Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 68

Anas penelope

It's stated "This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 under its current scientific name.". Isn't is this contradictory? As long as I know, if the name Anas was replaced for Mareca, then the current is M., not the genus it was first described under. ※ Sobreira ◣◥ (parlez) 13:40, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The change from Anas to Mareca is recent and only some authorities have made the move. Linnaeus had Anas penelope see here and so did Vol 1 2nd ed of Peters in 1979 here.

HBW alive and H&M4 now have Mareca, the IOC list (and Zoonomen) still have Anas. From the log I can see that HBW alive made the change in Oct 2015 but the page on the family Anatidae still uses Anas penelope.

The important publication appears to be: Peters, J.L.; et al. (2005). "Phylogenetics of wigeons and allies (Anatidae: Anas): the importance of sampling multiple loci and multiple individuals". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 35 (1): 209–224. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.12.017. hdl:11603/11781. PMID 15737592. available here. My preference would be to follow the IOC list unless there are strong reasons not to. Aa77zz (talk) 15:09, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

There are several studies that proposed Mareca as distinct from Anas, e.g.

• Livezey, B.C. (1991). A phylogenetic analysis and classification of recent dabbling ducks (Tribe Anatini) based on comparative morphology. Auk 108, 471–507. and most current
• Gonzalez, Düttmann & Wink 2009. Phylogenetic relationships based on two mitochondrial genes and hybridization patterns in Anatidae. J Zool 279(3): 310–318.

--Melly42 (talk) 18:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

There is another article to consider:

• Johnson, K.P.; Sorenson, M.D. (1999). "Phylogeny and biogeography of dabbling ducks (genus: Anas): A comparison of molecular and morphological evidence" (PDF). The Auk. 116 (3): 792–805. doi:10.2307/4089339. JSTOR 4089339.

Johnson and Sorenson wrote: "If the designation of the genus Anas is to be maintained across most of the major dabbling duck lineages, then the elevation of the genus Mareca for the wigeons is not warranted." Note that as far as I can see, Gonzales et al 2009 don't mention the name Mareca, nor do they discuss splitting Anas. Aa77zz (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Gonzalez et al is password protected and the password is "2009". (downloadable here) There is a philogenetic tree in the paper that shows Anas penelope as sister group of the American Anas species. Remsen state: Livezey (1991) advocated resurrection of genus Mareca for the wigeon + Holarctic Anas strepera and Palearctic A. falcata, representing a return to the classification of Pinto (1938), Hellmayr & Conover (1948a), and Phelps & Phelps (1958a). Mareca was merged into Anas following Delacour & Mayr (1945) and Johnsgard (1965). Genetic data (Johnson & Sorenson 1999) confirm that Mareca is monophyletic but also suggest that the resurrection of Mareca might make Anas a paraphyletic genus (see also Eo et al. 2009). Peters et al. (2005) found that A. sibilatrix, not Old World A. penelope as in traditional and morphology-based (e.g., Livezey 1991) classifications, is the sister to A. americana. Dickinson & Remsen (2013), followed by del Hoyo & Collar (2014), resurrected Mareca based on the data in Gonzalez et al. (2009). http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm (see point 14). By the way we had a similar discussion at Anas (Mareca) strepera last year. --Melly42 (talk) 08:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Bird articles by size not updated

The list[1] has not been updated since 2010, so I wonder whether some bot has stopped working? If it can't be fixed, the page is effectively useless and outdated. On this note, a "popular pages"[2] site based on article views could be nice instead. FunkMonk (talk) 18:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

There's a popular page report already, Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Popular pages, but it's linked at the bottom of the main page under "See also" with a non-intuitive link title. The size of the report can be increased from the top 500 to top 1000 if desired.

I'll mention a couple other WikiProject based tools and reports. There's Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Bird_articles_by_quality_log with a link buried at the bottom of the assessment page. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds/Article_alerts is transcluded on the main page, but it can be helpful to have it on your watchlist to be alerted to new alerts. There's a report on bird pages flagged with various cleanup templates here. And here is a tool that finds links needing disambiguation on bird pages. Plantdrew (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, you can get a list of bird articles by size by following this link and clicking the "Do it" button at the bottom of the page. It wouldn't be very hard to turn that into a more up-to-date report (but I don't know how to make that an automated report, and am not volunteering to keep it regularly updated; I'd be willing to do it once if there is interest). Plantdrew (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the popular pages link should be placed in the overview template at the top? Not sure why a see also section way below is needed for a single feature... FunkMonk (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The tool looks cool. Will try soon. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

If no one objects, I'll place the popular pages link in the box at the top of the page... FunkMonk (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

ID help?

Hello Wikiproject Bird members, I was wondering if anyone would be able to identify the hornbill species in the picture here? It's in use on an article and I'd like to caption it as something more specific than just "Hornbill". Thanks, CMD (talk) 00:29, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Those look like oriental pied hornbills -- BamBen2715 (talk) 02:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, from the pictures it does look like that. Appreciated, CMD (talk) 21:08, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Islands tagged by this project?

Looking at the popular pages[3], I noticed that a lot of islands are tagged as part of this project, for example Christmas Island, Norfolk Island, and Pitcairn Islands (and lakes as well, Lake Eyre). Isn't this overkill? Of course, there might be many endemic birds there, but that should hardly be enough for inclusion? There are also many endemic species in Australia as a whole, but that's no reason to tag it... FunkMonk (talk) 08:45, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the island articles shouldn't be tagged. Aa77zz (talk) 09:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the idea there was that Important Bird Areas would get tagged for the project. I don't think tagging Christmas Island is beneficial, but I'm not sure where the line should be drawn if not all IBAs are tagged (right now there are 903 IBAs tagged for the project and about 500 untagged, but the untagged ones seem to be a matter of oversight rather than any conscious effort to exclude them). Plantdrew (talk) 17:57, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

So more places should actually be tagged instead of removing any tags? FunkMonk (talk) 18:31, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

No, if it were up to me and the only options were tagging all IBAs or tagging no IBAs, I'd say tag no IBAs. I don't think the project scope as currently written includes them, and for the most part info on an IBA will end up being a sentence or two in a longer article about a protected area or geographic feature (and this project is unlikely to do much to improve the other sections of those articles). But I just watch this talk page and rarely work directly on anything bird related. I assume more active bird editors may want to have some IBAs tagged; the question then becomes where to draw the line. Plantdrew (talk) 19:13, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with removal. What do you mean by draw the line? I guess some place is either an IBA or not? FunkMonk (talk) 19:20, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

If there's agreement with removing all, there's no line to draw. But look at Chalky, Big Green and Badger Island Groups Important Bird Area; it only exists as a topic as an IBA (this isn't a grouping of islands that makes much sense as a geographical topic). I won't object to removing the bird tag from that article, but an article on that particular collection of islands would never have been created if it weren't for an editor interested in birds. Plantdrew (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Great northern diver/Common loon fun

OK kids........I was looking at the common name changes from the last IOC post. Since we standardize English names there I thought I would start a discussion on the name change before proposing a move.....so here goes..... As we all know, Europe and Asia use Great Northern Diver for the common name of Gavia immer. North America uses Common Loon. The IOC used Great Northern Loon as a spirit of compromise as the name of the bird. On the Jan 25, 2016 post, the IOC reverted to using North America's name of Common Loon stating the compromise name never received any traction. So the two arguments as I see them are to move the name to Common Loon and to use our standard for English name convention, or to keep the name as Great northern loon, since it has been stable for a while, but we would be the only ones calling it that.....my vote is to switch to Common Loon, but I'm biased being American........Let's fire it up!......Pvmoutside (talk) 20:20, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Speaking as a Brit, I fear 'Great Northern Loon' was only ever an acceptable compromise to American eyes. It just made me think of a particularly irritating colleague who has a Yorkshire accent. Best to go with IOC. William Avery (talk) 22:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Yep. Common loon for all reasons above...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:54, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I've been a long-time advocate of GND on the basis of varieties of English, but I think to be consistent we need to go loony Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:15, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Beastie Bot makes lists of birds by their IUCN Red List status

I'm not a graphic design but you might know me as the designer of this "status image". Now I've made a list of critically endangered birds.

Hi. I've been editing Wikipedia for over a decade. I designed the "status image" you see on threatened species pages, and simplified the taxobox so that adding it was as easy as status = CR.

For the past couple of months I've been working on generating a human-readable lists of species based around IUCN's assessments. The bird lists are the first ones where I've uploaded the entire set and attempted to engage the community for feedback (which is what I'm doing here now).

I've aimed to make these lists as readable as possible, to resemble crafted pages rather than database dumps: Taxonomic orders are split into families only when their sections become too large. Common names are used when possible (taken mostly from Wikipedia's article titles, but only if they are unambiguous, or alternatively taken from IUCN's Red List after recapitalization and checking for uniqueness). Scientific names are persevered within the links, but are not always shown (to reduce the size and increase the readability of the lists). There's also a bunch of statistics which I've put into sentences, and hints about what scientific names mean when there isn't a vernacular name.

• List of least concern birds
• List of near threatened birds
• List of vulnerable birds
• List of endangered birds
• List of critically endangered birds
• List of data deficient birds

I plan to update the lists again soon with the latest IUCN data when it becomes available to me (their data export function appears to be broken or stalled, and switching over to the newer APIs will take some time)

I welcome feedback, and will try to observe and incorporate edits to the lists into updates. However, even better than a simple reply would be if anyone wants to make themselves part of the project. I've written up an "Idea Lab" for Beastie Bot where you can read more about it, and I'd appreciate anyone showing their support by putting their tildes under Participants or Endorsements. If enough people can see the value in this project then I would like to build a community around it, open source it, and move it to Wikimedia Labs servers so that it can have its own life, independent of mine.

Feedback welcome, preferably at User talk:Beastie Bot (as keeping track of threads on Wikipedia is laborious), or just edit the lists. —Pengo 01:16, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Accipitriformes stub template

Hi, all,

I've put up a proposal to create a template and category for Accipitriformes stubs. It looks wrong when an article has Accipitriformes in the taxobox and body, but Falconiformes in the stub message.

The wrinkle in the plan will be what to do with the 23 stubs for forest falcons and caracaras. I'd like to see them keep their own category, but by Stub Sorting rules they may have to be upmerged into a parent category.

Does anyone have strong feelings about bird stub sorting categories (as distinct from the stub messages that appear at the end of articles)?

Pelagic (talk) 17:27, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

New draft by a student needs help to merge into mainspace stub

A student project has produced Draft:Christmas Island Hawk-Owl which has substantially more comprehensive content than the existing mainspace stub Christmas boobook (yes it really is the same bird: Ninox natalis). However, the new draft has many formatting and other problems, so it really needs someone familiar with the technicalities to perform the merge. Please help. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Oher than the common name of the bird, it appears all that is needed is to reformat the references and add links. Does the student have a wikiname we can credit him/her with the content?......Pvmoutside (talk) 13:20, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Check the page history for the main author's username. At least the taxobox and categories from the mainspace stub should be merged too. BTW, given that it has at least two different English common names I think the article should be at Ninox natalis with redirects. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:32, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move of Corvus (genus)

There is currently a requested move of Corvus (genus) to Crow at Talk:Corvus (genus). Please join the discussion. No such user (talk) 15:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The correct lemma should be Crows and Ravens --Melly42 (talk) 18:20, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Crows and Ravens would not be a good title, since there are already articles for Raven, Rook (bird), and Jackdaw.....Pvmoutside (talk) 06:18, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Standard handling of subspecies?

I was reviewing article requests for taxa and saw that there are two requests for subspecies of Bewick's wren. Notably, these appear to be the only subspecies of many for Bewick's wren with a distinct common name (others are Latin only), which is probably why they would have been identified among search queries, but I'm not convinced that they merit their own articles.

I was wondering if there's an "official" policy on whether articles should be created for subspecies?

In my opinion, the redirects to Bewick's wren should be fine, but that's based on birder, ornithology, and taxonomic standard practices, which may be different from the expectations for Wikipedia. Subspecies represent morphological variations in conspecific populations, and from a cursory glance, it looks like they are inconsistently handled in Wikipedia. Yellow-rumped warbler has separate articles for Audubon's and Myrtle (and the Myrtle article doesn't even mention that it's a subspecies, not a distinct species!) but Dark-eyed junco has all subspecies summarized on one article, and there's much more variation among junco morphologies.

IMO the article requests for the Bewick's wren subspecies seem like a very low priority (or completely unnecessary) compared to the requests for articles for suborders of Charadriiformes. But I don't know if there's supposed to be a consistent way of handling subspecies.

AniKarenina (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems it is a bit inconsistent. Personally I think merging should be the standard, unless the subspecies is somehow a focal point of many studies (to the exclusion of other subspecies in the species), or similar. An example of where I am "guilty" of this is the King Island emu, which has had a lot of literature devoted to it over the years, and was considered a distinct species until recently. FunkMonk (talk) 21:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

This should probably be inconsistent. If there is sufficient significant information a subspecies article is a good thing. Otherwise it can be merged/redirected to the species (without prejudice to future splitting). This applies to other levels of the taxonomic tree, and indeed to subjects in general.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:04, 27 April 2016 (UTC).

Identifying endemics and improving lists of birds

Hello everyone. This is my first involvement with the group, though I contribute many bird images and edit many bird articles.I have three suggestions:

• 1. I think it would be nice to have some sort of visual image to highlight endemics and endemic sub-species in lists of birds (other animals too, but let's start with birds). To trial this, I have edited the article List of birds of Cuba. I'm not suggesting my effort at an icon would be the one chosen (mine's a bit large and is not a .svg file anyway. But I did it so that anyone can have a look see. I cannot find any existing icon/symbol online.
• 2. I think it is wrong that editors insert images of birds photographed in one country into another country's list. Sometimes these will be a genuine attempt to improve an article. In others, it's just a vanity insertion. In many cases (on islands like Cuba and Jamaica), there are unique sub-species and it just seems bad practice to me. If there is no photo of an endemic available from the location, then an aviary image would be OK. I put one into the Cuba list.
• 3. I think it would be a good idea if lists of birds should use a specified image thumbnail size. The standard one used in the Cuba article may be a bit too large. 180px might work for 'landscape' images, but portrait images cause a problem.
  

I hope to get a discussion going. Charlesjsharp (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I admire the new look you've put together for the List of Cuba. Some issues come to mind by using the subspecies icon. One is that species/subspecies are in a constant state of flux as new taxonomic information is made available. It is hard enough keeping up with over 10,000 species. With over 30,000 subspecies, the tasks become extremely onerous. Islands can be easy with limiting the number of subspecies, however some country lists have sometimes relatively large number of subspecies, so those lists and be very cumbersome. On the Cuban list you even have multiple subspecies with the same species article linked for each of those subspecies. To me it looks confusing....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:09, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes , it is confusing, but we are trying to create an authoritative encyclopaedia and I don't know, but I suspect anyone looking in detail at these lists wants accurate information. Charlesjsharp (talk) 11:51, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

sometimes too much information only mucks up everything, even if it is accurate.....Pvmoutside (talk) 12:17, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Regarding photos, as long as the photo matches the classification, they should be fine, no matter where the picture was taken. Photos do dress up the list pages, but I agree some are overly illustrated. I also agree that subspecific images should be used to dress up an article if one is available and identified as such, but again, if there are multiple subspecies in a listed area, it will be nothing more than confusing.

Finally, if you are using subspecific names, you should list the header as something other than binomial........It also looks confusing to the lay person where the binomial is used in some places, the trinomial in others.........

Just my 2 cents......Pvmoutside (talk) 01:01, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

That's neat, there are issues over accessibility though. Both that screen-readers will stumble over the icons, and that the contrast and type size on the icons do not favour readability. WP:ICONS covers some of these issues, and WP:ACCESSIBILITY I hope, the rest.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:11, 27 April 2016 (UTC).

Rufous-collared sparrow

I am a University of Connecticut student and as an assignment for my physiological ecology course, I will be adding a section on physiology for the rufous-collared sparrow.

Some sources I plan to use are:

Addis, E. A., A. D. Clark, R. A. Vasquez, and J. C. Wingfield. 2013. Seasonal modulation of testosterone during breeding of the rufous collared sparrow zonotrichia capensis in southern Patagonia. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 86(6):782-790.

Maldonado, K. E., G. Cavieres, C. Veloso, M. Canals, and P. Sabat. 2009. Physiological responses in rufous-collared sparrows to thermal acclimation and seasonal acclimatization. Comparative Physiology B 179: 335-343.

Novoa, F. F., F. Bozinovic, and M. Rosenmann. 1990. Maximum metabolic rate and temperature regulation in the rufous-collared sparrow, zonotrichia capensis, from central chile. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A 95(1):181-183.

Pena-Villalobos, I., F. Valdes-Ferranty, and P. Sabat. 2013. Osmoregulatory and metabolic costs of salt excretion in the rufous-collared sparrow zonotrichia capensis. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A 164:314-318.

Sabat, P., S. Gonzalez-Vejares, and K. Maldonado. 2009. Diet and habitat aridity affect osmoregulatory physiology: an intraspecific field study along environmental gradients in the rufous-collared sparrow. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A 152:322-326.CharlieBrownCB5 (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

That's fantastic CharlieBrownCB5......as a suggestion, keep your writing simple enough so a non-scientist can understand it......Let me know if you have questions..Pvmoutside (talk) 13:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello! I will be posting my contribution to the page in the next week. Below is my draft. Feel free to leave suggestions. Thanks.CharlieBrownCB5 (talk) 21:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Physiology

Osmoregulation/Ionoregulation

The Rufous-collared sparrow relies entirely on its kidneys for osmoregulation and ionoregulation. It is able to tolerate a wide range of salt intake despite lacking a salt gland, however the metabolic cost in energy is too great to maintain the necessary osmoregulatory processes for an extended period of time. As a result, the Rufous-collared sparrow tends not to inhabit marine environments such as salt marshes. Under conditions of higher salt intake, the mass of the kidney and heart can increase up to 20%. This response in organ size causes an increase in basal metabolic rate (BMR) by up to 30%. Kidney size is also affected by the amount of water available in the environment. In arid environments, the urine is more highly concentrated, and the kidneys tend to be smaller than in wetter environments.

Thermoregulation

In association with its non-migratory behavior, and its tendency to be found at a wide range of elevations, the Rufous-collared sparrow experiences significant fluctuations in temperature throughout its range each year. Strategies used to acclimate to changing seasonal temperatures include limiting the amount of evaporative water loss (EWL) and increasing metabolic rate. Total evaporative water loss (TEWL) increases during summer months, which may help prevent overheating, and remains lower during winter months. In response to cold temperatures, both basal metabolic rate (BMR), and maximum metabolic rate (MMR) will increase.

References

Aves: class or clade

Just FYI: a user is attempting to expunge all use of the word class when describing Aves. I'm attempting to direct the editor to Talk:Bird for further discussion, if anyone interested would like to weigh in please keep an eye on it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:43, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Also if anyone has any opinions about "clade: Dinosauria" showing up in bird taxoboxes make a note there please. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:12, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Poicephalus fuscicollis a distinct species?

By complete chance, I found the badly referenced stub Poicephalus fuscicollis. I tried to see if it was recognised by the IUCN, and as I expected[4], it is considered a subspecies of Cape parrot. So should it be merged? FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

IOC 6.2 lists: Brown-necked parrot Poicephalus fuscicollis with two subspecies: P. f. fuscicollis and P. f. suahelicus.

The Cape Parrot is promoted to species level: Cape parrot Poicephalus robustus with the note: "Recognition of Cape Parrot follows Hockey et al. 2005, but is questioned by H&M4 and HBW Alive" Hockey et al. 2005 is: Hockey PAR, WRJ Dean & PG Ryan (eds). 2005. Robert’s Birds of Southern Africa. 7th ed. Cape Town: John Voelcker Bird Book Fund.

• HBW Alive has an article on the Brown-necked parrot (Poicephalus robustus). They treat the Cape parrot as the nominate subspecies (Poicephalus robustus robustus) with P. r. fuscicollis as the brown-necked Parrot and a third subspecies P. r. suahelicus without a common name. However they cite a 2015 molecular phylogenetic study by Coetzer et al. which includes in its abstract "Our results all support previous recommendations to elevate the Cape Parrot to species level."

The simplest solution would be to follow the IOC here and move the wiki article Poicephalus fuscicollis to Brown-necked parrot over the redirect. There is already an article on the Cape parrot. Aa77zz (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Alright, seems a move would be good, as all other extant birds with common names have those as the titles. I thought the IUCN was always synchronised with the IOC? FunkMonk (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Hooded Seedeater is invalid

An enigma is finally resolved

• RESEARCH ARTICLE Tiny Bird, Huge Mystery — The Possibly Extinct Hooded Seedeater ( Sporophila melanops ) Is a Capuchino with a Melanistic Cap Juan Ignacio Areta 1 * , Vítor de Q. Piacentini 2,3 , Elisabeth Haring 4,5 , Anita Gamauf 4,5 , Luís Fábio Silveira 2 , Erika Machado 2 , Guy M. Kirwan

PLOS One Published: May 11, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154231

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154231

--Melly42 (talk) 20:28, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Taxobox discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Redundancies in the taxoboxes for a discussion about the format of taxoboxes for species and below. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:17, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

photographers a part of this project?

hi, i was going to add Rathika Ramasamy, a bird photographer, to this project but thought i better check first. thanks:) Coolabahapple (talk) 02:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely, Rathika is welcome to join! However, we usually let people choose for themselves whether or not to join, rather than adding them. Anybody who wants to join can just add their Wikipedia username to the "members" list. Let me know if you have any question! MeegsC (talk) 07:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Acrocephalus schoenobaenus

Can someone confirm that this image on Commons is in fact the Acrocephalus schoenobaenus? One of our ornithologists in Wales believes that it has too much yellow. I note that the colour of the legs just about ok (Collins). Photo maybe taken in bad light? Change from prefered image in Wikidata to another? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 09:48, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Bore da, Llywelyn2000, if I saw that in a Welsh reedbed, I'd assume that it was a juvenile sedge warbler from the head and rump patterns, I don't think it's streaky enough for aquatic warbler Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:41, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Assessment statistics

Can we please have a table showing a breakdown of the number of articles based on quality and importance as per Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team Assessment policies and importance criteria. An example of such a table is shown at the WP:Med page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine#How_to_help

I can help out if someone shows me how to do this. NJ (talk) 01:01, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

It's at the end of the project subpage at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds/Assessment Shyamal (talk) 04:05, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Got it! Y NJ (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Too many videos

In the external links section of Peregrine falcon, there are lots and lots of videos. I have no experience assessing these for bird articles; if someone here would like to weed them out, you have my blessings! — Gorthian (talk) 00:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Looking for feedback on a tool on Visual Editor to add open license text from other sources

Hi all

I'm designing a tool for Visual Editor to make it easy for people to add open license text from other sources, there are a huge number of open license sources compatible with Wikipedia including around 9000 journals. I can see a very large opportunity to easily create a high volume of good quality articles quickly. I have done a small project with open license text from UNESCO as a proof of concept, any thoughts, feedback or endorsements (on the Meta page) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Pachyplichas might be a synonym of Xenicus

A new study suggests that Pachyplichas might be better a synonym of Xenicus.

Mitchell, Wood, Llamas, McLenachan, Kardailsky, Scofield, Worthy, Cooper. (2016) (In press.) Ancient mitochondrial genomes clarify the evolutionary history of New Zealand’s enigmatic acanthisittid wrens. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2016.05.038 --Melly42 (talk) 13:11, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Interesting paper - the 2010 paper on Kuiornis does foreshadow it a little. Need to keep an eye on IOC etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:46, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Another interesting aspect of the paper is the retaining of the genus Traversia (for Xenicus lyalli) as also proposed by BirdLife/IUCN. --Melly42 (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Yep, that looks like a straighforward update. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

IOC is updated here --Melly42 (talk) 19:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Halcyoninae?

I'm trying to stub-sort Shovel-billed kookaburra, and getting confused (ah, I see now that someone else has done so while I've been typing here: it's at {{Coraciiformes-stub}}.

Does the subfamily Halcyoninae, given in this bird's taxobox, exist (currently it redirects to Tree Kingfisher), or is it a typo for Halcyonidae? Category:Halcyoninae was created today and is malformed. Category:Halcyonidae exists. Alcedinidae, the family given in this bird's taxobox, redirects to Kingfishers, where it's said that The group is treated either as a single family, the Alcedinidae, or as a suborder Alcedines containing three families, Alcedinidae (river kingfishers), Halcyonidae (tree kingfishers), and Cerylidae (water kingfishers). This bird is described as a tree kingfisher. Could an expert have a look, please? Thanks! PamD 15:31, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I think most taxonomists use the family Alcedinidae, with subfamily Halcyoninae.......taxonomy is sometimes conflicting, with some sites using one source, others using others.......Pvmoutside (talk) 17:38, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

• I have been expanding some tree kingfisher articles such as Common paradise kingfisher. At the foot of the page they have rather ugly and voluminous "navboxes", if that's the right word, with a hide/show link. How can I get these to display in hidden mode rather than show mode? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:41, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I've modified the code of the Navbox replacing the line |state = {{{state|autocollapse}}} by |state = {{{state|collapsed}}} following the documentation at Template:Collapsible_option but this doesn't appeared to have had any effect on the box in the Common paradise kingfisher article. Aa77zz (talk) 11:48, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I've edited the Navbox again and replaced the state line with |state = collapsed which did the trick. I don't know where to look for the documentation for {{{state|}}}. Aa77zz (talk) 12:05, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Just what I wanted. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:12, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I've realised that there was no need to edit the template. I've reverted my changes there and simply added "{{Halcyoninae| state=collapsed}}" in the Common paradise kingfisher article as shown here. Aa77zz (talk) 12:31, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

This navbox is used in many articles. It is tedious to add | state=collapsed to every article so I've asked at Village Pump (Technical) here how to change the default state. Aa77zz (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Fixed (collapsed as a default). In my initial test I didn't purge my cache. I should have known better - I've been caught by this before ... Aa77zz (talk) 13:40, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you again. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:18, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Macropygia

Anyone familiar with Asian birds know whether the slender-billed cuckoo-dove on the Macropygia page is an Amboyna cuckoo-dove or a Sultan's cuckoo-dove since they are both found on New Guinea and the species has been split by the IOC and Clements?....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:01, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Specimens of Archaeopteryx reassessment

I've devoted a great deal of time working to flesh out the Specimens of Archaeopteryx article, which was last assessed at C-class quite a long time ago. Requesting a quality reassessment at this stage. (Cross-posting this request to its other Wikiprojects, just fyi.) Thanks! -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

If you write a lead it is possibly worth a tilt at GAN. I suspect someone would review it pretty quickly. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:25, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, seems quite comprehensive. I'm wondering why Maxberg specimen needs to be a seperate article, though, if it isn't even linked in the article. I think it should be merged. FunkMonk (talk) 12:20, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, will do re: GAN when I have a bit more time--in the middle of a move currently. Redirected the Maxberg specimen article, btw. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 03:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Laughing Owl

A new study suggests that the Laughing Owl should be better placed in the genus Ninox instead in its own genus Sceloglaux. --Melly42 (talk) 11:21, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

List of parrots

I'm remodeling the List of parrots article at my sandbox. There's around 400 species so help will be appreciated. Thanks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:12, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Hmm... Your new list doesn't allow easy table sorting any more, as there are now lots of bitty smaller tables rather than one big one. What's the advantage of breaking them up? MeegsC (talk) 22:03, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The names are lined up, just not the images are ranges (which shouldn't be much of a problem for locating a certain species, which was already hard enough). Anyways, after two days, it's complete and up.   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:51, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77:, in the old version, I could sort the entire table in various ways by clicking the top of any column. I could sort by name, by IUCN code, by whatever. I can't do that anymore. In fact, I can't sort by anything! That doesn't seem to be an improvement to me. I'm not discounting your work — you've added a lot of good information. But I don't understand why you've broken each genus into a separate table. Can you please explain why that's better? MeegsC (talk) 11:55, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@MeegsC: Actually that was just easier on me when creating this list. I looked up every genus on the IUCN Red List to make sure I didn't leave any species out (which the previous list did). I can rearrange the current list to be sortable by alphabetical order, but if this is the case then I need to go back and but in their full binomial name instead of the abbreviated one; also I'm not entirely sure how range and pictures would be sorted.   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:42, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77: Ha! I can certainly understand ease of editing! But yes, I'd recommend you move them back into a single table, and just not include a sort button for the picture column. Range is tough; it would be nice to be able to sort by continent (for example), but I suppose that isn't easily do-able. I guess that would have to be an unsorted column as well. MeegsC (talk) 17:28, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@MeegsC: Should I just leave out the genus authority and scrap the subsections? Also, how would I go about sorting by continent, because most parrots are in Australasia which spans two continents, and South America/Central America/Caribbean which also spans two continents. Should it be sorted New World/Old World (and even then, how would I do that?) Alternatively, I could just sort within the genus (example below) which would be pretty good (of course the background colour can be changed or done away with)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:33, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Genus Psittacus (gray parrots) Brisson, 1760 – two species Common name Scientific name IUCN Red List Status Range Picture African gray parrot P. erithacus Linnaeus, 1758 VU IUCN Timneh parrot P. timneh Fraser, 1844 VU IUCN

@Dunkleosteus77: Like I said, I wouldn't worry at the moment about sorting by range or picture, at least for the moment. Maybe we can figure something out in the future. With the range maps, is there any way to standardize them a bit more? In your example above, one shows the species range in Africa (appropriately) while the other shows the tiny range (all in Africa) in the whole world. Not directly comparable, really, even though both are found only in Africa! As far as sorting within genus, how do I look for all "vulnerable" parrots — short of sorting every single table, which would take forever?MeegsC (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@MeegsC: I don't think there is any way to standardize the range maps, I just used the ones available (but you're welcome to try). As for searching, there are 350 species of parrots, so counting the number of Vulnerable parrots is not going to be easy anyways. I think I should just add the statistics to the IUCN Red List categories table or to the lead. Also, should I just scrap the genus authority and subsections?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:48, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Dunkleosteus77: Well, whatever else you do, I'd at least make all the tables the same widths. Right now, the column widths are all over the place. If you're not going to combine the tiny tables into one big one, at least make it easy for people to read down through them all. MeegsC (talk) 21:03, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

List of Aratinga parakeets merge proposal

I've proposed merging the above article into Aratinga. The number of Aratinga species are substantially lower after genera splits. See Aratinga talk page for discussion and adding your comments.....Pvmoutside (talk) 21:43, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

List of Artinga parakeets merged today.....Pvmoutside (talk) 11:45, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Caribbean Coot

In the latest revision of the American Ornithologists Union (AOU) checklist, the Caribbean coot has been eliminated as a species. It is not even considered a subspecies, rather a white frontal shield morph of the American Coot. The IOC and Clements have followed suit. My preference is to make Caribbean Coot a redirect of American Coot since there are many cases of the white frontal shield morph occurring outside of the Caribbean Coot's normal range......thoughts?....Pvmoutside (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Carribean Coot now a redirect to American Coot......Pvmoutside (talk) 11:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Automated taxobox errors

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs#Automated taxonomy system errors for a discussion about taxobox errors in bird articles such as Abavornis and Enantiornithes. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:58, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: thanks for following this up! MeegsC (talk) 11:48, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Socotran endemics

so I am slogging through the species splits and adding those species that have no home. Anyone out there care which master list the Socotran endemics should be placed? Geographically and geologically Africa seems a better place (also about 100km closer to Africa), but politically better to be added to Asia since Socotra is a province of Yemen? Looks like the species that have been around for a while are attached to Africa, but I moved a couple to Asia, and now am rethinking that. I'll move 'em all to Africa unless someone out there feels strongly one way.......Pvmoutside (talk) 15:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

It may be of some relevance that in the internationally agreed system for describing plant distributions, Socotra is in Northeast Tropical Africa. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

A cassowary is a reptile

Or maybe not. According to the taxobox in Casuariiformes, cassowaries belong in both the classes Reptilia and Aves. The data cannot be changed by editing the article, so I'm not sure how to resolve this. Deli nk (talk) 14:24, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Technically it is (as birds are descended form dinosaurs), but I guess the problem just shows how arbitrary ranks such as "class" and "order" are. Even the Bird article has that issue. FunkMonk (talk) 14:40, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

This is outside my area of knowledge, so I have to ask: do Casuariiformes belong to two different classes at the same time? Deli nk (talk) 14:44, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Nope, but the fact is, that aves (birds) are descended from dinosaurs (which are reptiles). Both Aves and Reptilia have been ranked as "classes" in the taxonomic hierarchy. So the problem is simply that the term "class" has been used for both these groups. Maybe "clade" would be better... FunkMonk (talk) 15:35, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Birds ARE dinosaurs; they're not descended from them. So in that regard "Aves" is wrong, I suppose. However, there is absolutely no reason that Casuariiformes should be singled out for the discrepancy detailed above. If this is the only order showing both Aves and Reptilia, then it needs to be changed! MeegsC (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

This is confusing for the lay person. If this is in dispute, perhaps citations for both should be provided per verification. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:12, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, the birds article itself also shows two classes, I bet many other bird articles have this issue. It is not factually wrong, it just looks funny two have "class" twice... And yeah, birds are dinosaurs, but then humans are lobe-finned fish, etc., it is just a matter of what we want to show in the taxobox. FunkMonk (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

No, FunkMonk, humans aren't lobe-finned fish. They've descended from lobe-finned fish. And yes, there is a difference! ;) DrChrissy, when you say "if this is in dispute" I'm not sure what you mean. It's not in dispute as far as scientists are concerned, and the bird article does a very good job of explaining the current understanding. Are you saying this information should be repeated in all of our articles about bird orders and families as well? MeegsC (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I am a biologist who got my Ph.D. in 1987 - when dinosaurs were still in the skies! I know very little about taxonomy, but I do not understand how an animal can be placed in two classes. It is a natural assumption that an animal should be in one class or another, but not in both. If I am struggling with this, how must lay readers perceive it. I have seen this discussion about whether birds are reptiles or not elsewhere on WP (sorry, I can't remember where). If this is being discussed so often, I would say it is in dispute and maybe verifications are needed. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:35, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

(To MeegsC) There's only a difference in that one of the more recent (1986) phylogenetic definitions of Dinosauria includes Passer, but for our purposes (the infobox hierarchy), there isn't really a difference: we need to arbitrarily choose what ancestry is shown or not in the taxobox. If we wanted, we could include lobe-finned fishes (Sarcopterygii, which includesTetrapoda, the four-limbed animals) in the taxobox for the genus Homo:[5] Our problem is, however, simply that two taxa (Reptilia, Aves) are shown as "classes", not whether birds are reptiles are not. No scientists dispute that birds (and dinosaurs) descend from reptiles, but whether this makes them reptiles may be disputed. Same with the "humans as lobe-finned fish" issue. FunkMonk (talk) 22:47, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Chrissy: you can have a group in two different classes because rank-based Linnaean taxonomy is outdated (it originally did not take ancestor-descendant relationships into account, for obvious reasons), and does not reflect current knowledge of interrelationships. Most zoological taxonomists use cladistics today, which ignore arbitrary ranks (such as order, class, family, etc.), and where every taxon is just a clade. Aves (birds) was originally erected as a "class", and this group has later been show to be descended from reptiles (dinosaurs specifically), which were also erected as a "class". Therein lies the problem. FunkMonk (talk) 22:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the explanation. I have become aware of cladistics - mainly from reading Wikipedia, and this is why I have realised my taxonomy knowledge is now rather dated and I do not make "definitive" statements. But if most taxonomists now use cladistics, should we not be doing the same in our taxo boxes? DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:18, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I think it is because the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (which is the authority on zoological taxa) still uses Linnaean ranks (but also accommodates unranked clades), and when new animal taxa are named, they have to abide by those conventions to be considered valid. Which is why the phylocode is being developed as an alternative... Which will lead to a clash down the line, it seems.[6] It is all a matter of philosophy (which can be said about taxonomy in general)... FunkMonk (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

There's more discussion of this issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Reptiliae or Aves? I'm not sure that's the best place to discuss it, but let's try to keep it together, so I suggest over there. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:32, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Back in the day Aves was a separate class, that now, is included within Reptilia due to the improvement in knowledge. NJ (talk) 19:45, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The issue is not what is included in what, but that the taxoboxes in many bird articles show Class Aves and Class Reptilia, and this is simply wrong: only one can have the rank of Class. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Hill prinia stub

I noticed that the Hill prinia bird section is a stub. If someone wishes to expand on this stub I would suggest using this book as a reference -Warblers of Europe, Asia, and North Africa by Kevin Baker. Sections of this book through google books are available, one of which includes the very detailed section written on the Hill prinia. Though the author of this book does not specialize in this field, the detail that the book goes into regarding the different bird entries would suggest otherwise.Acunderground (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I have that book, so if anyone wants to see text for any of the warblers within the indicated range, ping me Jimfbleak (talk) 05:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Avian malaria

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Plasmodium biziurae#Requested move 20 August 2016.

Synopsis: It seems that Plasmodium biziurae was subsumed under Plasmodium relictum as a junior synonym in the 1960s, but we need some more sources on this. Anyone have bird disease books handy?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:42, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Nope. But I'll see if my JSTOR access allows me to find anything. Thanks for the heads-up! MeegsC (talk) 11:49, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

What say they, good MeegsC?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:20, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Not MeegsC, but I did a search on all content in JSTOR from 1950 to 1970. There is a paper by Carlton M. Herman (Blood Parasites from California Ducks and Geese, The Journal of Parasitology Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jun., 1951), pp. 280-282), which notes the similarity between P. biziurae and P. relictum and states, "it is believed that the plasmodial infections in all four of these ducks was the same and should be classified as P.relictum (=P. biziurae)." William Avery (talk) 09:02, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Bird song- sound files

Can I bring your attention to Wikipedia:GLAM/British Library/British wildlife edit-a-thon 2016 where there is a list of the sound files donated by the British library, and where have been added, and in which languages. There is obviously more to do. In general the files are added in the Taxobox in the

image_caption = 

in some languages (Welsh, Swedish, German) who name their parameters differently the caption has to be found by looking for the existing text.

Enjoy--ClemRutter (talk) 09:15, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

All living birds

Did you make an article for every single living bird species? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:14, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Anna: Yes, the bot Polbot made an entry for every living bird species in the IUCN database back in 200x, and we've added a few since then as new species are described (or split from existing species). MeegsC (talk) 00:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Wow! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

There are only 10,000 of 'em. No big deal ;) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:14, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

10,000?? That's positively Albatrossean! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:01, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposals?

Couiros22, to get some focus here, would you like to make formal proposals that we can discuss. It seems to me that there are two issues.

Do we allow individual country cats as well (or instead?) of continents

For any geographical cats, do we only count breeding species? If so, do we have separate categories for any or all of regular wintering species, regular passage species or vagrant species.

I'm only trying to clarify the issues, I'll leave it to you to formulate proposals that we can consider. I'm trying to avoid a free-for-all, in which, for example, I could just decide to tag great blue heron as Category:vagrant bird species of Britain or even Category:vagrant bird species of the Scilly Isles Jimfbleak (talk) 13:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

- As Peter Coxhead wrote, if a bird is more or less present throughout the whole continent, then there is no need to split into individual subcategories (only the name of the continent is enough) ; if not, then we could refine its range into continental subregions (e.g. "Birds of West Africa", "Birds of Southern Africa" etc.) or if needed create even smaller areas corresponding to natural regions (e.g. Birds of Indonesia, Birds of Arabia, Birds of Madagascar etc.). If the bird is present in a refined area that doesn't correspond to a natural region then we could create subcategories according to countries. Those with multiple geo regions could be split into separate subcategories (e.g. birds of Alaska a subcat. of birds of the USA).

- I think it would be better to categorize only according to breeding areas. For example, the arctic warbler breeds in polar regions and winters in south-east Asia ; yet to include the Arctic warbler as "birds of South-east Asia" would be somewhat misleading. --Couiros22 (talk) 15:44, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Couiros22, where does the geographical spliting stop? Before now we have had categories for individual Californian counties. I don't agree that only breeding categories are appropriate, which is why we need some concrete proposals to debate, I'm happy to abide by any consensus, but we actually need to start a process to reach a consensus. Jimfbleak (talk) 17:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

- I reckon splitting should stop at country level ; different bird websites tend to corroborate yet they sometimes differ slightly from each other at local level, so to attempt to refine beyond country level wouldn't be such a good idea.

- I think only breeding ranges should be taken into account ; to include their non-breeding range would misleadingly suggest the species is present there all year round... (moreover birds tend to differ in appearance due to their winter plumage). I don't think the slightest presence of a bird in any given region should make it eligible for categorization, i.e. if a bird species is present at my local aviary/zoo and nowhere else throughout the country, then does that make it eligible to be considered as 'Birds of my country' ?
Unless there are any valid counter-arguments, then I don't see how this poses a problem. --Couiros22 (talk) 18:39, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Comment: Is it time to consider svg distribution maps? Could these be Wikidata generated? How will the distribution be represented as a Wikidata 'statement'? (I am very much an accidental on these pages- apologies if it has been discussed before) ClemRutter (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Comment: I realize this isn't a guidebook, but any guidebook (or any reference book for that matter), Handbook of Birds of the World, prominent web sites like the IUCN, Birdlife International, Cornell's web sites, etc. all show wintering grounds, migration locations, and breeding grounds. Avibase shows any appearance in any given defined region, even vagrancy. Regarding categories, I'm with Jim. For common cosmopolitan species, the category lists would be unwieldy and difficult to read, (not to mention to maintain) if every possible combination was listed. Regarding sub-continents, think about readability to those somewhat unfamiliar with geography. Continents, countries, states are easily defined. What countries make up Southern Africa, Southeast Asia. Whose definition do we use? How will anyone remember what goes in what subcontinent. Countries and continents are difficult enough...We have plenty of categories already. Less is best in this case.....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

"Only breeding ranges should be taken into account"?! That's ridiculous! Many migrant birds spend more time in their non-breeding areas than they do in their breeding areas! To restrict "Birds of" to breeding areas only should be a non-starter on all sorts of biological grounds. And nobody anywhere has suggested that the presence of a bird in a zoo or aviary qualifies it as present in a country, so that's a bit of a straw man, really. MeegsC (talk) 03:59, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there would be a huge updating work to do given that birds tend to stick to their ranges of repartition well enough over the years...

I also think the inclusion of sub-continental categories would be beneficial as many birds' ranges tend to correspond more or less to those areas:
Take the range of the red-faced mousebird for example : http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22683796

Which would be the most convenient way to categorize?
- "Birds of Africa",
- to list every single country where it occurs
- "Birds of Southern Africa"

;-) perhaps we could start from here : https://br.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rummad:Evned_Afrika_ar_Su

Regarding non-breeding ranges, these should at best be addressed separately to avoid any confusion.

I'm going to start updating more bird article cats whilst taking only taking their breeding range into account (many birds don't have wintering ranges, which are often non-included in current articles anyway...). We can add the non-breeding ranges later, in categories named "Wintering birds of..." "Birds vagrant of...". --Couiros22 (talk) 07:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@Couiros22:, perhaps you're new here and don't know the ins and outs of Wiki etiquette yet, but it's generally considered very bad form to continue doing something against significant objection while the conversation is still ongoing. What you're doing is against general Wiki policy. While policies can certainly be changed — things on Wikipedia are constantly evolving — these changes are generally discussed first. MeegsC (talk) 01:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I believe the creation of geographical sub-categories would be useful given many birds have a narrower range of presence.

Many national categories I have added (eg. "Birds of Angola"...) are being deleted by the bot - yet I don't understand why... given that other smaller geographical bird categories already exist (e.g. birds of the East of Mexico etc). Could someone please explain this? --Couiros22 (talk) 16:23, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Categories Defaultsort

I must say I don't like the new category system with the default sort which is currently used by user Couiros22: Take Category:Turdus for example. Defaultsort thrush|karoo, thrush|taita means, that all birds which have this defaultsort will be categorized under the letter "T". I think that makes no sense. --Melly42 (talk) 14:46, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

As is clear from the comments above, Couiros22 has been changing categorizations without any discussion and certainly without any consensus. The edits should all be reverted. Category:Turdus is a ridiculous muddle at present. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:12, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

There's a pre-existing additional muddle with some Turdus species (but not Category:Turdus) being in Category:Thrushes, too. William Avery (talk) 22:02, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for everyone here

		The Tireless Contributors' Barnstar
		For making Wikipedia's coverage of bird species so complete! This is extraordinary, astonishing, and simply wonderful! Well done all! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

On behalf of all of us at the project, thanks for your kind words, Anna! MeegsC (talk) 00:56, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Generally in the 99% for extant birds. Extinct "birds" is a different story.. Shyamal (talk) 04:30, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Gallirallus or Hypotaenidia?

While working on the Tahiti rail article, I noticed that, unlike with most other bird articles here, we don't follow Birdlife/IUCN on whether to use the generic names Gallirallus or Hypotaenidia (which is a redirect to the former here) for various species of rails. All the species are lumped in Gallirallus here. Is there any good reason for this, or should we follow Birdlife? FunkMonk (talk) 17:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Difficult. According to BirdLife (BLI and HBW illustrated Checklist, 2014) and H&M Non-Passerines (2013), Hypotaenidia is distinct from Gallirallus (versus IOC which doesn't recognize Hypotaenidia). Winkler et al (Bird Families of the World, 2015) include 10 species in Hypotaenidia, including the Okinawa rail, the Tahiti rail, and the Dieffenbach's rail --Melly42 (talk)

Oh yeah, I forgot that Wikipedia follows IOC before the others. But do we know what studies their decisions are based on? Who has published the rival schemes? Because I think it needs to be noted specifically in the articles, now it is left extremely vague... FunkMonk (talk) 18:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems to be an old case of lumping "The species philippensis, owstoni, wakensis, torquatus, and striatus have either been combined with Rallus or segregated as a separate genus Hypotaenidia. Peters (1934) recognized Hypotaenidia as a subgenus of Rallus although he placed striatus in the subgenus Rallus. I recently revived the use of Hypotaenidia (Olson, 1973) but as we shall see below, this name must ultimately give way to Gallirallus." (Olson, 1973) - and re-emphasised in 2011 by Olson and Rauzon - "Hypotaenidia was long subsumed in the nearly cosmopolitan genus Rallus, until its distinctiveness in plumage, particularly the strongly barred primaries (Frontispiece) and osteology (Olson 1973, Steadman 1987), were deemed sufficient to separate them. The flightless Weka (Gallirallus australis) of New Zealand clearly belonged with this group and the species were included under the older name Gallirallus (Olson 1973). Mayr (1949:4) considered Rallus wakensis to be among several ‘‘strikingly different’’ geographical representatives of the Buff-banded Rail (Rallus [Gallirallus] philippensis). Fuller (2001:127) stated that ‘‘Rallus wakensis seems to have only barely passed the point at which separate status as a species is appropriate.’’ However, Kirchman (2009), in a phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA, found that Gallirallus wakensis, G. owstoni (Guam), and G. ripleyi (extinct Tonga), among others, were basal to G. philippensis." Olson 2011 doi:10.1676/11-029.1 Shyamal (talk) 04:11, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

And Kirchman 2012 doi:10.1525/auk.2011.11096 recommends "All previously recognized genera are either monotypic or non-monophyletic, and I advocate lumping nearly all species into a broadly defined Gallirallus sensu lato" - Also see Garcia-Ramirez, Gibb, Trewick 2014 for a larger overview of the Rallidae. Shyamal (talk) 04:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, hmmm, so seems there's not going to be any kind of consensus soon... FunkMonk (talk) 07:59, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I think Hypotaenidia should be accepted when it is reinstate in recent literature --Melly42 (talk) 13:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

so there is no consensus on Wikipedia when it comes to taxonomy. The project has standardized on the IOC for English names, but nothing else.....I've been taking a conservative approach with tax, using the NACC of the AOU for North America, the SACC of the AOU for South America, and then Clements and the IOC (when they match) for anything else, otherwise I leave it as is. I'd look at H&M, but there is nothing on line, and books tend to outdate pretty quickly once they are published. I do use the IUCN occasionally (they are pretty good with pelagic birds), but a lot of their material is dated, and they don't let you know when they update. I notice a few of you reference published papers, but it's hard to know which ones get accepted, and which ones don't.........hope that helps.....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok, so I think in case of the Tahiti rail, I'll just mention there are competing views on this issue... FunkMonk (talk) 08:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Mangrove Swallow - Info

Anybody have anything to contribute to the Mangrove swallow article? There is really a lack of information on it, and it is kind of unorganized, even with my recent edition of some headers and such. Also, is there any really good example of a bird article that I could look at to possibly further organize and develop the page? It would be great if we could get that article out of the start state. Any help or contribution is appreciated. RileyBugz (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

You could model it on featured articles. Barn swallow seems to be the closest featured relation. FunkMonk (talk) 15:22, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

@FunkMonk:Thanks, but what should I put for the section related to where they nest, live and such. I don't want to call it "Habitat and Range", but I think I might have to. Any suggestions? RileyBugz (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

"Distribution" could also work. FunkMonk (talk) 15:40, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for helping! Please, tell me if you see anything out of order. Also, it would be great if somebody could add more sources. We only have a few of them so far. RileyBugz (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

We need sourcing for the mangrove swallow's diet. Please go to the Mangrove swallow to edit this. RileyBugz (talk) 16:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm in Sri Lanka on a tour, so don't have time to contribute directly, but here's a source link: Foraging Behavior of Mangrove Swallows at Barro Colorado Island MeegsC (talk) 16:41, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Seems it will be useful for behaviors and such. RileyBugz (talk) 17:02, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

We need the wingspan of the mangrove swallow along with sources. It would also be nice to get some pictures of them, with their sex and whether they are an adult or juvenile. Thank you to everybody who has helped develop the article so far! RileyBugz (talk) 18:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Have you checked here? References are listed too. MeegsC (talk) 10:07, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

@MeegsC: I have used and referenced that source, but still, thank you!RileyBugz (talk) 01:24, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

RileyBugz, I'll send the Turner stuff soon, ref will be <ref name="Turner">{{cite book |title=Swallows & Martins: An Identification Guide and Handbook |last1=Turner |first1=Angela K |last2=Rose|first2= Chris |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=1989 |isbn= 0-395-51174-7 }} p101–102</ref> Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! RileyBugz (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I think that the mangrove swallow article is on the verge of becoming a C-Class article. I think if a few more people contribute and add sources, then we will be able to get this to a C-Class article. We are so close!RileyBugz (talk) 01:46, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

RileyBugz, I think you are doing a great job on improving this, some comments

• The lead section should summarise the text and therefore normally doesn't need refs. I normally leave the lead until last to make sure it's an accurate summary.
• You have a one-sentence distribution section; I think you should add the habitat stuff to that, also seasonal movements
• "Call" is a very short section, if it can't be expanded, just lump it into "Description"
• I'll add something on taxonomy in the near future, other than that, I think you probably have enough sources for C grade already

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Edit war

Couiros22 [contributions] has been systematically restoring individual country categories across many articles, despite this being against policy, and removing categories he/she doesn't like, specifically Category:Birds of Europe. He/she just keeps reverting and has broken WP:3RR at least Aleutian tern, probably others by now, and seems unwilling to discuss or stop this disruption. I'm too close to this to take admin action myself, and I'm reluctant to see any editor blocked, but there must become way of getting this editor to engage with other editors and not just attempt to impose his/her own views without consensus Jimfbleak (talk) 05:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Also reported at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring Jimfbleak (talk) 06:07, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: regardless of edit-warring, the version before Couiros22 started changing the categories is clearly incomplete, since it only has Category:Birds of Europe, whereas the species occurs in North America and Asia. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, quite likely. I recently went through all the British lists checking that they had the Europe category, and removing individual country cats. I didn't check for any other categories. One argument against individual country cats is, in fact, that they are always incomplete since editors add their pet categories rather than all relevant ones Jimfbleak (talk) 13:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I have recently been updating geographical categories on many bird articles, mainly for the following reasons:

- Bird species are usually classified according to their geographical area by simply indicating the name of the continent(s) on which they are found (e.g. "Birds of Africa", "birds of North America" etc.) ; which can however be rather approximate and misleading and I think it would be wiser to include more refined geographical sub-categories in order to reflect the geographical area of repartition.

e.g. The stilt and the buff-headed sandpipers only occur in Alaska and Canada's far north; which is why I suggested to refine the classification data by replacing "Birds of North America" (very approximate and misleading, given it may suggest that the species occurs throughout the whole continent) by "Birds of Alaska" and "Birds of Canada" which would be much more precise and less misleading.

- Most academic bird list inventories generally indicate a bird's range of presence by only quoting the birds' breeding range (where they spend most of the year), the non-breeding range either mentioned separately or ignored (cf. IOC World Bird List). Likewise, I think only the breeding range should be taken into account on Wikipedia and that birds' wintering ranges could be categorized separately (e.g. "Wintering birds of Australia").

To elicit both examples, the Aleutian tern was up until now categorized as "Birds of North America" and "Birds of Europe" - yet according to every major ornithological reference, the species only occurs in northwestern coastal areas of the continent - and nearly none of them indicate its breeding presence in Europe throughout the year. Hence, wouldn't the terms "Birds of the Aleutian Islands" and "birds of Alaska" be a much more suitable and valid categorization?

At present, Jimfbleak seems unwilling to follow any further pragmatic discussion, deems that geographical subcategories (e.g. 'birds of Tibet', 'birds of Manchuria', 'birds of Alaska' etc.) as "unneeded" and has accused me of edit warring and having an « agenda »...

Therefore I would like to address and politely request other users' opinion regarding this problematic. --Couiros22 (talk) 10:36, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I'm only a very occasional "bird editor", and not a member of this WikiProject, but I think there is a general problem with classifying the geographical distribution of organisms, which needs some cross-WikiProject input. Clearly there's a special issue with birds, and perhaps there should be a separate set of subcategories "Category:Breeding birds of ..." However, the more general issue remains: political categories are simply not appropriate for classifying the distribution of organisms. As one example, we have many organisms put into "Category:Xs of the United States", yet this includes both Hawaii and Alaska, with very different biogeographies. At WP:WikiProject Plants, we attempted to enforce the internationally accepted World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD), but this has simply ended up yet another set of categories since other editors insist on adding national categories where these differ from the WGSRPD (for what often seem to me to be nationalistic reasons). Perhaps WikiProject Birds can set an example? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Couiros22, thank you for posting here, and starting a discussion. The point I was making on your talk page is that you can't just make up your own policy and remove or revert the edits of other good faith editors without a discussion. There is a debate to be had about the role and definition of categories, but it should be a debate, not just imposing your personal viewpoint through edit warring.

Peter coxhead, my preference is to have as few geographical categories as possible. For widespread species, such as short-eared owl you could have 100 or more categories. Having separate breeding and wintering (and presumably passage) categories just over-elaborates even more. Do you count spotted sandpiper as a European breeding bird— it's certainly bred in Europe? Black tern is a common passage bird in the UK but neither breeds nor winters. Couiros22, just counting breeding birds is anyway highly misleading. Pink-footed goose is the most numerous wildfowl species in the UK in winter, but doesn't breed here, so on your reckoning it's not a British bird. With good will, these problems can be brought to a consensus, thank you for opening a debate Jimfbleak (talk) 12:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Jimfbleak I've spent a lot of time working on categorizing plant distributions, and a bit on spider distributions, so I hope you won't mind me commenting here. It seems to me that there are two principles that are important:

• The basic unit should be a contiguous geographical area or a biogeographically sensible collection of contiguous geographical areas, ruling out many politically defined units, e.g., the United States, Ecuador (because this includes the very different mainland Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands) or the UK (because this includes Northern Island, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands but excludes the Republic of Ireland).
• Categories should always be migrated upwards where possible, so any organism found in a large number of subunits of a larger unit should be categorized at the larger unit, e.g. an organism found in a large number of countries in Africa should be categorized as "of Africa", not "of Kenya", "of Tanzania", "of Nigeria", "of Mali", "of Ghana", etc.

Whether there should be separate categories for breeding distributions isn't for me to say, although I note that field guides usually take care to distinguish the breeding range from the overall range. Clearly it would be wrong to categorize bird distributions only by their breeding ranges. I'll leave the rest of the discussion to birders! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Linking species to geographical areas serves at least two different purposes: indicating relatively precisely where the species may be found (when breeding, wintering, etc.), and creating convenient lists of species that are relevant for someone living in or visiting a larger region (such as country or continent). Both purposes are useful and valid, and I think the Wikipedia should ideally contain both kinds of information. My own interest in this comes from wanting to extract my own multilingual glossary of names of birds in Europe, or Western Europe, or perhaps just in the Iberian peninsula (in the languages that are relevant to me personally). The mapping from species to names is available in Wikidata, but I cannot find any non-manual way to select the species that occur in any such convenient region. (Sure, doing it manually wouldn't be such a big deal, but I just use this as an example for why this kind of information is useful.) Incidentally, it would be great if the raw information for all such lists could be moved to Wikidata and extracted back to the Wikipedia from there. Eihek (talk) 12:00, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Birds/Archive 68 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

The "post phenotypic era"

Barrowclough, George F.; Cracraft, Joel; Klicka, John; Zink, Robert M. (2016). "How Many Kinds of Birds Are There and Why Does It Matter?". PLOS ONE. 11 (11): e0166307. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1166307B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0166307. PMC 5120813. PMID 27880775. This gives an inkling of the coming splits - perhaps we would do better to keep cryptic species complexes on single pages rather than split them across pages where very little will ever be added over time. Shyamal (talk) 03:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Ibera seedeater

Hello everyone, I have started a new article on the Ibera seedeater. Please feel free to contribute to the page. The species was recently discovered in South America. NJ (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

NJ, looks fine as a stub, I don't think you need the "expert" tag Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistent taxonomies

Many articles about extinct birds and bird relatives have inconsistent taxonomies in the taxobox. As just one example, see Alexornis. The taxobox has the sequence of ranks Order – Suborder – Order, which is simply nonsense.

The underlying problem is the clash between the view that birds and bird relatives are just a minor group within dinosaurs, so their Linnaean classification is Class Reptilia – Order Saurischia, with birds reduced to an unranked clade, and those who retain the traditional Class Aves, so that extant and extinct birds can be placed in Orders. The immediate cause of the inconsistent taxobox at Alexornis is the taxonomy shown at Template:Taxonomy/Alexornithiformes. (Apparently inconsistent ranks are currently given a reddish background.)

One solution to such inconsistencies is to introduce "skip templates". For example, Avialae could be set to skip directly to Sauropsida when approached from Euavialae, which would make Class Reptilia – Clade Dinosauria – Order Saurischia disappear. The other solution here is to make Alexornithiformes unranked rather than an order.

Whatever the solution, it needs to apply to all of these:

• Template:Taxonomy/Alexornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Apatornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Apsaraviformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Cathayornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Chaoyangiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Enantiornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Eoenantiornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Eurolimnornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Gansuiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Gobipterygiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Hesperornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Iberomesornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Ichthyornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Jeholornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Liaoningornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Mystiornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Omnivoropterygiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Palaeocursornithiformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Protoaviformes
• Template:Taxonomy/Protopterygiformes

Peter coxhead (talk) 07:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, well, as no-one has responded, I've sorted out a solution myself. Two steps were necessary:

1. Neoaves needs to be treated as a clade, not as a superorder, because "bird classification" has superorders below it.
2. Somewhere in the taxonomic hierarchy above Class Aves, it's necessary to skip past Class Reptilia. Exactly where is somewhat arbitrary; following an existing skip template, I've made Euavialae have Avialae/skip as its parent; Avialae/skip then has Amniota as its parent. You can see the effect of this at any "bird" taxonomy template, e.g. Template:Taxonomy/Passeriformes.

Many skips other than (2) would work equally well; I don't know enough about the taxonomy of these groups to know whether the choice of the existing skip at Avialae was a good one or not, but it works. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

References?

If somebody could access [7] for me, that would be great. Specifically, I need page 543, or any other pages related to the mangrove swallow. Thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 23:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This is what it says - "Harassment by black flies can be an important mortality factor in man-made nesting cavities for Eastern Bluebirds and Mangrove Swallows. These problems are generally local and related to the location of the nest boxes near running streams and influenced by weather conditions." - send me mail and I can respond back with the full text if you need it. Shyamal (talk) 13:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Creating ornithologist articles

So, I am looking to create new articles about ornithologists. I have already created an article about Allan Robert Phillips. Just tell me who needs an articles, and I will check if they are notable, and if they are, I will create it. RileyBugz (talk) 18:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Try this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Article requests/People. Loopy30 (talk) 20:43, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Loopy30: Thank you! This will definitely keep my occupied... RileyBugz (talk) 21:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@RileyBugz: And if you want, once you take a name off that list, you could then add it to this one: List of ornithologists. Perhaps the two pages should be merged? Loopy30 (talk) 03:03, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

@RileyBugz:, you will need to check that they actually meet the notability guidelines; most will, but it's not necessarily the case. @Loopy30: your suggestion makes sense, but I don't think a merge is appropriate, they serve different purposes. Perhaps our project subpage could have a link to the list? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:03, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: It would be nice if we could link to it on our subpage. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 20:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, nobody has objected, so perhaps go ahead and do it Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

African Bird Club

Would someone mind taking a look at African Bird Club and possibly assessing it. The article has recently been expanded and has become quite promotional in tone. It's also not clear if group satisfies WP:NORG. Relevant discussion can be found on the article's talk page. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 15:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Most of the text is unsourced, and thetone is promotional. I've indeffed one editor for obvious COI user name violation. I don't think that as it stands it's bad enough for speedy deletion, or as non-notable. Options are to remove any or all of the unsourced text, nominate as AFD for spam/non-notable. I'm happy to pull the trigger on any option, but I'd welcome other views before doing so Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:59, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look Jimfbleak. Just in case you didn't see it, there is an ongoing discussion about the article (and some similar related articles) on its talk page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:50, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of United Kingdom bird clubs and ornithological societies

The article List of United Kingdom bird clubs and ornithological societies has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No indication as to how this article satisfies WP:SAL. The vast majority of the entries are red links which seem to have little chance of ever becoming viable stand-alone articles. Removing them with leave only a few entries, whose Wikipedia notability also appears questionable at best. Primary purpose of the article seems to have been to create a online directory of these organizations which is not really what Wikipedia is about.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:44, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Red-bellied pitta

Red-bellied pitta was split into at least 12 separate species. I believe we should consider starting articles on each of the individual newly-named species. Also, the taxonomy listed in the pitta wikipage would need to be updated to reflect the new taxonomy. NJ (talk) 00:37, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I usually wait until the IOC and Clements agree......someone else may use a different standard, since we have none.....Pvmoutside (talk) 05:18, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Saw that most were split by all, only 10 species by both sources.....They are now split on the Wikipedia pages...Pvmoutside (talk) 10:50, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Range maps?

We need people to help make range maps for bird articles needing range maps. It would be great if the project subpage could link to something like this. One of my requests is a range map for the white-banded swallow. Thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 03:43, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I am happy to help (some samples) if you can provide me with sources that I can look up. Shyamal (talk) 03:18, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Range maps are a very desirable improvement for bird articles (and other flora and fauna too!). Shyamal, thank you for your offer to add maps where sources exist. I looked into it a few weeks ago, but do not have the software to edit .svg files. The file I had tried to edit was one of your earlier contributions, File:MirafraMap.svg, so that I could rename and split the ranges of the two spp into two new maps. These new files would then be placed on the Jerdon's bush lark and Bengal bush lark pages respectively. Loopy30 (talk) 12:10, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Remember to state the source on the file description. FunkMonk (talk) 12:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

@Shyamal: It seems that HBW provides range maps for people that don't have a subscription. For the white-banded swallow, the website is here. Thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 15:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

See if this works for you. Inkscape is a free tool to edit it. Shyamal (talk) 05:01, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

The IUCN redlist entries on each species also have maps. FunkMonk (talk) 15:24, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

ebird is also a good place to look....Pvmoutside (talk) 20:35, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, for anything outside North America, ebird is a terrible place to look. It relies on individuals making observations, and there's a strong US/North American bias to the sightings. Anything outside North America is very poorly represented on ebird maps. As, of course, are poorly birded areas in North America. MeegsC (talk) 16:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

They have gotten much better with over 3.75 million reports worldwide in 2016. They also have in place regional editors that comb through listings for accuracy. Just another source to use along with IUCN and others.......Pvmoutside (talk) 17:30, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

For Australia I've found the BirdData site useful. It is similar to ebird. Aa77zz (talk) 19:32, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Change in black-collared swallow taxonomy

The black-collared swallow is now Pygochelidon melanoleuca, not Atticora melanoleuca. Can somebody help me in changing this? I will change it in the article, don't worry, but we need somebody to create the genus page. Thanks! (sidenote:somebody also needs to check whether any species belong in any other genus) RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

If the genus is momnotypic, it just needs to be a redirect. FunkMonk (talk) 21:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it is, I just did a quick google and it seems that at least the blue-and-white swallow is in it also. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:24, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

(Update) It seems that the genus contains 2 species, the blue-and-white swallow and the black-collared swallow. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Could a template editor please correct the issue in the "Hirundinidae" template? I added the Pygochelidon genus to the swallow article, but now it needs to be added to the template. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi RileyBugz, the IOC still lists the black-collared swallow as belonging to the genus Atticora so the page should not be changed to Pygochelidon yet (http://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/swallows/). Other authorities are split: Clements and the SACC have it as Pygochelidon, whereas Birdlife, Commission internationale pour les noms français des oiseaux, Howard and Moore, Morony Bock and Farrand, James Lee Peters, Sibley and Monroe, and Zoonomen all list it as Atticora (http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=EC8951D574EF192A). Loopy30 (talk) 01:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Got it! I will revert the swallow page back. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 17:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to use eBird taxon ID's in Wikidata

Please see Wikidata:Property proposal/eBird taxon ID regarding a proposal and poll whether to introduce eBird database entries as Wikidata identifiers. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 19:33, 28 December 2016 (UTC).

Needs to be killed at birth, imho. An American project that gives all birds US names and spelling irrespective of country. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 20:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Can somebody inform me what would actually happen if this passed? I don't even know what it is about. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it only changes how certain kinds of database queries and linking can be performed - should not affect the appearance of anything on Wikipedia (significantly). Shyamal (talk) 02:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I assume it means that this database would be visible when {{taxonbar}} is added to articles, so it would make the database, and the names it uses, more prominent, and so more likely to be added to articles. Personally, I'm not happy with the way in which Wikidata's decisions alter Wikipedia articles. {{Taxonbar}} is being added to many organism articles, regardless of the value or relevance of the links. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:37, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The list of databases used in the taxonbar is hard coded in that template, so a new one won't appear unless and until that template is changed to add it. You can suppress particular databases using a parameter such as 'eol=no'. The original implementation of taxonbar seems to have taken them all by default, but that decision could be revisited. I think it's a reasonable addition in its default form to poorly sourced or unsourced stubs, less useful on more mature articles. I am at a complete loss to understand why you would reject a dataset because it uses US spelling in its identifiers. William Avery (talk) 09:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure who the "you" was meant to be, but I certainly don't reject the database on those grounds. The question asked was whether it would affect anything on Wkipedia. The answer is that if it's added to {{taxonbar}} it will, directly and indirectly.

Yes, editors can select what appears when {{taxonbar}} is added to articles, but those who have been going round making mass additions don't, and often appear not to have the knowledge to do so anyway. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry if that seemed personal, 'you' should have been 'anybody', as I'd been reading the comments above. William Avery (talk) 11:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Alt text on List of parrots

I nominated List of parrots for FLC and apparently every image needs alt text. There are about 400 pictures (including images of parrots and range maps) and all of them need alt text, and not just stating the obvious (for example, the alt text of African grey parrot would not read "African grey parrot" as discussed on the nomination page). Help would be appreciated, to say the least.   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:49, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

There are about 150 more images in need of alt text. I've done about 250 by myself so I'm a bit tired of it, to say the least, and some help on this would be much appreciated. I've gotten through the cockatoos and the New Zealand parrots, so the 150 awaiting alt text are, as of right now, Bourke's parrot and onward in the True parrots section. Thanks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk 

There are about 100 more images in need of alt text. I've done about 300 by myself so I'm a bit tired of it, to say the least, and some help on this would be much appreciated. I've gotten through the cockatoos and the New Zealand parrots, so the 100 awaiting alt text are, as of right now, Kuhl's lorikeet and onward in the True parrots section. Thanks   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Who said they need Alt text? Snowman (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

RexxS, The Rambling Man, and Vensatry. You can see the discussion at the FLC at the bottom   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The range data would need references. Snowman (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The little IUCN link next to the IUCN status is the reference for the range data, which is already mentioned in the Convention section   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Cannibal kingfisher?

I have recently uploaded File:Pied_kingfisher_(Ceryle_rudis_rudis)_female_eating_chick.jpg There were no other species around yet about 300 pied kingfishers nest in the same area (the Kazinga Channel, Uganda), so I make that 90%+ sure that the bird is eating its own species. I've researched the net and cannot find any mention of cannibalism for kingfishers. I didn't capture the swallow, so I thought it was possible the bird was playing with the chick, but my wife saw the bird being swallowed. I'd love to know more, as would our guide - this behaviour was new to him. Charlesjsharp (talk) 14:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Pied kingfisher is primarily a fish eater, so it's unlikely that it actually actively hunted the chick. If I had to guess, it's possible that the chick died in the nest, and is basically being recycled. This is fairly standard behaviour for birds of prey and owls, so i suppose it's possible for a big kingfisher Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Jimfbleak may be correct. Some herbivores (e.g. cows and sheep) eat the placenta (carnivory) of their newborn so as not to attract the attention of predators. This might have been the motivation of the kingfisher if the chick died in the nest. Excellent photo! DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Missing topics list

My list of missing topics about avians is updated - Skysmith (talk) 12:43, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

How was this list created? Shyamal (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Page move

Blue-fronted Amazon has been recently moved to Turquoise-fronted amazon. However, there is a discussion on the talk page in which there as a consensus to keep the name Blue-fronted Amazon. Administrator requested to move the page back. Snowman (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Turner and HBW needed for white-rumped swallow

I need Turner and HBW for the white-rumped swallow, which I am going to try to get to FA class. Thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Nevermind. It would be nice, although, if somebody could work on the "In culture" section of the article, I don't know what to do there. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 20:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

RileyBugz, for most species there simply won't be anything, and I'd guess that would apply to all your central American swallows. It's always worth Googling the species' name plus "myth" or "legend", but you won't find much for most species, particularly if they don't occur in major English-speaking countries. I have Mark Cocker's Birds Britannica and Birds and People, but neither has anything that will help you. Even for UK birds, many don't have anything in either book because, for examples, people don't invent tales about small warblers or flycatchers Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:44, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't asking anybody to look anything up, but this swallow is depicted as a rare species in an episode of Family Guy, and I don't think it looks too nice now, so I was asking if somebody could clean it up. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 15:25, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The link doesn't appear to go where it should. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I just fixed the link. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 15:47, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Willet and yellow-rumped warbler

More attention needs to be given to willet and yellow-rumped warbler in the coming days, as these species may undergo a split pending a final decision by the AOU. Also, both articles are desperately in need of more information. The willet article is in need of major expansion. I think it is best to wait until a final decision is made by the AOU before changing any information in either of these articles. N. Jain talk to me 01:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. may as well wait. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Only vaguely related, but that BOU has decided to adopt IOC as its taxonomic standard from 2018 Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The BOU announced their decision to adopt the IOC taxonomy here. -Aa77zz (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

American Ornithological Society

The American Ornithologists' Union has joined forces with the Cooper Ornithological Society and become the American Ornithological Society. See here. The new website is http://www.americanornithology.org/ .

Originally the AOU published the The Auk and the Cooper Ornithological Society published The Condor. According to our wiki article, since 2014 the AOU has published both journals. They will now be published by the American Ornithological Society.

Should we create a new article for the American Ornithological Society or rename the American Ornithologists' Union article? My preference is to rename the AOU article.

-Aa77zz (talk) 10:38, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

My feeling would be a rename. I've never heard of the latter society...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

A page re-name would be most appropriate as the AOU hasn't gone away, it has just been re-named (to AOS) following the merger with the COS. Loopy30 (talk) 20:59, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I've renamed the article. I'll also change the AOU Checklist of North American Birds. Aa77zz (talk) 08:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

WikiJournal of Science promotion

The WikiJournal of Science is a start-up academic journal which aims to provide a new mechanism for ensuring the accuracy of Wikipedia's scientific content. It is part of a WikiJournal User Group that includes the flagship WikiJournal of Medicine.. Like Wiki.J.Med, it intends to bridge the academia-Wikipedia gap by encouraging contributions by non-Wikipedians, and by putting content through peer review before integrating it into Wikipedia. Since it is just starting out, it is looking for contributors in two main areas: Editors See submissions through external academic peer review Format accepted articles Promote the journal Authors Original articles on topics that don't yet have a Wikipedia page, or only a stub/start Wikipedia articles that you are willing to see through external peer review (either solo or as in a group, process analagous to GA / FA review) Image articles, based around an important medical image or summary diagram If you're interested, please come and discuss the project on the journal's talk page, or the general discussion page for the WikiJournal User group.

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 10:39, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Boreal or Saw-whet?

Hi to Jim and anyone else who remembers me!

This is the picture in the Boreal Owl taxobox. Isn't it a Northern Saw-whet Owl? Its underparts have brown streaks, and there's no black V through the eyes. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 00:20, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe it is indeed a boreal owl. Black V is partially visible in image, and so is black outline to face. Image lacks light brown streaks on face to outer side of eyes as Saw-whet owl would have. Both Boreal and Saw-whet have brown streaking on breast, but Boreal's is less solid and more barred (like in this image). Hard to gauge size but looks more like boreal size too. 'Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 01:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Now I see that you're right. The streaking still looks like Saw-whet to me, but the bill is pale and in combination with the other things you mentioned, that settles it. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jerry, good to see you back. Yes, looks like Tengmalm's to me too (still need it for my British list...) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• This thread makes me think of Snowmanradio's recurring "birds for identification" threads. Perhaps we should have a devoted subsection of the project for that? Similar to the image review[8] page of the dinosaur project... FunkMonk (talk) 11:03, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Name changes and shuffles - southern India

The English name changes are awaited from the IOC but otherwise these splits and new genera (Sholicola and Montecincla) seem to be something that cannot be avoided Shyamal (talk) ... Robin, V.V.; Vishnudas, C. K.; Gupta, Pooja; Rheindt, Frank E.; Hooper, Daniel M.; Ramakrishnan, Uma; Reddy, Sushma (2017). "Two new genera of songbirds represent endemic radiations from the Shola Sky Islands of the Western Ghats, India". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 17 (1): 31. Bibcode:2017BMCEE..17...31R. doi:10.1186/s12862-017-0882-6. PMC 5259981. PMID 28114902.

@Shyamal: I think you are premature in making changes to the taxonomy in wikipedia articles based on the primary literature as you have with the Kerala_laughingthrush. You can mention in the article that the study has been published and describe the results but before changing the taxonomy you should wait until the authors' proposals have been considered by the world lists ie IOC/Clements/HBW/H&M. (For the Americas the opinion of the NACC and SACC is also important). Proposed taxonomic changes in the primary literature are not always adopted by these authorities. A stream of molecular phylogenetic studies are being published that propose substantial reorganization of the genera - for example I've noticed that there is a recent study of the weaverbirds with a large list of "Proposed taxonomic revisions" here. There is also a recent study that included 185 species in the infraorder Meliphagides (formerly known as Meliphagoidea) that shows that the current genera don't always correspond with the phylogenetic clades - see here. We need to wait to see how the above authorities react to these studies. - Aa77zz (talk) 12:05, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that I have been a bit hasty with adding these but I found it hard to put in a half-way statement that points out the proposed changes while not making the entire entry consistent - to my mind, the sampling seems good enough and the new genera and splits will be accepted by the IOC - in the case for Sholicola it was already known that it was placed by guesswork in Myiomela - the English group-name changes are of course something I have not touched and are firmly in the court of the IOC. Shyamal (talk) 12:21, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Years in birding and ornithology

The run of "years in birding and ornithology" currently ends with 2012 in birding and ornithology. Can people help to bring them up-to-date, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:28, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Also 2010 in birding and ornithology is missing. I've just created 2013 in birding and ornithology as a blank pro-forma, so the wikicode of its first revision an be copied and tweaked for other years. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:36, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I've now created all the articles up to and including 2017's, but they're very much empty frameworks, waiting for your contributions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:41, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Range map needed

A range map is needed for the white-rumped swallow. I am trying to get this to FA status, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 15:36, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Got a preferred source map to base it on? FunkMonk (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: I guess HBW would be the best. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:15, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

So this one?[9] I'll give it a stab. FunkMonk (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: Not that one, this one: [10]. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 21:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

How about this?[11] FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: Looks good, thanks! RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 01:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Added. FunkMonk (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

merge New Zealand/Australian bird article/list

Any objections if I merge Birds of New Zealand into List of birds of New Zealand, and Birds of Australia into List of birds of Australia?.....Pvmoutside (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think discussion of the bird life on a continent or island landmass has the potential to be pretty long - significantly longer than the intro para of a list article. I think both prose articles could be easily longer. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

okey dokes.....just realize I believe those would be the only split articles and lists......all other Birds of XX are redirects...Pvmoutside (talk) 04:43, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Thinking about it scientifically, they would only separate articles for unusual areas such as continents (like Australia etc.) or distinctive ecological areas (New Zealand, Hawaii and Galapagos Islands come to mind). I wouldn't imagine separate articles for, say, Kentucky. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:02, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

List of parrots TFL

List of parrots is a Today's featured list nominee. Just putting that out there   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:29, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Carl Linnaeus

1. HalfGig has suggested that the very important Linnaeus article should become an FA Any comments to add here? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:01, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Input requested for Signpost article on this WikiProject

Hi all - there was a request to do an article in The Signpost on this WikiProject, in recognition of your recent run of featured article candidates. I will be writing the article, and have written some questions, which I invite project members to respond to here. Please respond by Saturday, January 28. Thanks! (Pinging: RileyBugz, Jimfbleak, FunkMonk, MeegsC, Casliber from earlier FA discussion on this page) Funcrunch (talk) 19:40, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost article on WikiProject Birds was published today and can be viewed here. Well done and thanks to all who contributed! Loopy30 (talk) 11:42, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Lists of birds by region

Many of the county/state bird lists are close to featured list status based on ones already appoved. Without overwhelming the featured article pages with bird lists, I thought I'd comb through some of them to nominate as featured lists......Any feedback? What number of lists do people feel comfortable with to send over in the approval process?...Pvmoutside (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Mass nominations are not possible. Also, you'd be surprised how often little things crop up. I recommend trying to nominate one where there is some access to sources and seeing how it goes. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

You might find the three discussions and subsequent delisting at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/log/June 2015 useful. I expected that all of the existing featured "List of birds of ..." articles would be delisted following that, but it hasn't happened. I think it is true that standards have gone up a lot since most of the existing lists were made featured, so it might be harder now. I've also noted that Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Country lists could be revamped to benefit the lists, but I haven't done it. I'm happy to help.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:55, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I did read the comments regarded the delisted lists. I agree that they should all be delisted given the styles and content given. I would like to try upgrading 2 of the lists to see if we can keep them Featured. Schreiberbike and others....Let's try keeping Thailand and Nicaragua featured for now. What do you all think?....Pvmoutside (talk) 21:47, 30 January 2017 (UTC)>

I've cleaned up Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Country lists, adding those countries missing and removing ones that were not. Some questions.....

• there were some lists I deleted (Greenland, Antarctica, the United States and Canada, etc.) I can add back if that is the preference and anyone cares......If I do that, change the article name to Birds by Region lists instead of country?
• I'm not sure what the status column means since all we have is list class and featured list. no lists are defined as start. I can start assessing them if that makes sense.....
• I know there's been issues regarding getting lists to featured status.....Is my effort wasted?

....That's it for now....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:35, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Pvmoutside Thanks for your hard work. Declaring a personal issue here, I was the main editor of List of birds of Thailand, which at the time met the criteria as I understood them (fully referenced etc). I have to say that I haven't kept up with the FL criteria since then, but I'd be interested to know why it's now at risk since I'm more than happy to fix any problems arising from changes in criteria or other reasons

I don't think it's at risk immediately, but a number of other lists have been delisted because of stronger criteria needed to pass featured list status now. Most of the other country/state lists have the same format/information as those that have been delisted. I'm trying to "save" if you will 2 lists (Thailand being one of them) so it doesn't lose featured list status. Any suggestions would be welcome.....Pvmoutside (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I think all audited content is a great idea, and if you want to keep, maintain or nominate new ones I think this is great. I buffed List of birds of Tasmania years ago. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:47, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I've been working (on and off — mostly off, lately) on List of birds of Madagascar, and wonder if something like this might be more useful to our readers than some of our older lists. It uses a sortable table, contains less extraneous information, and provides more references than a lot of our older lists did (a major stumbling block with more recent attempts to get these lists passed). MeegsC (talk) 02:32, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Default number of parent taxa displayed in an automated species taxobox

Please see Template talk:Speciesbox#Default number of parent taxa displayed for a question about the default number of parent taxa to be displayed in an automated taxobox for a species. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:19, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Categories for Melampitta

I just reorganised the melampittas based on the new family of two species in two genera. Do I just simply put all three articles in the family cat or create a new single article cat for Megalmpitta? Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:37, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Category discussion on Casuarius

Please join this discussion about merging Category:Casuarius. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Apical spots

Can anyone suggest an existing image I might use that very clearly displays apical spots?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:04, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

@Fuhghettaboutit: With some judiciously placed arrows, one of these might work...

@MeegsC: Thank you! The first image is perfect for my purposes. (Btw, I didn't get your ping; it only works if you sign in the same saved edit. I just happened to have posted Help:Fixing failed pings yesterday.) Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Peafowl or peacock?

Discuss it at a move request at Talk:Peafowl. —  AjaxSmack  02:15, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Just for people who don't want to look at this, this article is referring (I think) to the genera of Pavo and Afropavo, which are referred to as "peafowl" according to the IOC World Bird List. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 02:30, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Hydrobates

The proposal above reminds me of an inconsistency I noticed a while ago. The FA European storm petrel treats the genus Hydrobates as monotypic. Consistent with that, Oceanodroma lists Swinhoe's storm petrel as a member of that genus. But the article Swinhoe's storm petrel treats it as a member of Hydrobates. I haven't tried to investigate how such a situation has arisen, or what the solution might be. William Avery (talk) 00:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the IUCN Red List and HBW Alive it seems that all the Oceanodroma storm-petrels have been moved to Hydrobates. So the European storm petrel isn't monotypic anymore. I guess we'll need to review that too. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@William Avery: Confirmed by IOC World Bird List (which is generally our taxonomic standard here): link (edit: "confirmed" as in the genus is not monotypic (polytypic then?)) RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 00:36, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

regarding Swinhoe's storm petrel, an unregistered editor Aditi Prasad changed the bird from Oceanodroma to Hydrobates in Nov 2015 and no one caught the change. The IUCN lists Swinhoe's in Hydrobates, but both Clements and the IOC list it in Oceanodroma. The IOC is used to standardize English names only.....we have no defacto standard for taxonomy......Pvmoutside (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pvmoutside and William Avery: Oops! Looks like I confused the subspecies for more species—Hydrobates is monotypic. Also, I think that it would be good to just consider the IOC the standard for taxonomy here. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 01:12, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Swinhoes storm petrel page listed in Oceanodroma now.......Zoonomen still keeps the storm-petrels in Hydrobatidae, with the northern and southern species separated by subfamily like we have now.......doesn't matter to me......Pvmoutside (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

It might be good to align our nomenclature and taxonomy to a single source, but that's another discussion. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:35, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to start that discussion then, I can start it if nobody here objects. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 01:40, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

by aligning taxonomy to a single source, it would sure make things a whole lot easier to maintain.......we also have the country/state lists which mostly align to Clements.......maybe get them also under one reference to stay consistent?.....go get 'em RileyBugz!...I also seem to remember a discussion a few years ago that discussed this very topic.....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pvmoutside: Found the discussion here. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 01:56, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Coming here from this - please note that family names do not change even if genera names change - example - Megalaimidae is unaffected even though all Megalaima are now Psilopogon (see ICZN 40.1) Shyamal (talk) 02:03, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I think now see what the intended edit of User:RileyBugz was - it should have been Oceanitidae not Oceanitinae. Now fixed. Shyamal (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Gray-crowned rosy finch (Leucosticte tephrocotis)

One of the Murie family is named as authority for L. t. umbrina (1944), but I haven't been able to find out which, and so the article unhelpfully links to a DAB page. Can anyone help resolve the problem? (A citation to the original paper could be useful, too.) Narky Blert (talk) 22:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: Yep! It was Olaus Murie. I will try and find the original paper soon. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 23:00, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The paper is in Condor volume 46 pp 121-123 here. - Aa77zz (talk) 23:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz and Aa77zz: TY both! That was quick! I've updated the article. Two of my bugbears are: links to DAB pages, and naturalists not getting the credit they're due. Narky Blert (talk) 23:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)