Wikidata) and there should be options to search by specificying regions and looking for enclosure, overlap, named regions, point in region and so on. Until something like that happens I think the old discussions led to a kind of consensus that species that occur in too many countries should be trimmed down to continental scale categories. Shyamal (talk) 02:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
Lists would certainly be easier to maintain in this situation. It's very easy to miss something when mass-categorizing - and categories do often seem to often get removed in error during ordinary editing, or for political purposes (e.g. add an India-related cat and remove the Pakistan one, or vice-versa) and unlike with the more visible content, no-one noticing for a long time, if ever. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:36, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I think Shyamal's suggestion for continental-scale categories only is a good one. Then there'd be at most half-a-dozen geographical categories per bird. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that back in the mists of time we decided that it would be continent-cat only for at least Europe. It makes sense to apply in to other continent-scale regions, and when I work on an article for FA I replace country cats with continental cats. I'll let Teadrinker know of this discussion. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I am broadly in support of the above suggestions. However, what do people think about more specialized, biogeographially based categories? For example, I created a category for endemic birds of Borneo. Is there a place for such things? Or for birds of Madagascar, or New Guinea, for example? Maias (talk) 09:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I think we are really just talking about widespread species. Barn Owl could have dozens of countries listed, for example. Endemics are a different matter. To have Andaman Crake (range) as "birds of Asia" only might be stretching the principle too far. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:27, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't have strong feelings about maintaining a category vs. a list; I created the category Birds of Ukraine (if we're going to have countries, we should probably have major countries like Ukraine), so I felt I should populate it. However I have no objections if the consensus is to delete the country cats entirely in favor of lists. There, to me, are two obvious drawbacks to using categories: (i) Many birds will have to be placed in a hundred or more categories and (ii) there is, as yet, no common way of annotating or citing category placement, yet placement in many instances is a judgement call. The latter is more of a criticism of categories in general. A list count indicate that particular birds are only present for a few weeks during migration, or are found only rarely; a category can not annotate these things. --TeaDrinker (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it seems we have a consensus to delete it, and only to have categories for a) continent-scale regions b) regions with endemic species, which does seem sensible and practical. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:01, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the next step is a Wikipedia:Categories for discussion page; I am currently travelling for the holidays and can't set one up today, but if anyone is so inclined, I think it would be appropriate. --TeaDrinker (talk) 12:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I have initiated a request at Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Category:Birds_of_Country to create a category for discussion about this. I am hoping there is someone who can help with the nomination, since it will probably take several hours of tagging and notifying. --TeaDrinker (talk) 20:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Ooops, I've initiated Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_December_22#Category:Birds_of_Ukraine_and_others
  • How do we sort this out?
  • If we upmerge, is there a semi-automatic way of doing it?
Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:08, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
  • What about keeping cats like "Birds of the Falkland Islands‎" and "Birds of the Faroe Islands‎" and other remove islands, because islands are not attached to continents. Snowman (talk) 01:15, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
It would make sense to have "Endemic birds of the xxx Islands", when there are such species. If an island shares species with the mainland then a category isn't needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 02:11, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Birds of Ukraine CFD closure

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 December 22#Category:Birds_of_Ukraine_and_others closed as no consensus. See my closing statement there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:47, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

A list of 69 IOC species English names that are redlinks on the Wiki. Extinct and extant species as indicated on IOC website. These are listed with the IOC binomial, which is sometimes also a redlink on the Wiki. The IOC use a different taxonomy to the wiki, so some of the relevant Wiki species pages may need a lot of thought before making any amendments to the Wiki. Nevertheless, moving some of the Wiki pages may be uncontroversial. Any Comments? Snowman (talk) 14:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Extinct
Extant
For me, all IOC species have references associated with their listing on the IOC site. I've been refraining from creating species pages unless I can corroborate the listing with another source (in my case Clements)......Pvmoutside (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Of course, moving pages can be complex. I think that caution and cross-referencing is important. The IOC tend to use "Madagascan" and the wiki uses "Madagascar". Why is this? Snowman (talk) 14:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
With regard to the IOC names, it seems like the fauna of smaller islands (and other geographical areas) use the noun form and larger areas the adjectival. Maybe Madagascar is large enough to merit the latter. You could probably find exceptions and anomalies. Maias (talk) 00:41, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Moving "Madagascar" to "Madagascan" in all the species names looks uncontroversial. I think that I will move them all. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 09:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I'd keep an eye on the IOC list. Some names are Madagascar ..., some are Madagascan ..., and some are Malagasy ... Pvmoutside (talk) 14:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The names above are the current IOC names. Madagascar does not appear in any IOC English names now. Malagasy appears a few times, and I think Malagasy may imply the region, perhaps including other islands. I presume saying African Grey Parrot and not Africa Grey Parrot is similar. Snowman (talk) 16:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
There are many fewer red links in the list following changing "Madagascar" to "Madagascan" in about 35 species names. Snowman (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Spotted Great Rosefinch

It's now considered as subspecies of the Great Rosefinch http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates/species-updates/

see also Tietze, D.T., M. Päckert, J. MArtens, H. Lehmann, and Y.-H. Sun (2013), Complete phylogeny and historical biogeography of true rosefinches (Aves: Carpodacus), Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 169, 215-234.

--Melly42 (talk) 16:56, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

looks like the IOC Jan 7 update has as listed above, but Clements will hold until September when annual updates occur. I am fine with a merge, or a subspecies change......other changes also on IOC's Jan 7 update......Pvmoutside (talk) 03:14, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Locked page

Guadalcanal Thicketbird appears to have been changed to the Melanesian Thicketbird by the IOC. The previous disambig content for Melanesian Thicketbird has been cleared and moved to the appropriate listings. If someone can do the honors and delete the Melanesian Thicketbird file and move the Guadalcanal Thicketbird page to it, that will be good.......Pvmoutside (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • An administrator has fixed it. It would have been better to have asked an administrator to do the move properly, which would have moved the edit history with the article. Snowman (talk) 18:57, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
nothing was done for 3-4 days, and there wasn't much history on either, so........Pvmoutside (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Doing a cut and paste move keeps the edit history which is important in the attribution of the creative commons licence. Your request for the move to be done properly was listed here from 03:47, 13 January 2014 to 19:53, 13 January 2014, which is a total of 16 hrs and 6 mins. Snowman (talk) 11:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Little Spiderhunter found

Hi! I need help. I live in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and I think I found a little Spiderhunter. But it's injured or something. Need guidance please105.248.189.0 (talk) 17:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to contact a veterinarian for guidance. Preferably an avian specialist, if there's one available near you (but if not, it's not as if your regular cat/dog/cow/horse-type veterinarians are *unused* to birds). If the bird is sick or injured, it will require professional treatment and rehabilitation afterwards, if it makes it (vets often keep a list of wildlife rehabbers who can care for the bird and help it return to the wild). Keep the bird in a warm, quiet, not-too-bright place and provide water until you can talk to your vet. Also do a search for wildlife rescue organizations in your area and talk to them if you're not having any luck with the veterinarians. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Would it be reasonable to add a little sugar or honey to the water to mimic nectar as temporary nutrition until an expert can supervise? The Wiki pages on the Spiderhunter says its consumes nectar as well as spiders and insects. As a precaution, I think it would be best to avoid any contact between the sick bird and pet or farm birds, in case the sick bird has got an avian infective disease. One or two people may reply to point you in the right direction, but please note that the the Wiki is not here to give advice. Snowman (talk) 18:44, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Before you consider feeding it anything, you'll need a species ID. There are no spiderhunters in Africa; it's an exclusively Asian genus. 62.107.194.172 (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
I hope that the OP has managed to get the bird to a vet by now. It's quite often the case that a bird that can be captured by humans is very sick indeed. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:39, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Melamprosops phaeosoma

Re Melamprosops phaeosoma. The Wiki has the name of this bird as Poʻouli as the title and Black-faced Honeycreeper as an alternative, the IOC has Poo-uli, and the IUCN have Poo-uli, Po'o-uli, and Black-faced Honeycreeper. Which would be the appropriate title for the wiki? Snowman (talk) 11:49, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Recommended English names of the AOU would be an appropriate source, otherwise I would use the English name recomended by the IOC. --Melly42 (talk) 14:00, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Is it outside of the AOU check-list area? see AOU checklist. Snowman (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
AOU has the same name as IOC: Poo-uli (btw the Hawaiian avifauna is within the AOU check-list) --Melly42 (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The IOC name is always preferred, but we have been making exceptions for diacritics....Pvmoutside (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I am unclear on how to spell this one with diacritics. Snowman (talk) 15:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Excuse my ignorance in not knowing a about the Hawaiian language. Nevertheless, my computer keyboard does not have keys for the accents. I am not sure if they are outside of the normal ascii range or not. If no one here knows the correct Hawaiian spelling for Poo-uli, should the Hawaiin bird names on the Wiki all be moved to the same spelling as on the IOC especially if the IOC spelling is the same as the AOU spelling. Snowman (talk) 11:40, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The page was moved to its current name by a Hawaiian editor back in 2008. The editor is quite young (based on age edits he made to his own talk page), so it might be worth checking, but–assuming he is right–diacritics are fine in Hawaiian, but hyphens aren't. The section removed in this edit may also be relevant, but I don't have access to the quoted reference, Pukui & Elbert 1986 (still quoted in full in article's Reference section). 62.107.218.43 (talk) 12:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
IOC expressly says diacritics may be used where appropriate. But the 'okina isn't a diacritic: it's a letter. Without it, the words are misspelled. It's Po'o-uli. Speaking of which, hyphens are allowed. See 'Ula-'ai-hawane. Natureguy1980 (talk) 06:21, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
A verifiable source for the spelling of "Po'o-uli would be helpful. Is its spelling on the Wiki wrong? Snowman (talk) 10:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
This is the authoritative source on Hawaiian honeycreepers. You can find the proper spellings in the table of contents, which is available via the "Look Inside" feature. http://www.amazon.com/The-Hawaiian-Honeycreepers-Drepanidinae-Families/dp/019854653X Natureguy1980 (talk) 05:39, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Tristan Moorhen and Gough Moorhen

I think that the Tristan Moorhen and Gough Moorhen are subspecies of the same species, and this is detailed on both articles. However, the Wiki articles are set up as species pages. One of the subspecies is extinct. As it is set up at the moment, the IUCN template external link on the extinct subspecies Wiki article goes to the IUCN species webpage where is is classified as a vulnerable species, so I have made a quick fix to this wiki page. Would it be right to merge these two articles into one species page? Snowman (talk) 13:38, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

As long as no info is lost, I'd be fine with that, especially since the validity of one of them is questioned. FunkMonk (talk) 22:51, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't merge the two articles --Melly42 (talk) 12:08, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
see also Groenenberg (2005) who state:

On the basis of DNA sequencing of both recently collected and historical material, we conclude that G. nesiotis and G. comeri are different taxa, that G. nesiotis indeed became extinct, and that G. comeri now inhabits both islands. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001835 and IOC treatment --Melly42 (talk) 12:14, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Not very familiar with the context but quite surprising to see that evidence based on mitochondrial DNA sequences alone has been allowed in a recent journal publication despite growing recognition of problems. Shyamal (talk) 07:56, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
IOC 4.1 has them as separate species; it would be premature to lump them. Maias (talk) 01:05, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
IOC list a split a number of taxa which are not split in other classifications. Snowman (talk) 12:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2014 (UTC).

Edit notice

Most of our FAs are little visited, but some, like Peregrine Falcon and Pelican receive regular edits from casual and often ill-informed visitors. Is it worth adding an edit notice, such as this to such FAs?. The point of an edit notice is that it displays when the page is in edit mode, and might discourage unsourced or unreliable additions. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Anything that helps slow the addition of bad edits without rewriting the "everybody can edit" rule would be welcome. speednat (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
I think that this new banner would need a consensus from a pool of global Wiki editors and not just a discussion here, and I doubt if the new banner is needed. FA banners on talk pages already say; "Peregrine Falcon is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so." I think that the new banner has a different emphasis to the current notice on the talk page, so the overall message would be confusing. Often, small edits can put the article on the right track, or can tend to indicate where the article can be misunderstood. Jimbo, has given a publicity video message on the Wiki welcoming any readers to make corrections as soon as they see a mistake and act straight away. I think that the new banner is not quite consistent with the spirit of the Wiki. Snowman (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
I can understand the disappointment a Wikipedian may feel when finding vandalism on articles that have taken a lot of work to write. I doubt if a written notice would put-off vandals, who I would guess are fully aware of the nature of their edits. If there are any particular articles that are prone to vandalism, then they can be protected from IP editing for a period of time by administrators. Perhaps, a trial of page protection for three months is worth trying on constantly vandalised articles with a lower threshold for page protection for articles that are included in the projects showcase. As the number of articles in the WP Birds showcase has increased, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor these articles for vandalism. I would not like to see articles in WP Birds showcase degraded by continuous vandalism, so I would support a trial of page protection on constantly vandalised articles. I am not referring to editors that are trying to be helpful but get their edits wrong in one way or another. These might be new editors and may need friendly and supportive help with Wiki lore. Snowman (talk) 11:44, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
It is always a balance. The good thing about an FA is that that version acts as a stable/consensus version and can be easily compared to the current page version and changes assessed and either kept or dispensed with. This is the single biggest benfit of FA status (or GA for that matter) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:23, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Bird songs

I came across this site today: [8]

It looks like contributors are adding all sorts of bird songs to the site's species pages. Other web sites (Neotropical birds, Avibase, Encylcopedia of Life)are adding links to their respective species pages. It looks like most of the pages are Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported. Is this something we may want to add to Wikipedia's species pages?....Pvmoutside (talk) 22:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Non-commercial copyright licences would not be allowed for bird songs on the Wiki. I see no justification for "fair-use" of a snippet unless the bird was extinct making it impossible to obtain further sound recordings. Snowman (talk) 13:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Direct links can be used, though. Seems to have been done before on other bird articles. FunkMonk (talk) 13:16, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
I am not convinced that direct links or hot-links are satisfactory. Snowman (talk) 16:33, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Of course, but better than nothing. FunkMonk (talk) 14:00, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Redirects that are IOC names and their targets

My list of red links prompted a few changes, so I am following this up with a longer list of redirects that are IOC names and their targets for consideration. What is good about the list is that it is surprisingly short and no doubt it reflects a lot of work done in the synchronisation of bird names on the Wiki with the IOC bird names. The redirects are on the left of the arrow and the target Wiki article is on the right of the article. Sometimes there are more than one redirect on the left side of the article presumably reflecting a species that is split by IOC but not commonly by other authorities. I would think that most of the pages listed do not require moving. I would think that it requires a great deal of knowledge on birds names and advances in taxonomy to do updates on the vast majority of birds listed here. Note that the list may not reflect some recent page moves or new Wiki articles, which may be controversial. Snowman (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The list was generated in phases with more than one script, which seemed to me to be the simplest way of doing the task. It needed an organised approach, but it was not very difficult. My scripts "looked at" all the IOC common bird names (over 10,500) in order to generate the list below and found out if each IOC bird name is a redirect, does not have a Wiki article, or is the actual article name on the Wiki, and after that a "sorting" script combined the redirects that targeted the same Wiki article. I manually shortened the list by making some uncontroversial page moves (after a lot of double checking and cross referencing) and I also manually removed redirects caused by common accents, which are used according to a consensus formed here some time ago; hence, redirects due to accents in birds named after place names or people are not included in the list. Also, I manually removed redirects due to regional English spelling differences. Several weeks ago, I copied the list of IOC names that did not have articles on the Wiki (a list of red-links) to this talk page and it has recently been archived. Snowman (talk) 18:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on listed bird names

I have kept the Hawaiian birds in the list, which are difficult for my scripts to deal with without doing at binary input. The red links for the Hawaiian birds are listed by my script, which did not use a binary input and could not handle unusual characters. I also hope to prompt consideration on the use of Hawaiian accents for titles of articles on the Wiki, because the accents do not appear on most keyboards. Snowman (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

  • The rendering problem may occur when a viewer copies a wide character from the Wiki to his or her own favourite text editor on their own computer. Of course, it is highly likely that there will not be anyone available to correct the incorrect rendering of wide characters done by their text editor. Snowman (talk) 18:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't see this as being a problem inherently, as it applies to any page with special characters, some of which are appropriately named as such (e.g. Øyvind Slåke). The bigger question I have with these special character names is whether or not these are legitimately the most common names for these species. The IOC listing without the special characters would tend to indicate that they might not be. I think it would be preferable to avoid special characters, but only at the margins. 0x0077BE (talk) 19:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
In the IBM character set å is decimal=134, hex=86, binary=10000110, so this is not a wide character; see chart. Ø looks like a wide character, but might be included in some character sets not used much in English speaking regions. Yes, when a bird name is named after a person or a place, then the bird name is spelled on the Wiki with the accents as used in the relevant language. I think that I have come across about five (not as many as ten) accents in non-Hawaiian bird names that are wide characters. These are due mostly to the bird being named after a person and I am not seeking to change the name of these Wiki articles. The majority of wide characters in bird names on are in Hawaiian bird names. Why use wide characters for Hawaiian bird names? Snowman (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow - what scripts are you using and what does "binary input" mean? If you are using a script, why does it matter whether it's on the keyboard or not? Also, can you clarify what this list is? Is the IOC name on the right? If so, it looks like all the names on the left already redirect to the names on the right, so I'm not sure what we're discussing here. 0x0077BE (talk) 17:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
IOC is on the left; these are the articles we have that are not named as the IOC would name them. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I think I was confused because I expected the IOC to have a unique name for each bird. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
IOC have split many more bird species than most authorities (I guess this is so that they have a name for most possibilities). The Wiki uses the best evidence for taxonomy and does not necessarily follow IOC taxonomy. Snowman (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I have written a few little computer programs, which I refer to as scripts. Snowman (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Regarding binary input/etc, I don't know exactly what Snowman means, but I think the point is that whatever method that was used to generate the above list somehow dropped the non-ASCII characters or something—the point, I think, is that WP uses them and IOC doesn't and it isn't worth fixing the list for this talk page. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
There are a limited number of variations of the binary code for characters, and of course the common characters get priority in ASCII character sets. No birds names include an en-dash or em-dash. Unusual characters have been allocated longer binary numbers and they need a binary input to be handled in computer programs (or scripts as I call them). They are sometimes called wide characters and need special handling. Modern browsers can handle them, but some commonly used text editors can not render wide characters. Consistency of handling wide characters is rather inconsistent and depends on what software is used. I have just copied what my script printed out including its non-handling of wide characters. I think there are technical reasons for using the IOC names for the Hawaiian birds (without unusual characters), so that they can be reliably copied and printed. Snowman (talk) 17:59, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure I would call it "binary code" it's just in a different character set. Either way, it's a good point about copy-paste. I'm not sure what the standard naming convention is for animals, but I would guess that the policy is to prefer the most commonly used name in the language of the wikipedia. I highly doubt that the full Hawaiian names are in common use in English for these birds, but rather some romanized/anglicized version of them, which would lend favor to the article title being changed to the IOC version. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:06, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
See Binary-to-text encoding and the binary equivalents in the tables on ASCII. Snowman (talk) 19:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Archer's Lark & Sidamo Lark

Archer's Lark and Sidamo Lark have been lumped by the IOC though it is still uncertain whether the Sidamo Lark is a subspecies or just a population of the Archer's Lark. The name Archer's Lark has priority as it was described earlier. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates/update-diary/ --Melly42 (talk) 20:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Pale Sand Martin

Can someone move Pale Sand Martin to the IOC preferred Pale Martin.........Thank-you! Pvmoutside (talk) 18:09, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I've done that one now. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Category:Pseudochelidoninae speedy delete

Can someone speedy delete the Category:Pseudochelidoninae......I created Category:Pseudochelidon and moved the articles there as it appears genus is the more consistent and preferable category over subfamily........Pvmoutside (talk) 17:17, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is the right way to do this. I think the general way to do it is to go through the CfD process for renaming a category. Is it standard to use genus instead of subfamily? 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 04:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
I nominated it for renaming and put the CfD template on the cat page. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 04:37, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Name change

For those wishing to comment, following a very recently made page move in line with the project's naming policy, an attempt is being made to reverse it at Talk:Black-faced Cuckooshrike. Maias (talk) 13:49, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Move to IOC names - formal discussions

Others:

  • Formal discussions have started on the relevant talk pages about moving the first five on the list above, but not currently for the Common Raven nor Common Gull. Snowman (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
There is plenty of discussion informally on the Common Gull to Mew Gull name change found on the talk page, and there has been at least a start of informal communication on the Common Raven to Northern Raven name change with formal pages now started for both if anyone would like to comment further....Pvmoutside (talk) 20:15, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Could it be that there is special name hopping at the IOC? I mean it is not the first time that crakes became rails or vice versa --Melly42 (talk) 11:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Birds for identification (156)

Adult Chinese Bamboo Partridge of the Taiwan subspecies Bambusicola thoracicus sonorivox also known as Taiwan Bamboo Partridge. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 20:21, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. File moved to File:Bambusicola thoracicus -Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan-8.jpg. Image description amended on commons without implying corroboration. Snowman (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes; assuming location ok, race gilbertii. Maias (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Update: Subspecies level identification added to image description on Commons and selected as the infobox image on en Wiki species page all without implying corroboration. Snowman (talk) 10:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Some confusion here; Z. minor does not occur in Sulawesi. Assuming the location is correct, I suggest this is the nominate race of Black-crowned White-eye (Z. atrifrons atrifrons), (called Black-fronted White-eye in Birds of Wallacea). Further confirmation would be desirable. Maias (talk) 00:12, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Looks fine for nominate atrifrons and HBW says it is common in central Sulawesi. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:37, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Range maps of a few parrots in the flickr photo-stream matched the locations that the author provided, but I have not got range maps for other types of birds in Indonesia. Snowman (talk) 10:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Update: Black-crowned White-eye moved to File:Zosterops atrifrons -North Sulawesi, Indonesia-8.jpg, image description on Commons amended, and selected as the infobox image on en Wiki all without implying corroboration Snowman (talk) 10:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
There are two Rallina sp in Thailand with different leg colour but this one looks like a juvenile. I don't have any info on leg color of juv. faciata. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:50, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
That Flickr user has some really nice shots. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:02, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Definitely juvenile, barring pattern and leg colour look OK for Slaty-legged Crake. Red-legged Crake has wider black bars, and I think the juvenile should have a yellowish tinge to the legs Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Update: described as a juvenile in image description on Commons and removed from the infobox of en Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 22:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Clearly a Petroica and of the three that occur in NZ, Tomtit is the only match. The amount of white on the wing indicates male. No idea what happened to the forehead spot. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 17:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Snowman (talk) 20:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

It's a raven, and as Common Raven is regular there and Chihuahuan Raven would be out of range, and as I see nothing in the picture to suggest Chihuahuan, it's safe to call it Common. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 17:59, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree; it looks far more like a female Malagasy Kestrel than a harrier. Maias (talk) 00:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Update: file moved to File:Falco newtoni -Morondava, Madagascar-4.jpg and file description amended. Snowman (talk) 11:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
  • My suggestion depends entirely on the image that I linked being identified correctly, so a third opinion would be helpful. I think I have seen another species that looks similar, but I do not recall what it was. Snowman (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Adult winter male Dusky Thrush Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:18, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
File moved to File:Turdus eunomus -Japan -worm-8.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 20:09, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
Doesn't seem outrageous. Looking up some other images from around the web, I see 5 here and here, so 6 doesn't seem way out of proportion. That said, in those pictures, the eggs have a markedly different appearance from the one on Wikipedia. They are a pale green with brown specks. The ones in the WP picture are white and mostly with no specks. I'm not a subject matter expert, though. 0x0077BE (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
The odds seem against it. Crows usually nest very high in trees. Eggs wrong colour. A very large brood for a crow. Comments welcome. Snowman (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
More opinions needed. Snowman (talk) 11:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Is it possible these are Mallard eggs? Mallard#Breeding. There's no good scale in either picture, but the size, shape and color of the eggs seems about right, Germany is within their range and their nesting behavior seems like it would lend towards building nests high up and in a building. Only thing is the clutch seems a bit small - Mallard article says 8-13, but it could be that something has been stealing the eggs (maybe a Carrion Crow). Allegedly starlings lay 5-7 eggs as well and Germany is well within their range. Normally these are pale blue, but external link suggests they can be white (of a white Starling egg) 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 16:47, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Do Carrion Crow hens ever sneakily lay some of their eggs in another pair's nest? I know that some bird species will do this. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:02, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any reference to brood parasitism by carrion crows, but I think that the number of eggs is the least of the problems with the identification. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:13, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Update: I have removed the image from the en Wiki species page, because the clutch and nest do not look typical for a Carrion Crow. The eggs and nest still need species clarification. Snowman (talk) 23:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Does anyone know if Carrion Crow eggs commonly vary in colour? I believe that in some species, specifically those that do not really need to camouflage their eggs, the colour and markings of the eggs can differ quite significantly. Perhaps it depends on the diet of the mother? I'm not really sure. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
A nest on scaffolding, like the one in the image, reminds me of pigeons' behaviour to nest on ledges of buildings. It would be nice to have this one identified, because it was on the en Wiki species page and it is still being shown on the de Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 13:36, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
I cross-posted this to a subreddit on bird identification to get more eyes on it. They make good points about mallards and starlings being out. Interesting suggestion here is that it could be a rook. I could only find one picture of their eggs here - looks about the right color and shape, though the photo we have doesn't have the speckle pattern on it. Seems quite possible that a rook would be mistaken for a carrion crow, as they look similar and have similar calls. I have also contacted the original author to ask why they identified them as carrion crow eggs. According to the EXIF data, the photo was taken 10:35, 18 April 2012. This is within a Rook's February-May mating range. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Hier meine Antwort in deutsch zu den Fragen. 1. Rabenkrähen (Carrion Crow) haben Gelege mit 4-6 Eiern, ausnahmweise sogar 7 Eier. 2. Die Eifarbe ist sehr variable 3. Rabenkrähen nisten in Deutschland häufig auf menschlichen Bauwerken wie Strommasten.--Falkmart (talk) 15:02, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Google translate of the above text (seems grammatical to me): "Here is my answer to the questions in German. 1 Carrion Crows (Carrion Crow) have clutches with 4-6 eggs were quite exceptional even 7 eggs. 2 The egg color is very variable 3 Crows nest in Germany often on human structures such as electricity pylons." 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 15:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Bird 1569b. Oh by the way, considering that you have an account over there already, do you think that you could ask on Reddit about File:Shillong parrot.jpg too? That one was displayed prominently in one of our parrot articles for quite a long time and I don't think that anyone ever figured out what it actually was... Cheers. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Sure. Hopefully there's not some courtesy rule about waiting a few days or something between posts. Posted it here. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 23:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
User there suggested that it's a young Slaty-headed Parakeet or a Grey-headed parakeet. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 05:24, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks very much! The users there now seem to agree that this is a Grey-headed Parakeet - which would make it the first photograph we have of this species. Any objections to my updating the description and categorizing it as such on Commons? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
Lets not jump to conclusions too quickly. This image of a young parrot was examined in the "Birds for identification" series twice before and no definite conclusions were formed. See Bird 1317 archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 58 and Bird 1374 archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 59. I think it should remain in a category for unidentified birds at this juncture. Snowman (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

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Just for info, Feb 2014 for this project Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of birds by flight heights

The AfD for List of birds by flight heights may be of interest to this project. -- 101.119.15.210 (talk) 07:34, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Capitalisation issues again

A heads up: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_flightless_crane&diff=597819540&oldid=592416627 I reverted, but I sense the same old debate coming up. FunkMonk (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Still hard for people to find the guideline on the bird project page without the table of contents. FunkMonk (talk) 16:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Hand-rearing of parrots soon to be made illegal in Netherlands.

See here. Just for your information. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that is fair. Often there is a little chick in the brood that can not compete for food with its bigger sibs. The article says supplemental feeding is allowed, to help a runt in the brood. Snowman (talk) 12:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
By the look of it, they're only trying to outlaw the routine practice of pulling chicks from their parents and hand-rearing them for the purpose of producing tame pets. I know that quite a lot of people think that this is cruel and harmful. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk page location problems

Checking the status of the pages mentioned in the discussion above, some had not had their talk pages moved when the article was moved - Talk:Thick-billed Murre still redirected to Talk:Brünnich's Guillemot, for instance. I have fixed these and urge others to please check these IOC-compliance moves to be sure that the talk page is at the correct location. - The Bushranger One ping only 16:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Page move discussion for Common Gull

Pymoutside is threatening to leave Wikipedia following the discussion here, in which dogma overrules project policy and common sense. I hope Pymoutside reconsiders, and I wonder if anyone wishes to comment further on that talk page? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:06, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I have often wondered if using a non-informative link name a la EOL has some benefits http://eol.org/pages/1049585/overview ! Good to take a step back once in a while and see the bigger picture and not sweat the small stuff. The article Common Gull/Mew Gull//Larus canus leads to the same content but that page really needs more work... Shyamal (talk) 07:35, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Users can have strong feelings about bird names; however, perhaps its not that bad, because there are redirects and an explanation in the introduction to cater for alternative common names for birds. As far as I am aware, WP Bird policies and guidelines have never overruled a decisive consensus in formal page move discussions, but it is less clear what to do when there is no overall consensus in a move discussion. I think making a bold page move can benefit the Wiki and I think that it was worth trying putting article at Mew Gull. Personally speaking, I think that User BD2412 was appropriate in moving the page back to Common Gull. The Common Gull article currently gets about 60 to 80 views per day, so I expect that it has been a moderately popular page for about 10 years with this name. I hope that people do not waste too much time thinking about these page moves. It looks like only a decisive formal page move discussion will move this page. Perhaps, WP:CCC will cheer people. Snowman (talk) 11:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
The process for appealing move closures is Wikipedia:Move review. I have advised those who have objected to the outcome of that discussion that they can try to make a better case for a move in the future. bd2412 T 02:16, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


  • it is less clear what to do when there is no overall consensus in a move discussion - Actually, it's extremely clear: if there is no consensus in a move discussion, the page does not get moved. Period, full stop, end of line, because (and I bold this for emphasis) this is Wikipedia policy:

In article title discussions, no consensus has two defaults: If an article title has been stable for a long time, then the long-standing article title is kept. If it has never been stable, or has been unstable for a long time, then it is moved to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

— WP:NOCONSENSUS
Moving a page that has been stable at a title for a long time (since 2005!), as was done in this case, despite a move discussion having closed as "no consensus", is a violation of policy, and is in fact disruptive editing. - The Bushranger One ping only 02:46, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Okay, Wikipedia:Move review it is then. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:55, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Great Northern Diver was stable from 2003-2009 until the same basis I used (the IOC) to change the name from Common Gull to Mew Gull was used to change the name from Great Northern Loon to Great Northern Diver.

...Likewise:

  • Black-throated Diver 2003 to Black-throated Loon in 2009
  • Pacific Diver in 2003 to Pacific Loon in 2009
  • Red-throated Diver in 2003 to Red-throated Loon in 2009
  • Slavonian Grebe in 2003 to Horned Grebe in 2009
  • Brunnich's Guillemot in 2003 to Thick-billed Murre in 2009
  • European Starling in 2003 to Common Starling in 2011
  • Arctic Skua in 2003 to Parastic Jaeger in 2009
  • Long-tailed Skua in 2003 to Long-tailed Jaeger in 2009

That is.....if we are using the stability argument as the sole criteria...........Pvmoutside (talk) 04:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Move review listed now. I encourage everyone to follow due process. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:16, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Listed where? I don't see anything at Wikipedia:Move review. bd2412 T 05:13, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Had it in wrong place. there now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:06, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • As far as I can see, the Common Gull Wiki article is written in UK English and I do not see any reason for changing the article to USA English. I am unconvinced by the argument that Mull Gull should be the page title based on this name being the USA name for the gull. I can understand motives for moving the page to Mull Gull to for IOC name consistency, but the page move discussion was not conclusive. I do not see any problems with the previous formal page move discussion nor its conclusion to keep the name at "Common Gull". Snowman (talk) 14:03, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Snowman, what do you see as the "compelling reason" to keep this species at a non-IOC name? Just because it's written in British English? So was Great Northern Diver, but we managed to change that one without all this drama. And, by the way, Pvmoutside didn't suggest "changing the page title based on this name being the USA name for the gull", nor did s/he suggest "changing the article to USA English". S/he merely suggested moving the article to the IOC name, in accordance with the WP:BIRDS project agreement, which you yourself were a firm proponent of! — Preceding unsigned comment added by MeegsC (talk • contribs) 16:02, 6 March 2014‎ (UTC)
The compelling reason is Wikipedia policy, specifically WP:CONSENSUS. Which explicitly says that in the case of an article that has had a stable title and which has had a RM discussion closed as no consensus, the article is to remain at the stable title. The "project agreement" is WP:LOCALCONSENSUS which is a useful tool, but cannot be used to override policy. - The Bushranger One ping only 16:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Regarding the moves mentioned by Pvmoutside above: the Great Northern Loon move was made after a successful RM, and all of the others were WP:BOLD moves. Regardless of article title stability, bold moves are only problematic if they are contested. However, in the case of a requested move that closes as no consensus, then an immediate WP:BOLD move is against policy and disruptive (and, some might make a strong case, WP:POINTy). - The Bushranger One ping only 16:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Bushranger, I wasn't suggesting a page move without consensus. I was asking Snowman why he disagreed with this particular move on other grounds, given that he generally supports the idea of using IOC names. His "compelling reason" is not WP:CONSENSUS. MeegsC (talk) 17:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I may have been misunderstood by User MeegsC. I commented on language versions, because language versions are brought up at in the page move review started by User Casliber. Like User MeegsC and others, I did not vote in the recently closed page move discussion for the Common Gull. I am simply respecting the conclusion of the page move discussion to keep the page name at Common Gull albeit without a consensus to move it to Mew Gull. I would also respect the outcome to Mew Gull, if it have ended with that conclusion. To me, it looks like WP Birds is in the spotlight with this move, and we are getting help and support from editors who do not usually comment a lot here. The Wiki has due process and I think that it must be that way or it would be the Wild West on the Wiki and pages would get moved boldly for all sorts of reasons by anyone. Most editors would be able to identity a controversial page move, which are quite different from non-controversial page moves. Anyone can start another formal page move discussion for the Common Gull, which is clearly a controversial page move. I would guess that there will be another attempt to move the page after an appropriate length of time with another formal page review and I have no idea what the outcome will be. Snowman (talk) 17:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Following process was why I started the move review. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Polish chicken

Are you any good with chickens, or do you know anyone into chicken breeds? The Polish chicken is a most weird article. Mostly opinions, I think. Hafspajen (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I have a chicken book somewhere but have a backlog of urgent issues. Hopefully soon....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:21, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
FYI, I don't think you should polish a chicken. They don't tarnish and it might irritate them. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 02:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion about bird species name (capitalization, hyphenation)

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Crowned Crane which would alter the title of several articles. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thanks.--Animalparty-- (talk) 02:12, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Please take a look at the Crowned Crane article before commenting on that talk page. Plantdrew (talk) 15:01, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

An invitation

Hello,
Please note that Rare breed (agriculture), which is within your project's scope, is This week's article for improvement (until Sunday the 16th inclusively). A few Wikipedians are collaborating on the article, but we could use more detailed content on rare breeds of poultry! Anyone who sees this message is welcome to join our efforts. No need to be an expert. Any edit that helps improve the article is welcome!
Thank you,
Madalibi (talk) 05:52, 13 March 2014 (UTC), on behalf of the TAFI team

Birds for identification (157)

Definitely not pure PBD. Maias (talk) 00:46, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree, I'd guess PBDxMallard Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:46, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Is its odd appearance because it is a juvenile? This web-page on hybrid ducks looks helpful. Snowman (talk) 11:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Why do you think it's a juvenile, Snowman? I would have thought that the green cap and bright legs pointed toward an adult or near-adult male, although I'd accept that aging hybrids might not be as straightforward as with pure-bred ducks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:48, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
I do not know what this birds is. I asked if it could be a juvenile to clarity what it is not. Snowman (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Why is this not just a Mallard in eclipse? Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
The stripes on its head make it look like a Pacific Black Duck. Snowman (talk) 22:59, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Look pretty normal for eclipse Mallard. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:04, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
Is it wing clipped? Photo taken in January in NZ, I think that it will be summer in NZ in January, and so not the time for winter plumage. Is it a juvenile? See File:Mallard_getting_eclipse_plumage.jpg, which shows a series of images showing Mallards that are similar to Bird 1570. Snowman (talk) 12:16, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
It's certainly not wing clipped; you can clearly see the primaries. It's not a juvenile, as it's in molt with worn feathers. And it's perfectly normal for ducks to be in eclipse plumage (i.e. what Snowman's calling "winter plumage") in summer; that's when ducks molt. They're in their breeding plumage in the winter. January is summer in New Zealand, so it would be perfectly normal for a duck to be in eclipse plumage there now. I agree with Chuunen Baka — it looks fine for a Mallard in eclipse plumage! MeegsC (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this looks like a perfectly normal adult male Mallard in eclipse plumage. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Mallard moved to File:Anas platyrhynchos -Lake Rotoroa, Nelson Lakes National Park, South Island, New Zealand-8.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 21:21, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I think it's some form of hybrid between Golden Pheasant and Lady Amherst's Pheasant. Looking at other hybrids such as here, though, I'm only seeing one with a white crown/crest, and that one's of unsure parentage. Maybe it's not a full adult? I'm not quite sure what explains the crest. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Definitely hybrid of Lady Amherst's Pheasant. My money's on Golden as the other part, they are in the same genus and produce fertile young, so all sorts of back crosses are possible, not necessarily first generation cross. Feral populations will interbreed where both occur, so not necessarily even of captive origin Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Re-categorized to the pre-existing cat Hybrid Chrysolophus on Commons. Image description on Commons amended. Snowman (talk) 18:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
Jurong Bird Park houses all three Goura but the purple mantle and plain breast make this cristata. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
A look at the park website indicates Montserrat Oriole. Maias (talk) 23:18, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
They do have those but this is a White-rumped Shama which is also on their list. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:18, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Update: I checked the zoo website, but I missed the web-pages, which are linked above. It is useful to refer to a complete list of animals at the zoo. File moved to File:Copsychus malabaricus -Durrell Wildlife Park, Jersey, United Kingdom-8a.jpg on Commons and file description amended. There are plenty images of the male White-rumped Shama on Commons, and I think that this is one of the best, so I have shown it on the en Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 11:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Looks like a male Grey Peacock-Pheasant to me. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 19:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Other birds in the genus look similar. Snowman (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps Malayan Peacock-Pheasant is closer because of the orange facial skin and the coloration of the plumage. Close though. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 21:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Update: Moved to File:Polyplectron schleiermacheri -Jurong Bird Park, Singapore-8a.jpg and selected for the infobox on the en Wiki species page. The other very similar species is the Bornean Peacock-Pheasant, but that has a white chin. Snowman (talk) 21:15, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
That's a juvenile Swallow-tailed Gull — and what a mess it is! MeegsC (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Moved to File:Creagrus furcatus -Galapagos Islands, Ecuador -juvenile-8.jpg on Commons and description amended. Snowman (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Is this an example of camouflage in nature? Snowman (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Probably only insofar as most chicks of species that nest in the open are inconspicuously plumaged, for obvious reasons. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:36, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Features check out for solitarius and it doesn't match any other Tinamou from Brazil. Sexes differ only by size. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Update: selected for the infobox image on Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 10:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
This is Red-necked Nightjar. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Update: moved to File:Caprimulgus ruficollis -Portugal-8.jpg on Commons. Selected for the infobox image on en Wiki. Amendments made on about four language Wikis that showed this image. Snowman (talk) 10:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Difficult to see anything supporting livia. I agree Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:55, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks like an adult Common Wood Pigeon to me. I presume its left wing obscure its left white "ear patch". Snowman (talk) 19:10, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Removed from the article. Could someone with the necessary permissions rename the image on Commmons. Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:33, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Renamed as File:Ringeltaube Columba palumbus Hannover Germany.jpg Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Useful source

Just noticed this interesting "old" source which has some things that are not present in more recent works like Jobling's. Shyamal (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Swann, H. Kirke (1913). A dictionary of English and Folk-names of British Birds. London: Witherby and Co.
nice! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks useful. Has it been added to resources on the WikiProject Birds main page somewhere? Snowman (talk) 10:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Added now. Shyamal (talk) 10:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Birds for identification (158)

Dark hood is wrong. These are Common Bulbuls. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 19:39, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Moved to File:Pycnonotus barbatus -near Footsteps Eco Lodge, Gunjur, Gambia -two-8.jpg and file description amended. Snowman (talk) 20:53, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not totally convinced. This could be a Long-tailed Nightjar, except that there doesn't appear to be any chestnut tint, but then you would expect some chestnut tint on European too. May isn't too late for there still to be some Europeans in W Africa, but the pattern of the scapulars looks more like Long-tailed, and there appears to be a white front neck collar, OK for Long-tailed, but in European the equivalent is broad and buff-coloured. I'll be interested to see what others think Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:15, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
Looks good for Long-tailed - compare [10] - and doesn't match any others from there. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 19:32, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Moved to File:Caprimulgus climacurus -Gambia-8 (2).jpg on Commons. Four other pictures of this bird amended on Commons. First image of this species on Commons and the Wiki. Snowman (talk) 21:11, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Silver Gulls. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 19:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Agree Silvery-cheeked Hornbill male. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:06, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Moved to File:Bycanistes brevis -Tropical Birdland, Leicestershire, England-8.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 11:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed. Don't think you can sex on bill shape at that angle. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 12:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I believe it should be whatever used to go as P. flaviscapis validirostris - I do not have access to the required references but from what I can find online it seems to be what was later proposed as Pteruthius validirostris ripleyi Biswas, 1960 and therefore P. ripleyi. Shyamal (talk) 08:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
File:Pteruthius_flaviscapis.jpg should could also be ripleyi. Really need to check the old literature, the changes and figure out the correct history. Shyamal (talk) 08:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
Update. Based on range the Uttarakhand bird has to be ripleyi. Shyamal (talk) 04:05, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Someone on Commons moved Himalayan Shrike-babbler file to File:Pteruthius ripleyi, male, Paharpani, Uttarakhand, India.jpg. Snowman (talk) 16:06, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
I think this is a female Bull-headed Shrike, not sure what its status is in Taiwan, though. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Could it be a female Brown Shrike? Snowman (talk) 21:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Jim. From the plate in MacKinnon & Phillipps’ A Field Guide to the Birds of China it looks most like a Bull-headed to me, female or possibly immature. The lack of a strong black eyestripe indicates it is not an adult male. The text says that the female is “distinguished from female Brown by rufous-brown ear coverts”. It is a winter migrant to Taiwan. Maias (talk) 00:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
And details like the whitish supercilium are spot on for bucephalus, but not cristatus Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:15, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I see the difference between rufous-brown and brown ear patches now. Moved to File:Lanius bucephalus -Taipei City, Taiwan-8.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 16:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
yes. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:22, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Mottled forehead and dullish plumage indicate female Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:15, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC on NCCAPS

WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) (WP:NCCAPS) has a new RFC proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Removed false promotion of a wikiproject essay as a "guideline" related to bird name capitalization. The wording is convoluted, but I think approval would mean that NCCAPS would no longer mention WikiProject Birds naming conventions. It's less clear if species articles would be renamed/edited to lower case. So far consensus favors lower case bird names by 3 to 1. Agyle (talk) 03:13, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it's to remove deference of WP:NCCAPS to WP:BIRDS#Naming in a hatnote there (a POV-fork from MOS:LIFE) and especially the false elevation of the latter to "guideline" status in that hatnote. It wouldn't affect the in-context link to that wikiproject page in the prose there. Don't be melodramatic. I'm altering the false and blatantly WP:CANVASSING heading here to something neutral.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Breeds

Are there any distinct formal breeds of birds – named, selectively bred varieties, covered by conformance standards for shows, managed in studbooks, trademarked/patented for agricultural proposes, or otherwise reliably identifiable as breeds? I do not mean wild populations, landraces or subspecies. I was surprised not to find anything like at at Parrot given how popular the birds are and how many breeders there are. I'm not sure I've encountered formal breed of cockatiels, budgies, etc., either. In case it's not clear what I'm talking about I mean the difference between Labrador Retriever (formal breed), St. John's water dog (landrace/population from which that breed and others was formalized), dog (species).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Poultry fanciers are pretty specific and dogmatic about breeds, with The American Standard of Perfection, British Poultry Standards, and (less significantly) Australian Poultry Standard among the popular guidelines for poultry shows. Breed-specific clubs like the Belgian d'Uccle & Booted Bantam Club sometimes have their own guidelines. Category:Chicken_breeds or Category:Bantam chicken breeds will lead to some specific breeds if you're interested, and Belgian Bearded d'Uccle is an example of one specific bantam breed. ––Agyle (talk) 00:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

See the subcategories of Category:Domesticated birds. Plantdrew (talk) 00:57, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm suprised it's all so agricultural. I guess the pet trade in birds has had insufficient time to develop many distinct breeds?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Question on common name capitalization

This has probably been asked many times, but WP:BIRDS doesn't cover it and I don't want to dig through the archives. Is there a general consensus within the bird project for how to capitalize alternative common names, as opposed to the single official IOC common name for a species? And within alternative common names, should a distinction be made between those the IOC mentions as unofficial, and those that it doesn't? Agyle (talk) 22:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

MOS:LIFE indicates lower-case for them. The reason WP:BIRDS has been maintaining capitalization of IOC names is that it is a published and [supposedly] universal standard in the field, and thus [to supporters of the idea] a special case. Virtually no members of this project would advocate capitalizing cougar, for example, and decapitalizing such things since 2008 has been almost totally noncontroversial. This "special case" is not true of any other species common names (or some make a case that for a few types of insects and plants that there are similar alleged conventions, but let's not get distracted).

The problem is that that present advice at MOS seems to be to capitalize all common names (i.e., including "Cougar" or whatever) in any article that capitalizes the common name of its subject, but this probably needs to be revisited for clarification at WT:MOS, as it raises a number of problems. E.g., it's ungrammatical and original research to capitalize many foreign words, which many vernacular names are, in languages with less lax proper noun rules as English, just as one example. I also suspect that the consistency-within-the-article idea was backed by people who detest the capitalization even more than I do, specifically because it would lead to people capitalizing animals like "Cougar" in bird articles, which would irritate random readers even more and generate an increase in anti-WP:BIRDS#Naming controversy. In the interim, we always want redirects to exist from common names, both lower and upper case, to whatever the real article name is.

I don't think anyone could fault you for lower- or upper-casing non-IOC common names in and only in ornithology articles, at this particular point in time. It's "correct" to do it for the within-an-article consistency reason and it's "correct" to not do it because we don't capitalize common names of species other than one project has a local consensus to do so for IOC names in articles within their scope.

I would lean toward not capitalizing them, because the advocates of the consistency language obviously did not think through the secondary effects of imposing that consistency restriction (or did and WP:POINTedly don't care). Even if I supported capitalization, I would probably stick to advocating only capitalizing the IOC names, because demanding caps all over the place looks unreasonable and badly undermines the [already not entirely solid] argument that there's something special about the IOC list, that we should treat it as somehow reliable as to style itself not just the reliability of the names, style aside, that it lists. I don't really buy that "IOC is special" argument, but I would like to see it rise or fall on its own merits, not because some people confuse the difference between a formally IOC-advanced name and one that isn't, or between such a formal name and capitalization-for-emphasis in a field guide. I care about that on-it-own-merits issue more than some of you would give me credit for, because it has implications for a lot of other stuff, not just bird capitalization (and because I'm a logician, not a politician, and I believe that process is important here, though far short of bureaucracy).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Remove "Use a consistent style for common names within an article".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:33, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Bird vocabulary in French

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Any French ornithologists in the house? (version of 02:49, 9 April 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 02:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

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