![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
I'm coming back to my Taxo-categorization. After doing category:Caprimulgiformes, I hit something of a snag in Ardeidae, and am currently in the process of merging Heron into it.
Ardea redirected to Heron, which had almost all the info belonging in Ardeidae, only excluding egrets and bitterns. "Heron" as a name technically makes little taxonomical sense to be made distinct from ardeidae or even limited to a single genus, so heron now redirects to heron (disambiguation).
Are there opponents to this? Circeus 21:32, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Since Bitterns only duplicated info from Ardeidae, it also has been merged and redirected. Egret, however, I can do with. Circeus 22:06, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Damn! Looks like all family links for species in Ardeidae were directed into Heron or bittern. Adjusting that as I go. Circeus 22:15, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Phew! Ardeidae is done. feel free to expand Ixobrychus and Botaurus. Circeus 22:51, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
returning to do some taxo-categorization, I noticed that Category:Wading Birds could use some population, but I seriously lack the competence to do that. Can someone have a look at it? Circeus 03:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
there are now no bird, bird genus, families etc. articles in category:birds and all non-species articles have benn moved fromits children to category:Birds by classification. It will be necessary to occasionally check through to spot badly or un-categorized articles, but most of the work has been done. Many subgroups still have to be created, but lack at themoment, articles for it to be required.
Maybe at some point I'll work up the energy to get started on category:plants, but right now, I want to do something new, so that'll have to wait. Circeus 06:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
The name of Category:Controversial birds seems to be "odd" at best. Any ideas for better names? I'm too tired to come up with any alternatives at this point, but thought I'd point it out... Tom e r talk 10:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello guys. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Alcidae_to_Category:Auks. Conscious 12:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Two categories related to this project are up for deletion/merge. Please voice your opinions on the matter here. Joelito ( talk) 18:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Apparently there was a misunderstanding about recategorization—"Avifauna of" categories got renamed to "Endemic birds of", so that, for example, the Eurasian Collared-Dove is now in Category:Endemic birds of Southeastern United States! I asked User:Cyde to stop his bot from making the conversions (though I may not have been in time) and brought it up at WP:CFD, so you don't have to do that, dear reader. But maybe somebody from this project needs to keep an eye on this recategorization. And I'm not all that interested in categories :-) — JerryFriedman 05:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The taxobox examples don't use the templates defined for Tree of life taxoboxes. Is this simply because the examples predate the templates? If so, shouldn't the examples be changed to use the templates? In addition, it seems like there could be one or two custom taxobox_begin templates for Aves, that would fill in all the common fields and potentially even add categories. For example, there could be a taxobox_aves_family template that does all of what is in the family taxobox up to and including the "Family:" line in the table, with a usage like {{taxobox_aves_family|Hummingbirds|Apodiformes|Trochilidae}}. Any article using this template could be categorized (in the template) into a category for the given order. With 4 templates (for family and genus, with and without picture) the amount of "table" code in the articles for generating the taxoboxes would be significantly reduced. If there's any interest in this, I could create the templates. -- Rick Block 16:23, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Just wanted to say I have started to apply the new taxobox syntax through bird articles, at least those who have pictures (Yes, I am that biased...). I'm also sorting them down into families (sometimes even subfamilies) I've done gruiformes and started anseriformes (actually, Anatidae for the time being). I will likely go back soon and also apply it to unimaged taxoboxes. Circeus 01:26, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
The genus should be linked (and not bolded) if the article does not describe the genus. The genus should be bold (and not linked) if the article is about the genus. This is true for all taxa. If the article is about the whole genus and is a single species, then both the genus and the species should be bolded and unlinked, etc. Please make any corrections. I'll help. *grins* - UtherSRG 14:52, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
You've made a few other mistakes...
- UtherSRG 15:14, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
I noticed that as of recently, the first taxon in species lists in genus taxoboxes (or ssp lists in species t'boxes) is marked with an asterisk instead of the usual unnumbered-list-square-bullet thing. E.g. here: Perisoreus. What gives? This is neither nice nor good - one could place the type species or nominate ssp in the first position to make it distinguishable, but it really looks like a bug to me. The code looks OK, and IIRC this phenomenon has only appeared since 3 weeks or so. Dysmorodrepanis 12:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC) I tried removing the list syntax in Confuciusornis and found that this solves the problem, but there is a conspicuous gap between the first and the second entry in the species list. Something seems to be rotten with the taxobox template code. Dysmorodrepanis 13:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
To add on project page: open map sources, where on Commons to upload homegrown blank/distri maps. What about the commonly encountered conservation status trend tag in taxoboxes? It is potentially useful, but not supported ATM it seems. Dysmorodrepanis 03:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria for a discussion of a new stub tag for bird stubs. — msh210 17:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if we can have a common structure for inclusion of sonograms. Shyamal 01:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Why exactly are bird names given in uppercase? I noticed that Britannia doesn't do this (they say "snowy owl", rather than "Snowy Owl" for example). Where did this style come from? Stevage 08:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
User Amotis has been systematically adding a link to a site with videos on hundreds of articles about birds (see his contributions). Now normally whenever I see someone adding the same link to multiple sites with no additional content I remove that link everywhere they inserted it. However I hesitate in this case because I'm concerned it might actually be considered a valuable and relevant link. Could I get some opinions on this from the bird experts? Does the usefulness of this particular link outweight the fact that it was spammed? See here for my original post to the Spam project on this. Thanks much! -- AbsolutDan (talk) 17:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
User:Krun is changing article titles from Wikipedia standard Upper-case initial letters to a different standard. Would someone like to speak nicely to him and ask him to stop? SP-KP 21:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Why do you people come up with these weird rules? Don't you know that Wikipedia is the only place where "Ostrich," "Starling," "Emu," "Western Marsh Harrier," and "Bald Eagle" are considered proper nouns (besides in Native American stories)? Don't tell me "cat" and "dog" are also proper nouns.… ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 01:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any guideline for how bird calls can be made available on the bird pages. I have a small but growing collection of ogg files waiting to be added. Is there any templates that help a person find an ogg player etc. ? Shyamal 03:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a standard for distribution map colours. Some of the maps I have added follow this
These are picked off the palette in M$Paint and does not follow any rigorous RGB specification. Would be good if standard colours can be suggested on the project page. Shyamal 12:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I found this misidentified image: Image:Laysan.teal.arp.750pix.jpg (see description for details). I have replaced it with a correct photo in Laysan Duck, but the new one is far less good than the old one (the bird did not want to be photographed, and I had to sharpen it to get it to a somewhat publishable quality at all). The misidentified image should be renamed, and if somebody has a good photo of a Laysan Duck, please add it to the article. Dysmorodrepanis 22:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
If people need images of a phylogeny based on articles that they have found, but can not copy due to copyright issues, I can make them on request. Kim van der Linde at venus 04:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've found this strange move: Ou_(bird). The new title "Ǒ" means "or" or "of" in Hawaiian (if they would write their short vowels with a breve). I am especially puzzled because I elaborated at quite some length on the pronounciation to make it clear that the name is pronounced as two distinct sounds. What gives? Dysmorodrepanis 15:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Cross posting from Talk:Bird were I was proposing a nav box for bird related articles that are not covered by the taxoboxes. This is a rough draft created by me and modified by User:Jrockley. I don't have much talent in these matters, but I think it would be a good idea so as to remove the 'see also's and also provide redlinks to subjects we need to cover.
edit Birds |
---|
![]() |
Anatomy: Bird anatomy - Bird skeleton - Bird flight - Avian pallium - Egg - Feather - Wing (bird) - Physiology (bird) |
Evolution and extinction. Bird evolution - Archaeopteryx - Bird hybrid - Late Quaternary prehistoric birds - Fossil birds - Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy |
Ecology: Bird ecology - Bird populations |
Behaviour: Bird song - Bird intelligence - Bird migration - Bird reproduction |
Bird types: Seabirds - Shorebirds - Waterbirds - Song birds - Birds of Prey - Poultry |
Birds and Humans: Extinct birds - Bird ringing - Ornithology - Birdwatching - Birdfeeding - Bird conservation |
Thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Formal common names are capitalised. Should alternative common names be capitalised or not? Nurg 05:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
When you say common names do you mean names of creatures, because if you do I think that alternative names should be capitalised. After all, they may be alternative but they are still their names. If you don't mean the names of creatures, could you elaborate? - 12:07, 8 July 2006 I'd say yes. The Rough-legged Buzzard of Europe is the Rough-legged Hawk of North America. Just because we plumb for one for the page name doesnt make the other uncapitalised. Sabine's Sunbird talk 17:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
There is neither an universally recommended citation format nor one universally used (although they occasionally seem to infer that inline/footnote citations are preferred). However, I do not use footnote citations for scientific references, and here's why:
But I do use footnotes occasionally in addition. Here's how I like to do it. Note how things that are of immediate interest to understanding of the text are footnoted, whereas the source publications of information in the article are Harvard-cited.
This is not to start a discussion or to unify the citing style (there are more pressing things to do), but merely food for thought. E.g. the Archaeopteryx article, which is already cluttered without end would become night uneditable when using footnote refs. Or what to do with Dromornithidae, which nearly exclusively uses "background info" refs? So to me, it seems the most flexible thing to use Harvard refs for background stuff and footnote refs for annotations.
As a general rule, always try to read, cite and if any possible link the original sources. For example, placing the Pink-headed Duck in Netta was originally claimed in the article to be based on molecular evidence, because that's how many of us "know" taxonomy is done nowadays. Turns out it was a morphological study after all, and it was not that new either, and the evidence is slim indeed. Dysmorodrepanis 08:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
It would be ideal to have a "best of both worlds" format shortcut. E.g. to make a conventional (end of article) ref section which does automatic indicating and backlinking; the former as it is done in many paper PDFs today. Thus, the source becomes cleaner, better to edit and more compact, while the arrangement is comfortable to use for readers. The format of the citations themselves does not differ really between the 3 approaches. Dysmorodrepanis 03:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Species lists are unpopular, as they tend to clutter up a page with "blocks of Latin" and/or redlinks. Formatting can help to keep them compact, but
Should I take it from the lack of guidance on structuring articles that "free rein" is given, rather than any specific hierarchy of headings? Thanks-- GRM 21:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The habitat/range/breeding/migration/feeding stuff I usually collect under "Ecology" if it's not enough to split into sections and if the article ahs too much text to leave it unsectioned. Dysmorodrepanis 01:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I took this picture while on vacation in Florida. It's a stork, and according to a disney page, it's one of:
(Added links) Looking at the images on Wood Stork and White Stork, it doesn't seem to be either of them. It doesn't seem to be the Woolly-necked Stork or Abdim's Stork either, though. - UtherSRG 02:54, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the Wood Stork looks like the closest so far. - UtherSRG 03:14, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Hrm. You're right, the Wood Stork's whole head is dark. - UtherSRG 03:37, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Try Painted Stork jimfbleak 06:43, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The Hoopoe page appears by and large to cover Upupa epops only. However, it is also the target of redirects from Upupiformes, Upupidae, and Upupa africana. This has caused some confusion among the interwiki links from various other language editions, where there are separate pages for the different taxonomic ranks. Interwiki links referring to different taxonomic ranks had been merged back and forth. I've undone this knot, but I suspect it will creep back unless the situation is fixed. Would somebody please split and clean up the English page? — Naddy 23:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Charadriiformes organisation is a mess that is very hard to work with for someone lacking good ornithological knowledge: levels missing (should I separate Vanellus as an article or leave the species in Vanellinae??) or weirdly classified ( Scolopacidae is just plain scary!), and not to mention I utterly disagree with listing all related families and descendant species/genera in family articles!! Circeus 18:44, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)
I'm in the process of trying to get the albatross article up to FA status, something I imagine will take some time. One of the things I'm going to do is write a article for each species, and each genus, so as to cut down on all the red links that would otherwise be there. Thing is, the current species list (which has 16 species) doesn't seem to match any existing species list out there. It doesn't currently follow HBW, although this is good thing (to my mind)considering the recent, widely accpeted split of the group into 4, not two, genera. Any huge objections to my doing the list based on the one the IUCN uses for assessing their red list status [1]? It seems to be the most commonly accpeted on I can find, and I don't mind doing the 17 articles needed (plus expanding a few of the existing ones). Sabine's Sunbird 04:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
So is there a consensus that the kingfishers are separated? I assume we're following HBW, but few other sources seem to split the families as of yet. Also there's oddballs like the Nicators, Donacobius, and Olive Warbler, what, if any "revolutionary" information should be followed? They're changing the taxonomy on these birds constantly, and since HBW was started in 1998 there's some danger our info is already obsolete.
Just a concern, and largely for the sake of curiosity, not something too serious or critical. - Miwa 04:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
My recent and possibly mistaken edit of Rock/Stock Dove to Ditto Pigeon on the List of British birds: non-passerines brings up a question that interests me. What happens as HBW gets more and more out of date? For instance, we may easily see the time when every English-language regional checklist has followed the BOU (as the AOU has) in calling Columba livia the Rock Pigeon, but HBW is still working on volume 13?
There will never be a good solution till the ornithologists standardize, but maybe we should go to a more frequently updated checklist (or set of checklists?).
— JerryFriedman 21:06, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is straightforward to find authorities for genera and for orders of birds, but for many families it is not. (For example, Megapodiidae, Anseranatidae, Tetraonidae, Phasianidae, Odontophoridae, Numididae, Meleagrididae, Mesitornithidae, Cochlearidae, Balaenicipitidae, Scopidae, Cathartidae, Turnicidae, Gruidae, Psophiidae, Heliornithidae, Rhynochetidae, Eurypigidae, Otididae, etc. etc.) So who named them? Gdr 13:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I need some help with this... the Vampire Finch (Geospiza nebulosa), which seems to be the Wolf Island (Galapagos) subspecies of Sharp-beaked Ground Finch (Geospiza difficilis), is not listed on the website you gave me. That said, some sources on a google search seem to call the Sharp-beaked Ground Finch Geospiza nebulosa instead of Geospiza difficilis, which is adding to my confusion. Anyhoo, I'm thinking maybe it would be prudent to find some more authoritative source on Darwin's finches before proceeding with more articles, but meanwhile there are some question marks I've left in the Vampire Finch taxobox. Tom e r talk 03:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering what people thought about merging the two. Is there any meaningful distinction between the two? At the moment the term petrel is used inconsistently in wikipedia - it seems to denote either the procellariids, or the gadfly petrels (as distinct from the prions, shearwaters etc) or all tubenoses. Given as how the page itself describes the petrels as being the Procellariiformes, surely a merge is in order. Which begs the question, which should merege into which? Sabine's Sunbird 09:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone identify this? Oaxaca, Mexico, probably Atlantic Slope lowlands. And is there a better place to ask? — JerryFriedman 20:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
It looks pretty close to the Greyish Saltator in Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-0814-9600-4 Parameter error in {{ ISBN}}: checksum, and in the big image, I can almost convince myself that ther is a dark malar stripe. This species is expanding its range in CR, don't know its status further north. jimfbleak 06:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
ok, sorry if I'm being picky, but I noticed that instead of "blue-crowned conure" the artcle is "blue-crowned parakeet" maybe it's a UK/US thing, but I'd never heard the parakeet name before before I found it on wikipedia. Jedi of redwall 20:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I recently wrote an article on the Elfin-woods Warbler. I submitted this article to Peer review but it only got 2 superficial replies. I would like for people here to take a look and make suggestions/recommendations. I also wrote Puerto Rican Spindalis for which I would also like suggestions/recommendations. Joelito 14:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm new here but already I am confused. I don't have access to Handbook of Birds of the World so I have no way of knowing what it says but the AOU, and ITIS assign the family Trochilidae to the order Apodiformes and not Trochiliformes. I notice that Wikispecies uses the older taxonomy. I know that there is not just the one taxonomy but don't think it's Wikipedia's roll to define the standard. Why not just go with Wikispecies and let them fight it out. Could someone help me with this. -- Droll 04:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone identify this amazon? I'm hoping for A. oratrix. — JerryFriedman 19:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The Psittaciformes (parrot) taxonomy, especially at the higher levels is pretty messy documented, with articles covering the same "groups" naming them differently (one as subfamilies, the other as tribes), subfamilies (-inae) with tribe (-ini) endings etc. There is clearly no full consensus in the literature, and I will start rewriting using good sources, and using the consensus (as far as possible) or discuss the different classifications. Kim van der Linde at venus 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I am an 18 month wikipedian who has been concentrating on insects but I have recently been amending taxonomy on some bird pages. User:Sabine's Sunbird has informed me that HBW is generally used as the standard reference for taxonomy. I don't want to make waves but this seems a little inflexible for a dynamic resource like WP when there is more current data available. This seems to negate WP's outstanding advantage over other encyclopaedias, the ability to change quickly and remain current and not stagnate. I have tried to retain a reference to the older taxonomy but give precedence to the more current taxonomic thought. I will stop making any changes for a few days while anyone who wants to has a say, any feedback gratefully received! Richard Barlow 09:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll be happy to run anything past you here first, thanks for the response. Richard Barlow 09:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Miwa posted a question on the Old World warbler talk page in the light of sweeping changes at the family level proposed (or at least relayed) on this site [9], which was how long should we give until discarding the current WP guideline of HBW and going with the results of Jonsson & Fjeldså 2006 / Alstrom et al. (2006), et cetera? At the very least perhaps we should begin an effort to try and discuss interesting new discovery in taxonomy on the respective family and species pages. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't Category:Otidae be Category:Otididae as per HBW? SP-KP 19:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody know of any instance of hybridization between ratites (Emu X Cassowary, Emu X Ostrich, Northern Cassowary X Southern Cassowary, Ostrich X Rhea, Greater Rhea X Lesser Rhea, etc.)? I have searched the internet endlessly and have found nothing on the subject. Has it been tried by ratite farmers? If nobody knows, I would at least like to hear opinions on the matter. - 17:37, 7 July 2006
I beg to differ because I recently found out from a wikipedia user that in the 1970's an australian zoo had a batch of emu/cassowary hybrids hatch. I'm not sure if the source is reliable though. And emus & cassowaries are in the same family. There is even a RECENT transitional fossil called Emuarius. I think that an emu/cassowary, a Greater/Lesser Rhea & a cassowary hybrid are indeed possible. By the way I have heard about hybrids that cross family bounderies. Most of them are galliforms and there are documented reports of such hybrids. www.feathersite.com has photos of guineafowl/peafowl hybrids & guineafowl/chicken hybrids. P.S. I think we are on different time zones because according to my watch it is 18:49, 7 July 2006
For the record I've also seen a photo of a zebra finch/owl finch hybrid. - 19:46, 7 July 2006
More opinions & comments are welcome. I will check back often. - 20:41, 7 July 2006
While we are on the subject of hybrids (despite the fact that this was supposed to be a ratite-specific discussion) I think that there should be a page on hybrid macaws as they are becoming more numerous in aviculture. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/macaws/information/hybrid.htm has plenty of photos & info. on them.
I believe the Ratite article could use more info. particularly in regard to farming. I can't do it as I am good with details, but not with large-scale information. I was hoping that someone with more knowledge on the subject could do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.237.252.122 ( talk • contribs) .
By the way, is the Westerman's Cassowary (Casuarius papuanus) a species in it's own right or a subspecies of the Dwarf Cassowary (Casuarius bennetti)?. Please Reply. - 17:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I am not too sure about this (and who is?), but reviewing the fossil data and paleobiogeography I would rather go with a classification of the ratites as different orders and not different families of a single order Struthioniformes. How one would place the whole moa/kiwi/cassowary stuff is possibly the best-resolved issue of them all, but the single-order approach is at odds with fossil data, or the "out-of-Gondwana" hypothesis as usually presented is wrong. Molecular information does not help the least bit. Be advised that changing the classification would involve some serious work. Perhaps a collection of studies and review papers under Ratite similar to what exists under Passeriformes would be in order. Dysmorodrepanis 14:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I find the present setup (ratites = Strithioniformes) fairly untenable; it is not supported by current molecular and morphological phylogenies. Altogether, the page should be split, but there is need to collect many references first. These can be collected e.g. in my sandbox, either under "General" or "Ratites". Dysmorodrepanis 13:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I have yet to recieve a reply to my last post & I was wondering if anybody read it. If not, here it is again: I think that there should be a page on hybrid macaws as they are becoming more numerous in aviculture. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/macaws/information/hybrid.htm has plenty of photos & info. on them.
Now that I think about it, I think it would be easier to add a Hybrid section to the main macaw article. I will try to make it good. Be forewarned hoever, that I am not very good at this so the section might require a cleanup.
The deed is done. Check the main Macaw article to see my work. Feel free to edit if you see something incorrect or missing.
I have big problems with the revert done to the Scrub Jay page after my revisions.
First of all, Unicolored and Mexican jays (especially the former) are NOT scrub jays! They are Aphelocomoa yes, but that doens't make them scrub jays. For one thing, Unicolored Jay inhabits cloudforests--nothing like dry scrub. I realize that there should be a page for Aphelocoma, but I highly suggest making it different from the page for "Scrub jay."
How does editing this stuff work? I see the potential for editing wars . . . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Natureguy1980 ( talk • contribs) .
This page attempts to present a comprehensive synonymy of (eventually) all modern bird taxa (excluding prehistoric extinctions). It is a very helpful tool indeed, including data from such hard-to-find works as Sharpe/Hartert/Salvadori's BMNH catalog! Note that other information in the species accounts is not reviewed, so use with care. The synonymies, when present, are thorough though (the main purpose of the page in fact) Dysmorodrepanis 17:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I have started to collect information regarding the major taxonomic overhaul of the Passeriformes on their talk page. The page itself is a mess taxonomy-wise, it never got more than three-quarters completed. I suggest we collect the published references and then try to make something out of it. Check out the details there. Dysmorodrepanis 19:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
If someone feels like it, this is the last important high-level clade in avian evolution (save for the non-taxon "Graculavidae" which would need a specialist's hand anyway, to result in an article similar to " Odontornithes") for which no page exists. 2 points of note however: - IONO whether the list mentioned by Kim here would suggest higher-level taxonomy according to recent knowledge; these days any "definite" list is bound to be obsolete in one point or another half a year later. Also IONO in how far it is referenced. - I would not go as far as to say that the Galloanserae are verified by evidence. What the evidence suggests is that during the mid/late Cretaceous, the galliform/anseriform lineages split from the "remaining Neognathae" lineage. That much is fairly clear. What is not clear is whether the split between galliforms and anseriforms occurred around the time of their divergence from "higher Neognathae" or later enough for them to share a distinct lineage of common ancestors separate from the other Neognathae; I would tentatively go with the former which does pose a problem if cladistic methodology is applied strictly: the hardcore cladist's assumption would be that no lineage split will occur before the preceding one has been finalized, but that this assumption is generally valid and aptly describing evolutionary reality is obviously preposterous (consequently, its major role is in debate between different schools of systematicists). But there is no real reason, considering most niches were at that time already well staked out by Enantiornithes (the arboreal land bird niches especially), why there should have been such a winding road of adaptation and re-adaptation and drastic niche shifts (bear in mind that forms we consider "primitive" in systematics are primitive only in regard to some peripheral features of lesser adaptive significance - analysis of plesio- and apomorphies should ideally be based on characters with as little adaptive value as possible), and in reality were just as well-adapted for their particular mode of life as our birds are today, only that the mode of life was more jack-of-all-trades. The one thing very rarely found in "primitive" forms indeed is a drastically derived morphology related to opening of entirely new niches, like a hummingbird's shoulders, by the oddly "modern" presbyornithids, which at the C/T boundary already had specialized into a niche today all but closed to anseriforms, suggest that these in fact do occur time and again.
What we can say is that by the C/T, ancestral modern birds as far as anyone can tell existed as the anseriform lineage (fact), the galliform lineage (most likely), and anything from one to a handful of other lineages which in the Paleogene split up into the immediate ancestors of today's families. Many of these were of the "graculavid" shorebird type, but these apparently represent both ancestors of all kinds of unrelated modern families which share the "amphibious" ecotype, and in all likelihood some lineages that went extinct later. As far as anyone can tell, arboreal Neornithes did either not yet exist by the C/T, or, more probably but only based on circumstatial evidence, existed as some small lineages barely holding their own against the Enantiornithes et al. To be sure, a Late Cretaceous observer arguing along the lines of reasoning given today by people with a half understanding of evolution would have considered the ancestors of the Passeriformes, probably the most successful birds ever, a marginal lineage almost certainly doomed to extinction. Reality proves that the success (i.e., species- or ecotype-richness) of a lineage at any point of time cannot provide an appropriate assessment of their future success at all. Dysmorodrepanis 19:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it should go back under Rhodonessa. Livezey's review is the only one suggesting it goes into Netta, and while this was de rigeur for some time, Collar's critique - that the taxon is simply to aberrant to justify this - seems a very valid point to me. Molecular data won't be upcoming in the foreseeable time in all probability. Dysmorodrepanis 09:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi folks, I just completed most of a systematics/taxonomy review of the Anseriformes. There is still some stuff I have not read, but apart from disassembling the Goose/ Anserinae pages, the taxonomy (which was like 10 years obsolete) is now fairly up to current standards. Much uncertainty remains, which all is discussed in the articles, but better to be equivocal when the data is than to give potentially false information. Especially the Anatidae page is now far more robust as regards taxonomy and systematics. Dysmorodrepanis 13:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I took this picture Commons:Image:Cascais20.jpg at a minizoo in Cascais, Portugal. There was no identification tag on the cage. At first I thought it was a female bird of the Lady Amherst's pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae), since there was male bird in the next cage, but I'm not an expert in birds. JoJan 18:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I have created a stub for Streak-headed Mannikin Lonchura tristissima, lumping White-spotted Mannikin L. t. leucosticta in with it because of info in Coates (see ref). If anyone has better or more recent info that suggests the latter needs needs full species treatment, please let me know. Thanks. Maias 05:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi y'all, I have gone over the Evolution section and reviewed last year's papers for it. Basically, the evolutionary history of the modern penguins is as clear as it can possibly get in the absence of fossils for the first lap (good luck trying to dig stuff up in Byrd Land - incidentially the place of origin of more stem-group lineages of living birds than any other place in the world it seems). FWIW, it could be useful to add a phylogenetic drawing; the Baker paper has a nice one, but caveat emptor - the divergence times must be seen with some bit of leeway as they are not based on material evidence. And it would be very nice to add maps, but the paleomaps available either are cylindrical projections or not true paleomaps at all as they show the continent's modern shape. At any rate, enjoy. It is very nice to have in mind in case you need to go mano a mano with some creationist; morphology, DNA, geography, climate, it all just so nicely fits together. Dysmorodrepanis 21:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Two new pictures that might inspire someone to write an article: Commons:Image:Syrigma sibilatrix.jpg and Commons:Image:Scarlet-headed Blackbird.jpg. I'm mentioning this at the request of the photographer, Ken Erickson. Anyone have a South American book? — JerryFriedman 19:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Yikes. I assume you've seen the bit about news species of birds in North America based on barcoding. Here's the pdf oof the paper in Molecular Ecology Notes [11] I wonder where the appropriate place to stick this is. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
See my comments under Image:Piping guan.jpg. I shall whip up a quick stub for Aburria, because the cracids are all messed up regarding redirects etc. Dysmorodrepanis 17:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a section on the wiki for aviculture (birds in breeding programs and as pets). Detailed aviculture paragraphs may clutter the pages on the natural science of the birds. The wiki natural science and aviculture pages already have many interlinks, but it is not clear where species specific aviculture pages should go (ie how to look after a budgie or a cockatoo). The avoculture section could extend to become a useful resourse. In the future many birds are sadly likely to become rarer and so extensive knowledge of birds in aviculture may help to save species for reintroduction to the wild. Similarly, other animals could have similar interlinking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Snowmanradio ( talk • contribs) .
Anyway, if the taxonomy list is complete there should be over 10,000 birds listed. The aviculture page has only 15 birds listed and 3 are these are for the popular hobbies of pigeon keeping and racing. I think that the wiki aviculture pages are not yet as advanced as the natural science pages and should be facilitated to develope. I think that the format as already made for the Black Headed Caique is one acceptable format to combine natural science and aviculture. It has aviculture and natural science on the same page and the links from aviculture are directed to this page. Aviculture is a separate science from the pure natural science of ornithology and I guess separate pages would also be acceptable. Aviculture pages should expand more, I think, as there is a considerable pool of aviculture knowledge yet to feature on the wiki. Perhaps zoos will be able to write pages about aviculture of rare birds. At the current rate there are about 4 aviculture pages added per year. Extrapolating this, the aviculture pages would be complete after 2,500 years. I think that there should be an aim to complete 80% of the aviculture pages within 5 years and 99% within 25 years, after this I guess that some pages will never be made as some birds (sadly) could become extinct. Perhaps, aviculture does have a role in saving some species. Conservation pages could also be linked to endangered species pages to add relevance. This wiki could do this or perhaps another wiki could.
Perhaps aviculture would do betten under a separate wiki project for aviculture pages, and this project called wiki project ornithology. Is there anyone on the wiki project birds that is actually interested in aviculture?
Anyone want to improve Mixed-species feeding flock? I put some open questions on the Talk page. — JerryFriedman 20:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
And while you're at it, I tagged Bird song for cleanup. I'm thinking that we need an article on Bird sounds that covers calls and non-vocal sounds and has a link to the article on song, but maybe all of it should be under one title. (At present "birdcall" and "bird call" redirect to Bird song.) — JerryFriedman 02:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there any general guideline on how large or small a region can be for which a regional list could be considered worthwhile ?
Also if regional lists are worth having, it might be a nice idea to have more than mere links by having seasonal status histogram bars for each species. A template to make histograms for each month along with breeding status would be useful for that. An example here [12] Shyamal 03:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I have created an article on Upland birds as a part of work on a few hunting articles. I added the birds tag, but after looking at it I think that perhaps Upland birds should be a category rather than an article. It seems more like the Subcategory "Migratory Birds" on the birds category page, but I am not sure. Could someone take a look and see whether it would fit within the birds articles better as an article or as a category.-- Counsel 19:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I made the changes. Page now at Upland game bird.-- Counsel 23:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Many of the parrot articles contain substantial inforamtion about parots as pets. Most of the information is roughly the same, comlemented with some species specific information. Would it be a good idea to combine the pet information in a seperate article ( Aviculture (parrots)), and link this from the obvious candidate pages as a disambig link. I think this can become in the first place a much better page than just have snippets here and there. Furthermore, it will free the species pages from duplicated stuff. What do others think about this? Kim van der Linde at venus 22:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Kim van der Linde asked for my opinion, so here is my comment. I think keeping a separate article on parrots in aviculture is the most elegant solution. Ultimately, I think there is a big difference between the kind of information sought by someone interested in wildlife and someone interested in their pet bird. Also, Wikipedia is not a how-to manual, and having "how to keep a pet (blank)" in every parrot species article seems contrary to that thought. It makes for a great deal more work in finding and correcting misinformation that is sometimes posted by well-meaning bird owners. An article on Aviculture (parrots) would, of course, have to be written so that it is not stylistically a how-to guide, but that can be easily done -- see Aquarium for an example of this. Perhaps Aviculture (parrots) can have general information on the specific needs of different families and genera, or perhaps it might eventually grow into several articles with information on different species. -- Ginkgo100 22:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The Feathers Category is a bit of a joke. Every article within it is a stub, and there aren't particually that many of them. I think they should all be merged into feather, or at least a new " types of feathers" article, and should form a key part of the proposed series for bird anatomy. Or at least thats what I think. Anyone else agree? mastodon 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that a new article should be created to deal with this broad subject. There is already a bird skeleton article to deal with such a narrow subject, seems pointless to clutter the bird article with so much detail that will enevitably be added. I have ordered the current article to deal with the information as it stands, but it will not do for long. I say split; comments welcome - mastodon 21:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone with some background in aviculture take a look at the softbill article? There is a new editor there who insists on completely deleting the existing article's text and writing his own article from scratch. Moreover, his new article is not in Wikipedia format and does not cite references within the article.
His totally new article is rather at odds with the previous article and I am not knowledgeable enough to determine the truth, although his attitude ("What, me format?") is enough to cause me to revert back to the original.
In other words, help! Thanks, Oscar 04:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Small thing: can someone confirm that this is a male? Image:Tufted titmouse perching 2006-11-23.jpg Thanks, — coelacan talk — 19:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
List of Puerto Rican birds is up for a peer review. Please leave your comments/suggestion here. Joelito ( talk) 16:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Kakapo, Albatross and now Elfin-woods Warbler have made the grade as Featured Articles - but we don't appear to have many bird articles listed yet as Good Articles, the relatively new stepping stone category on the way to FA status - just Australian Ringneck and bird itself. I'm sure we have plenty of potential candidates - if you can think of some, can I encourage you to nominate them at the nominations page. I'm happy to review nominations - just leave a note on my talk page. SP-KP 21:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
As well as the main Wikipedia collaboration of the week, there are topic-specific collaborations e.g. the "New Zealand collaboration of the fortnight" - would there be an appetite for something similar on birds? SP-KP 15:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Just to let you know that Ivory-billed Woodpecker is now a Good Article SP-KP 23:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
... and, I've now listed it for peer review, as the next step towards FA status, hopefully. Any & all comments appreciated. SP-KP 07:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Check out Mariana Mallard if you like. I mentioned some refs I would like to have in there but do not have at hand at present in the source, as comments. Also, I will make a map and possibly get my hands on some pix: this and this page's images should be copyright-free (US Gov't work), or not? The second is a "superciliosa" type drake (the last male); I'd guess that the first shows the last female as the flanks and scapulars (or what one can see of them) seem to agree. Bill has me wondering though; so I'd like a second (third...) opinion. Dysmorodrepanis 17:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I have submitted Albatross for Featured article status, I'd appreciate comments or support. Sabine's Sunbird talk 15:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've thrown another bird family into peer review with a mind to getting it featured. I'd appreciate any comments on what is missing from the article and what needs to be tightened up. Come check it out here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd appreciate either support or comments! Thanks. Check it out here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I've started a second peer review for seabird, hopefully I can finish the bugger off. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I question an article like "Scrub Jay" (a totally New World group ocurring in only Latin America and the U.S.) being written in British English. While I'd expect an article on Skylark or even Winter Wren to be written with British English, this struck me as odd. What do others think about this? - Natureguy1980 20:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I really did not know where to put this discussion so if anyone feels it belong in another category feel free to move it. I feel like we need to start assessing the articles under this WikiProject and that we should start to collaborate more between ourselves.
To kick this off I made some changes to the {{ BirdTalk}} template. There are new parameters to help assess the importance and quality of bird-related articles. Also I am in the process of creating some sub-pages to help us in these tasks.
We now need to start discussing the definitions for article importance. Quality definitions have already been discussed at length in Wikipedia so there won't be much need to discuss them. We need to start thinking which articles should be Top importance, High importance, etc.
When the sub-pages are ready I will post the links for them here and will create a navigational bar.
Also there will need to be a discussion for the categories' names. For example Category:FA-Class Birds articles or Category:FA-Class Bird articles or Category:FA-Class birds articles. Joelito ( talk) 21:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Joint custody for Archaeopteryx is fine as long as we are willing to work on the article. How about this classification scheme?
However some cosmopolitan or domesticated species (e.g. Chicken) should probably be given higher importance ratings. Joelito ( talk) 15:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I think a better idea would be: Top for Orders, High for Families, Mid for Genera and Low for Species. I also endorse the idea of promoting "notable" taxa up a category. Bird migration is such an important topic it should go in the Top category, surely? SP-KP 22:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, could we get a developer or bot to whizz down through the Tree of Life's birds branch and add this automatically to the 1000+ articles that are there, rather than having to do it manually? I've just added it to the Bird articles I've created and it's taken ages. SP-KP 22:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I seem to have become an involuntary arbitrator in some edit conflicts on that page (see talk:guineafowl). Peace temporarily has descended, but I'd welcome a second opinion, especially on the cookery issue. jimfbleak 13:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Arctic Tern is on peer review. Please leave comments here. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated seabird for FA status. I'd appreciate support or comments. I can't wait to get this one featured so I never have to look at it again. Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I have included numerous useful links to free to view journals and other online sources of reliable information in the Taxonomy and references section of this project page. If you know of any other free journals that are worth including please add them. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Seeing Homo florensis get the FAR treatment today made me think that our earliest featured article, Kakapo, could probably use a spring clean. Its a little citation light by todays standards, and we should maybe work on it a little to keep it featured. The current issue of Notornis, here, is actually entirely about the natural history and conservation of the species. It would be good to catch it before it goes to FAR. I'll start looking at it tonight. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated Arctic Tern to be a Featured Article. I'd appreciate any comments or support you may have. Please see it here. Thank you, everyone. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.
The plugin has two main modes of operation:
As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.
For more information see:
Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. -- Kingboyk 11:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Barring changes, Procellariidae will appear on the Main Page as today's featured article on October 22. To help fight vandalism, click here to start watching the page if you have not already started. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 15:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
A current featured article candidate, Amchitka, needs a little help. Would somebody mind writing a paragraph or two on the birds of this island? Two possible sources I've found are Birds of Amchitka Island, Alaska and Notes on the Birds of Amchitka Island, Alaska. Thanks, Jakew 11:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Please comment on the move and reversion jimfbleak 05:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have placed Mourning Dove on Peer review. Please leave comments, input, and suggestions here. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 21:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I listed American Crow for peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Peer review/American Crow. - Elliskev 23:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
There is currently a barnstar proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Wildlife Barnstar for a barnstar which would be available for use for this project. Please feel free to visit the page and make any comments you see fit. Badbilltucker 15:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Just to let you know that Surfbirds made it onto the Spam blacklist here; I've got it removed, hopefully this will be permanently but it's possible that it'll get re-added. One to watch for when adding external links, references etc. SP-KP 19:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Beginning cross-post.
End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.
This article needs more despite being graded a good article. The structure of the article and sections need to be thought of more carefully and citations need to be improved. All the group level animal articles need a little more attention in general - since these are going to popular starting points and their organization/structure can really help people forage for additional information. Shyamal 03:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
There is now a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Veterinary Medicine to deal with matters of veterinary medicine, a subject which currently has disproportionately low content in wikipedia. Any wikipedia editors who have an interest in working on content related to the subject are encouraged to indicate as much there. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
One of your flagship pages Parrot needs a bit of a clean up, I think. Snowman 00:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
How do I join WikiProjectBirds? Teak the Kiwi 04:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Kakapo has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
A modest proposal:
{{
User:Aerobird/WP Birds Userbox}}
-
Aerobird
21:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Please be aware of the proposed Species microformat, particularly in relation to taxoboxes. Comments welcome on the wiki at that link. Andy Mabbett 15:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Aviculture. The purpose of this project is to help increase the amount and quality of content related to aviculture on wikipedia, and to maintain and organise articles relating to the subject, eventually bringing as many as possible up to good- or featured-article status. I feel that is sufficiently different to WikiProject Birds (aspects of ornithology and biology) to need a separate project. Snowman 17:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on a page for the Rock Wren of New Zealand, which has exactly the same name as the Rock Wren of North America (even on the HBW website). I'm wary of using the name suggested on the New Zealand wren article ( New Zealand Rock Wren) as I've never seen that name anywhere else. So, do we go for the clunky New Zealand Rock Wren or do we have Rock Wren (New Zealand)? (p.s. yes, I might finally be back) Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I am a new member of WikiProject Birds. Recently i am trying to categorize African estrildidae according to countries which they are native in. However, it was proposed to merge all of the subcategories into Category:Birds of Africa. I was wondering if any of the experts here have any idea to organize the category/ subcategories? See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Category:Birds of Africa, for discussion. Luffy487 04:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if there is any subspecies taxobox example available? See Green-backed Twinspot, Solitary Tinamou and Star Finch, for examples. Luffy487 06:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi all,
Recently, the WikiProject Dinosaurs team has been working to improve Archaeopteryx. Since this article is partially under the purview of the Bird folks, I thought I'd stop by and drop an invite to you all to come help improve or refine the article in any way you can. Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 04:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
WikiProject Birds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
I'm coming back to my Taxo-categorization. After doing category:Caprimulgiformes, I hit something of a snag in Ardeidae, and am currently in the process of merging Heron into it.
Ardea redirected to Heron, which had almost all the info belonging in Ardeidae, only excluding egrets and bitterns. "Heron" as a name technically makes little taxonomical sense to be made distinct from ardeidae or even limited to a single genus, so heron now redirects to heron (disambiguation).
Are there opponents to this? Circeus 21:32, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Since Bitterns only duplicated info from Ardeidae, it also has been merged and redirected. Egret, however, I can do with. Circeus 22:06, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Damn! Looks like all family links for species in Ardeidae were directed into Heron or bittern. Adjusting that as I go. Circeus 22:15, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
Phew! Ardeidae is done. feel free to expand Ixobrychus and Botaurus. Circeus 22:51, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
returning to do some taxo-categorization, I noticed that Category:Wading Birds could use some population, but I seriously lack the competence to do that. Can someone have a look at it? Circeus 03:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
there are now no bird, bird genus, families etc. articles in category:birds and all non-species articles have benn moved fromits children to category:Birds by classification. It will be necessary to occasionally check through to spot badly or un-categorized articles, but most of the work has been done. Many subgroups still have to be created, but lack at themoment, articles for it to be required.
Maybe at some point I'll work up the energy to get started on category:plants, but right now, I want to do something new, so that'll have to wait. Circeus 06:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
The name of Category:Controversial birds seems to be "odd" at best. Any ideas for better names? I'm too tired to come up with any alternatives at this point, but thought I'd point it out... Tom e r talk 10:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello guys. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Alcidae_to_Category:Auks. Conscious 12:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Two categories related to this project are up for deletion/merge. Please voice your opinions on the matter here. Joelito ( talk) 18:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Apparently there was a misunderstanding about recategorization—"Avifauna of" categories got renamed to "Endemic birds of", so that, for example, the Eurasian Collared-Dove is now in Category:Endemic birds of Southeastern United States! I asked User:Cyde to stop his bot from making the conversions (though I may not have been in time) and brought it up at WP:CFD, so you don't have to do that, dear reader. But maybe somebody from this project needs to keep an eye on this recategorization. And I'm not all that interested in categories :-) — JerryFriedman 05:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The taxobox examples don't use the templates defined for Tree of life taxoboxes. Is this simply because the examples predate the templates? If so, shouldn't the examples be changed to use the templates? In addition, it seems like there could be one or two custom taxobox_begin templates for Aves, that would fill in all the common fields and potentially even add categories. For example, there could be a taxobox_aves_family template that does all of what is in the family taxobox up to and including the "Family:" line in the table, with a usage like {{taxobox_aves_family|Hummingbirds|Apodiformes|Trochilidae}}. Any article using this template could be categorized (in the template) into a category for the given order. With 4 templates (for family and genus, with and without picture) the amount of "table" code in the articles for generating the taxoboxes would be significantly reduced. If there's any interest in this, I could create the templates. -- Rick Block 16:23, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Just wanted to say I have started to apply the new taxobox syntax through bird articles, at least those who have pictures (Yes, I am that biased...). I'm also sorting them down into families (sometimes even subfamilies) I've done gruiformes and started anseriformes (actually, Anatidae for the time being). I will likely go back soon and also apply it to unimaged taxoboxes. Circeus 01:26, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
The genus should be linked (and not bolded) if the article does not describe the genus. The genus should be bold (and not linked) if the article is about the genus. This is true for all taxa. If the article is about the whole genus and is a single species, then both the genus and the species should be bolded and unlinked, etc. Please make any corrections. I'll help. *grins* - UtherSRG 14:52, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
You've made a few other mistakes...
- UtherSRG 15:14, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
I noticed that as of recently, the first taxon in species lists in genus taxoboxes (or ssp lists in species t'boxes) is marked with an asterisk instead of the usual unnumbered-list-square-bullet thing. E.g. here: Perisoreus. What gives? This is neither nice nor good - one could place the type species or nominate ssp in the first position to make it distinguishable, but it really looks like a bug to me. The code looks OK, and IIRC this phenomenon has only appeared since 3 weeks or so. Dysmorodrepanis 12:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC) I tried removing the list syntax in Confuciusornis and found that this solves the problem, but there is a conspicuous gap between the first and the second entry in the species list. Something seems to be rotten with the taxobox template code. Dysmorodrepanis 13:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
To add on project page: open map sources, where on Commons to upload homegrown blank/distri maps. What about the commonly encountered conservation status trend tag in taxoboxes? It is potentially useful, but not supported ATM it seems. Dysmorodrepanis 03:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria for a discussion of a new stub tag for bird stubs. — msh210 17:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if we can have a common structure for inclusion of sonograms. Shyamal 01:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Why exactly are bird names given in uppercase? I noticed that Britannia doesn't do this (they say "snowy owl", rather than "Snowy Owl" for example). Where did this style come from? Stevage 08:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
User Amotis has been systematically adding a link to a site with videos on hundreds of articles about birds (see his contributions). Now normally whenever I see someone adding the same link to multiple sites with no additional content I remove that link everywhere they inserted it. However I hesitate in this case because I'm concerned it might actually be considered a valuable and relevant link. Could I get some opinions on this from the bird experts? Does the usefulness of this particular link outweight the fact that it was spammed? See here for my original post to the Spam project on this. Thanks much! -- AbsolutDan (talk) 17:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
User:Krun is changing article titles from Wikipedia standard Upper-case initial letters to a different standard. Would someone like to speak nicely to him and ask him to stop? SP-KP 21:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Why do you people come up with these weird rules? Don't you know that Wikipedia is the only place where "Ostrich," "Starling," "Emu," "Western Marsh Harrier," and "Bald Eagle" are considered proper nouns (besides in Native American stories)? Don't tell me "cat" and "dog" are also proper nouns.… ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 01:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any guideline for how bird calls can be made available on the bird pages. I have a small but growing collection of ogg files waiting to be added. Is there any templates that help a person find an ogg player etc. ? Shyamal 03:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a standard for distribution map colours. Some of the maps I have added follow this
These are picked off the palette in M$Paint and does not follow any rigorous RGB specification. Would be good if standard colours can be suggested on the project page. Shyamal 12:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I found this misidentified image: Image:Laysan.teal.arp.750pix.jpg (see description for details). I have replaced it with a correct photo in Laysan Duck, but the new one is far less good than the old one (the bird did not want to be photographed, and I had to sharpen it to get it to a somewhat publishable quality at all). The misidentified image should be renamed, and if somebody has a good photo of a Laysan Duck, please add it to the article. Dysmorodrepanis 22:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
If people need images of a phylogeny based on articles that they have found, but can not copy due to copyright issues, I can make them on request. Kim van der Linde at venus 04:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've found this strange move: Ou_(bird). The new title "Ǒ" means "or" or "of" in Hawaiian (if they would write their short vowels with a breve). I am especially puzzled because I elaborated at quite some length on the pronounciation to make it clear that the name is pronounced as two distinct sounds. What gives? Dysmorodrepanis 15:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Cross posting from Talk:Bird were I was proposing a nav box for bird related articles that are not covered by the taxoboxes. This is a rough draft created by me and modified by User:Jrockley. I don't have much talent in these matters, but I think it would be a good idea so as to remove the 'see also's and also provide redlinks to subjects we need to cover.
edit Birds |
---|
![]() |
Anatomy: Bird anatomy - Bird skeleton - Bird flight - Avian pallium - Egg - Feather - Wing (bird) - Physiology (bird) |
Evolution and extinction. Bird evolution - Archaeopteryx - Bird hybrid - Late Quaternary prehistoric birds - Fossil birds - Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy |
Ecology: Bird ecology - Bird populations |
Behaviour: Bird song - Bird intelligence - Bird migration - Bird reproduction |
Bird types: Seabirds - Shorebirds - Waterbirds - Song birds - Birds of Prey - Poultry |
Birds and Humans: Extinct birds - Bird ringing - Ornithology - Birdwatching - Birdfeeding - Bird conservation |
Thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Formal common names are capitalised. Should alternative common names be capitalised or not? Nurg 05:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
When you say common names do you mean names of creatures, because if you do I think that alternative names should be capitalised. After all, they may be alternative but they are still their names. If you don't mean the names of creatures, could you elaborate? - 12:07, 8 July 2006 I'd say yes. The Rough-legged Buzzard of Europe is the Rough-legged Hawk of North America. Just because we plumb for one for the page name doesnt make the other uncapitalised. Sabine's Sunbird talk 17:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
There is neither an universally recommended citation format nor one universally used (although they occasionally seem to infer that inline/footnote citations are preferred). However, I do not use footnote citations for scientific references, and here's why:
But I do use footnotes occasionally in addition. Here's how I like to do it. Note how things that are of immediate interest to understanding of the text are footnoted, whereas the source publications of information in the article are Harvard-cited.
This is not to start a discussion or to unify the citing style (there are more pressing things to do), but merely food for thought. E.g. the Archaeopteryx article, which is already cluttered without end would become night uneditable when using footnote refs. Or what to do with Dromornithidae, which nearly exclusively uses "background info" refs? So to me, it seems the most flexible thing to use Harvard refs for background stuff and footnote refs for annotations.
As a general rule, always try to read, cite and if any possible link the original sources. For example, placing the Pink-headed Duck in Netta was originally claimed in the article to be based on molecular evidence, because that's how many of us "know" taxonomy is done nowadays. Turns out it was a morphological study after all, and it was not that new either, and the evidence is slim indeed. Dysmorodrepanis 08:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
It would be ideal to have a "best of both worlds" format shortcut. E.g. to make a conventional (end of article) ref section which does automatic indicating and backlinking; the former as it is done in many paper PDFs today. Thus, the source becomes cleaner, better to edit and more compact, while the arrangement is comfortable to use for readers. The format of the citations themselves does not differ really between the 3 approaches. Dysmorodrepanis 03:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Species lists are unpopular, as they tend to clutter up a page with "blocks of Latin" and/or redlinks. Formatting can help to keep them compact, but
Should I take it from the lack of guidance on structuring articles that "free rein" is given, rather than any specific hierarchy of headings? Thanks-- GRM 21:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
The habitat/range/breeding/migration/feeding stuff I usually collect under "Ecology" if it's not enough to split into sections and if the article ahs too much text to leave it unsectioned. Dysmorodrepanis 01:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I took this picture while on vacation in Florida. It's a stork, and according to a disney page, it's one of:
(Added links) Looking at the images on Wood Stork and White Stork, it doesn't seem to be either of them. It doesn't seem to be the Woolly-necked Stork or Abdim's Stork either, though. - UtherSRG 02:54, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the Wood Stork looks like the closest so far. - UtherSRG 03:14, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Hrm. You're right, the Wood Stork's whole head is dark. - UtherSRG 03:37, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Try Painted Stork jimfbleak 06:43, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The Hoopoe page appears by and large to cover Upupa epops only. However, it is also the target of redirects from Upupiformes, Upupidae, and Upupa africana. This has caused some confusion among the interwiki links from various other language editions, where there are separate pages for the different taxonomic ranks. Interwiki links referring to different taxonomic ranks had been merged back and forth. I've undone this knot, but I suspect it will creep back unless the situation is fixed. Would somebody please split and clean up the English page? — Naddy 23:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Charadriiformes organisation is a mess that is very hard to work with for someone lacking good ornithological knowledge: levels missing (should I separate Vanellus as an article or leave the species in Vanellinae??) or weirdly classified ( Scolopacidae is just plain scary!), and not to mention I utterly disagree with listing all related families and descendant species/genera in family articles!! Circeus 18:44, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)
I'm in the process of trying to get the albatross article up to FA status, something I imagine will take some time. One of the things I'm going to do is write a article for each species, and each genus, so as to cut down on all the red links that would otherwise be there. Thing is, the current species list (which has 16 species) doesn't seem to match any existing species list out there. It doesn't currently follow HBW, although this is good thing (to my mind)considering the recent, widely accpeted split of the group into 4, not two, genera. Any huge objections to my doing the list based on the one the IUCN uses for assessing their red list status [1]? It seems to be the most commonly accpeted on I can find, and I don't mind doing the 17 articles needed (plus expanding a few of the existing ones). Sabine's Sunbird 04:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
So is there a consensus that the kingfishers are separated? I assume we're following HBW, but few other sources seem to split the families as of yet. Also there's oddballs like the Nicators, Donacobius, and Olive Warbler, what, if any "revolutionary" information should be followed? They're changing the taxonomy on these birds constantly, and since HBW was started in 1998 there's some danger our info is already obsolete.
Just a concern, and largely for the sake of curiosity, not something too serious or critical. - Miwa 04:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
My recent and possibly mistaken edit of Rock/Stock Dove to Ditto Pigeon on the List of British birds: non-passerines brings up a question that interests me. What happens as HBW gets more and more out of date? For instance, we may easily see the time when every English-language regional checklist has followed the BOU (as the AOU has) in calling Columba livia the Rock Pigeon, but HBW is still working on volume 13?
There will never be a good solution till the ornithologists standardize, but maybe we should go to a more frequently updated checklist (or set of checklists?).
— JerryFriedman 21:06, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is straightforward to find authorities for genera and for orders of birds, but for many families it is not. (For example, Megapodiidae, Anseranatidae, Tetraonidae, Phasianidae, Odontophoridae, Numididae, Meleagrididae, Mesitornithidae, Cochlearidae, Balaenicipitidae, Scopidae, Cathartidae, Turnicidae, Gruidae, Psophiidae, Heliornithidae, Rhynochetidae, Eurypigidae, Otididae, etc. etc.) So who named them? Gdr 13:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I need some help with this... the Vampire Finch (Geospiza nebulosa), which seems to be the Wolf Island (Galapagos) subspecies of Sharp-beaked Ground Finch (Geospiza difficilis), is not listed on the website you gave me. That said, some sources on a google search seem to call the Sharp-beaked Ground Finch Geospiza nebulosa instead of Geospiza difficilis, which is adding to my confusion. Anyhoo, I'm thinking maybe it would be prudent to find some more authoritative source on Darwin's finches before proceeding with more articles, but meanwhile there are some question marks I've left in the Vampire Finch taxobox. Tom e r talk 03:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering what people thought about merging the two. Is there any meaningful distinction between the two? At the moment the term petrel is used inconsistently in wikipedia - it seems to denote either the procellariids, or the gadfly petrels (as distinct from the prions, shearwaters etc) or all tubenoses. Given as how the page itself describes the petrels as being the Procellariiformes, surely a merge is in order. Which begs the question, which should merege into which? Sabine's Sunbird 09:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone identify this? Oaxaca, Mexico, probably Atlantic Slope lowlands. And is there a better place to ask? — JerryFriedman 20:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
It looks pretty close to the Greyish Saltator in Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-0814-9600-4 Parameter error in {{ ISBN}}: checksum, and in the big image, I can almost convince myself that ther is a dark malar stripe. This species is expanding its range in CR, don't know its status further north. jimfbleak 06:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
ok, sorry if I'm being picky, but I noticed that instead of "blue-crowned conure" the artcle is "blue-crowned parakeet" maybe it's a UK/US thing, but I'd never heard the parakeet name before before I found it on wikipedia. Jedi of redwall 20:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I recently wrote an article on the Elfin-woods Warbler. I submitted this article to Peer review but it only got 2 superficial replies. I would like for people here to take a look and make suggestions/recommendations. I also wrote Puerto Rican Spindalis for which I would also like suggestions/recommendations. Joelito 14:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm new here but already I am confused. I don't have access to Handbook of Birds of the World so I have no way of knowing what it says but the AOU, and ITIS assign the family Trochilidae to the order Apodiformes and not Trochiliformes. I notice that Wikispecies uses the older taxonomy. I know that there is not just the one taxonomy but don't think it's Wikipedia's roll to define the standard. Why not just go with Wikispecies and let them fight it out. Could someone help me with this. -- Droll 04:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone identify this amazon? I'm hoping for A. oratrix. — JerryFriedman 19:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The Psittaciformes (parrot) taxonomy, especially at the higher levels is pretty messy documented, with articles covering the same "groups" naming them differently (one as subfamilies, the other as tribes), subfamilies (-inae) with tribe (-ini) endings etc. There is clearly no full consensus in the literature, and I will start rewriting using good sources, and using the consensus (as far as possible) or discuss the different classifications. Kim van der Linde at venus 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I am an 18 month wikipedian who has been concentrating on insects but I have recently been amending taxonomy on some bird pages. User:Sabine's Sunbird has informed me that HBW is generally used as the standard reference for taxonomy. I don't want to make waves but this seems a little inflexible for a dynamic resource like WP when there is more current data available. This seems to negate WP's outstanding advantage over other encyclopaedias, the ability to change quickly and remain current and not stagnate. I have tried to retain a reference to the older taxonomy but give precedence to the more current taxonomic thought. I will stop making any changes for a few days while anyone who wants to has a say, any feedback gratefully received! Richard Barlow 09:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll be happy to run anything past you here first, thanks for the response. Richard Barlow 09:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Miwa posted a question on the Old World warbler talk page in the light of sweeping changes at the family level proposed (or at least relayed) on this site [9], which was how long should we give until discarding the current WP guideline of HBW and going with the results of Jonsson & Fjeldså 2006 / Alstrom et al. (2006), et cetera? At the very least perhaps we should begin an effort to try and discuss interesting new discovery in taxonomy on the respective family and species pages. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't Category:Otidae be Category:Otididae as per HBW? SP-KP 19:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody know of any instance of hybridization between ratites (Emu X Cassowary, Emu X Ostrich, Northern Cassowary X Southern Cassowary, Ostrich X Rhea, Greater Rhea X Lesser Rhea, etc.)? I have searched the internet endlessly and have found nothing on the subject. Has it been tried by ratite farmers? If nobody knows, I would at least like to hear opinions on the matter. - 17:37, 7 July 2006
I beg to differ because I recently found out from a wikipedia user that in the 1970's an australian zoo had a batch of emu/cassowary hybrids hatch. I'm not sure if the source is reliable though. And emus & cassowaries are in the same family. There is even a RECENT transitional fossil called Emuarius. I think that an emu/cassowary, a Greater/Lesser Rhea & a cassowary hybrid are indeed possible. By the way I have heard about hybrids that cross family bounderies. Most of them are galliforms and there are documented reports of such hybrids. www.feathersite.com has photos of guineafowl/peafowl hybrids & guineafowl/chicken hybrids. P.S. I think we are on different time zones because according to my watch it is 18:49, 7 July 2006
For the record I've also seen a photo of a zebra finch/owl finch hybrid. - 19:46, 7 July 2006
More opinions & comments are welcome. I will check back often. - 20:41, 7 July 2006
While we are on the subject of hybrids (despite the fact that this was supposed to be a ratite-specific discussion) I think that there should be a page on hybrid macaws as they are becoming more numerous in aviculture. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/macaws/information/hybrid.htm has plenty of photos & info. on them.
I believe the Ratite article could use more info. particularly in regard to farming. I can't do it as I am good with details, but not with large-scale information. I was hoping that someone with more knowledge on the subject could do it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.237.252.122 ( talk • contribs) .
By the way, is the Westerman's Cassowary (Casuarius papuanus) a species in it's own right or a subspecies of the Dwarf Cassowary (Casuarius bennetti)?. Please Reply. - 17:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I am not too sure about this (and who is?), but reviewing the fossil data and paleobiogeography I would rather go with a classification of the ratites as different orders and not different families of a single order Struthioniformes. How one would place the whole moa/kiwi/cassowary stuff is possibly the best-resolved issue of them all, but the single-order approach is at odds with fossil data, or the "out-of-Gondwana" hypothesis as usually presented is wrong. Molecular information does not help the least bit. Be advised that changing the classification would involve some serious work. Perhaps a collection of studies and review papers under Ratite similar to what exists under Passeriformes would be in order. Dysmorodrepanis 14:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I find the present setup (ratites = Strithioniformes) fairly untenable; it is not supported by current molecular and morphological phylogenies. Altogether, the page should be split, but there is need to collect many references first. These can be collected e.g. in my sandbox, either under "General" or "Ratites". Dysmorodrepanis 13:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I have yet to recieve a reply to my last post & I was wondering if anybody read it. If not, here it is again: I think that there should be a page on hybrid macaws as they are becoming more numerous in aviculture. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/macaws/information/hybrid.htm has plenty of photos & info. on them.
Now that I think about it, I think it would be easier to add a Hybrid section to the main macaw article. I will try to make it good. Be forewarned hoever, that I am not very good at this so the section might require a cleanup.
The deed is done. Check the main Macaw article to see my work. Feel free to edit if you see something incorrect or missing.
I have big problems with the revert done to the Scrub Jay page after my revisions.
First of all, Unicolored and Mexican jays (especially the former) are NOT scrub jays! They are Aphelocomoa yes, but that doens't make them scrub jays. For one thing, Unicolored Jay inhabits cloudforests--nothing like dry scrub. I realize that there should be a page for Aphelocoma, but I highly suggest making it different from the page for "Scrub jay."
How does editing this stuff work? I see the potential for editing wars . . . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Natureguy1980 ( talk • contribs) .
This page attempts to present a comprehensive synonymy of (eventually) all modern bird taxa (excluding prehistoric extinctions). It is a very helpful tool indeed, including data from such hard-to-find works as Sharpe/Hartert/Salvadori's BMNH catalog! Note that other information in the species accounts is not reviewed, so use with care. The synonymies, when present, are thorough though (the main purpose of the page in fact) Dysmorodrepanis 17:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I have started to collect information regarding the major taxonomic overhaul of the Passeriformes on their talk page. The page itself is a mess taxonomy-wise, it never got more than three-quarters completed. I suggest we collect the published references and then try to make something out of it. Check out the details there. Dysmorodrepanis 19:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
If someone feels like it, this is the last important high-level clade in avian evolution (save for the non-taxon "Graculavidae" which would need a specialist's hand anyway, to result in an article similar to " Odontornithes") for which no page exists. 2 points of note however: - IONO whether the list mentioned by Kim here would suggest higher-level taxonomy according to recent knowledge; these days any "definite" list is bound to be obsolete in one point or another half a year later. Also IONO in how far it is referenced. - I would not go as far as to say that the Galloanserae are verified by evidence. What the evidence suggests is that during the mid/late Cretaceous, the galliform/anseriform lineages split from the "remaining Neognathae" lineage. That much is fairly clear. What is not clear is whether the split between galliforms and anseriforms occurred around the time of their divergence from "higher Neognathae" or later enough for them to share a distinct lineage of common ancestors separate from the other Neognathae; I would tentatively go with the former which does pose a problem if cladistic methodology is applied strictly: the hardcore cladist's assumption would be that no lineage split will occur before the preceding one has been finalized, but that this assumption is generally valid and aptly describing evolutionary reality is obviously preposterous (consequently, its major role is in debate between different schools of systematicists). But there is no real reason, considering most niches were at that time already well staked out by Enantiornithes (the arboreal land bird niches especially), why there should have been such a winding road of adaptation and re-adaptation and drastic niche shifts (bear in mind that forms we consider "primitive" in systematics are primitive only in regard to some peripheral features of lesser adaptive significance - analysis of plesio- and apomorphies should ideally be based on characters with as little adaptive value as possible), and in reality were just as well-adapted for their particular mode of life as our birds are today, only that the mode of life was more jack-of-all-trades. The one thing very rarely found in "primitive" forms indeed is a drastically derived morphology related to opening of entirely new niches, like a hummingbird's shoulders, by the oddly "modern" presbyornithids, which at the C/T boundary already had specialized into a niche today all but closed to anseriforms, suggest that these in fact do occur time and again.
What we can say is that by the C/T, ancestral modern birds as far as anyone can tell existed as the anseriform lineage (fact), the galliform lineage (most likely), and anything from one to a handful of other lineages which in the Paleogene split up into the immediate ancestors of today's families. Many of these were of the "graculavid" shorebird type, but these apparently represent both ancestors of all kinds of unrelated modern families which share the "amphibious" ecotype, and in all likelihood some lineages that went extinct later. As far as anyone can tell, arboreal Neornithes did either not yet exist by the C/T, or, more probably but only based on circumstatial evidence, existed as some small lineages barely holding their own against the Enantiornithes et al. To be sure, a Late Cretaceous observer arguing along the lines of reasoning given today by people with a half understanding of evolution would have considered the ancestors of the Passeriformes, probably the most successful birds ever, a marginal lineage almost certainly doomed to extinction. Reality proves that the success (i.e., species- or ecotype-richness) of a lineage at any point of time cannot provide an appropriate assessment of their future success at all. Dysmorodrepanis 19:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it should go back under Rhodonessa. Livezey's review is the only one suggesting it goes into Netta, and while this was de rigeur for some time, Collar's critique - that the taxon is simply to aberrant to justify this - seems a very valid point to me. Molecular data won't be upcoming in the foreseeable time in all probability. Dysmorodrepanis 09:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi folks, I just completed most of a systematics/taxonomy review of the Anseriformes. There is still some stuff I have not read, but apart from disassembling the Goose/ Anserinae pages, the taxonomy (which was like 10 years obsolete) is now fairly up to current standards. Much uncertainty remains, which all is discussed in the articles, but better to be equivocal when the data is than to give potentially false information. Especially the Anatidae page is now far more robust as regards taxonomy and systematics. Dysmorodrepanis 13:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I took this picture Commons:Image:Cascais20.jpg at a minizoo in Cascais, Portugal. There was no identification tag on the cage. At first I thought it was a female bird of the Lady Amherst's pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae), since there was male bird in the next cage, but I'm not an expert in birds. JoJan 18:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I have created a stub for Streak-headed Mannikin Lonchura tristissima, lumping White-spotted Mannikin L. t. leucosticta in with it because of info in Coates (see ref). If anyone has better or more recent info that suggests the latter needs needs full species treatment, please let me know. Thanks. Maias 05:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi y'all, I have gone over the Evolution section and reviewed last year's papers for it. Basically, the evolutionary history of the modern penguins is as clear as it can possibly get in the absence of fossils for the first lap (good luck trying to dig stuff up in Byrd Land - incidentially the place of origin of more stem-group lineages of living birds than any other place in the world it seems). FWIW, it could be useful to add a phylogenetic drawing; the Baker paper has a nice one, but caveat emptor - the divergence times must be seen with some bit of leeway as they are not based on material evidence. And it would be very nice to add maps, but the paleomaps available either are cylindrical projections or not true paleomaps at all as they show the continent's modern shape. At any rate, enjoy. It is very nice to have in mind in case you need to go mano a mano with some creationist; morphology, DNA, geography, climate, it all just so nicely fits together. Dysmorodrepanis 21:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Two new pictures that might inspire someone to write an article: Commons:Image:Syrigma sibilatrix.jpg and Commons:Image:Scarlet-headed Blackbird.jpg. I'm mentioning this at the request of the photographer, Ken Erickson. Anyone have a South American book? — JerryFriedman 19:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Yikes. I assume you've seen the bit about news species of birds in North America based on barcoding. Here's the pdf oof the paper in Molecular Ecology Notes [11] I wonder where the appropriate place to stick this is. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
See my comments under Image:Piping guan.jpg. I shall whip up a quick stub for Aburria, because the cracids are all messed up regarding redirects etc. Dysmorodrepanis 17:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a section on the wiki for aviculture (birds in breeding programs and as pets). Detailed aviculture paragraphs may clutter the pages on the natural science of the birds. The wiki natural science and aviculture pages already have many interlinks, but it is not clear where species specific aviculture pages should go (ie how to look after a budgie or a cockatoo). The avoculture section could extend to become a useful resourse. In the future many birds are sadly likely to become rarer and so extensive knowledge of birds in aviculture may help to save species for reintroduction to the wild. Similarly, other animals could have similar interlinking. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Snowmanradio ( talk • contribs) .
Anyway, if the taxonomy list is complete there should be over 10,000 birds listed. The aviculture page has only 15 birds listed and 3 are these are for the popular hobbies of pigeon keeping and racing. I think that the wiki aviculture pages are not yet as advanced as the natural science pages and should be facilitated to develope. I think that the format as already made for the Black Headed Caique is one acceptable format to combine natural science and aviculture. It has aviculture and natural science on the same page and the links from aviculture are directed to this page. Aviculture is a separate science from the pure natural science of ornithology and I guess separate pages would also be acceptable. Aviculture pages should expand more, I think, as there is a considerable pool of aviculture knowledge yet to feature on the wiki. Perhaps zoos will be able to write pages about aviculture of rare birds. At the current rate there are about 4 aviculture pages added per year. Extrapolating this, the aviculture pages would be complete after 2,500 years. I think that there should be an aim to complete 80% of the aviculture pages within 5 years and 99% within 25 years, after this I guess that some pages will never be made as some birds (sadly) could become extinct. Perhaps, aviculture does have a role in saving some species. Conservation pages could also be linked to endangered species pages to add relevance. This wiki could do this or perhaps another wiki could.
Perhaps aviculture would do betten under a separate wiki project for aviculture pages, and this project called wiki project ornithology. Is there anyone on the wiki project birds that is actually interested in aviculture?
Anyone want to improve Mixed-species feeding flock? I put some open questions on the Talk page. — JerryFriedman 20:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
And while you're at it, I tagged Bird song for cleanup. I'm thinking that we need an article on Bird sounds that covers calls and non-vocal sounds and has a link to the article on song, but maybe all of it should be under one title. (At present "birdcall" and "bird call" redirect to Bird song.) — JerryFriedman 02:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Is there any general guideline on how large or small a region can be for which a regional list could be considered worthwhile ?
Also if regional lists are worth having, it might be a nice idea to have more than mere links by having seasonal status histogram bars for each species. A template to make histograms for each month along with breeding status would be useful for that. An example here [12] Shyamal 03:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I have created an article on Upland birds as a part of work on a few hunting articles. I added the birds tag, but after looking at it I think that perhaps Upland birds should be a category rather than an article. It seems more like the Subcategory "Migratory Birds" on the birds category page, but I am not sure. Could someone take a look and see whether it would fit within the birds articles better as an article or as a category.-- Counsel 19:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I made the changes. Page now at Upland game bird.-- Counsel 23:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Many of the parrot articles contain substantial inforamtion about parots as pets. Most of the information is roughly the same, comlemented with some species specific information. Would it be a good idea to combine the pet information in a seperate article ( Aviculture (parrots)), and link this from the obvious candidate pages as a disambig link. I think this can become in the first place a much better page than just have snippets here and there. Furthermore, it will free the species pages from duplicated stuff. What do others think about this? Kim van der Linde at venus 22:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Kim van der Linde asked for my opinion, so here is my comment. I think keeping a separate article on parrots in aviculture is the most elegant solution. Ultimately, I think there is a big difference between the kind of information sought by someone interested in wildlife and someone interested in their pet bird. Also, Wikipedia is not a how-to manual, and having "how to keep a pet (blank)" in every parrot species article seems contrary to that thought. It makes for a great deal more work in finding and correcting misinformation that is sometimes posted by well-meaning bird owners. An article on Aviculture (parrots) would, of course, have to be written so that it is not stylistically a how-to guide, but that can be easily done -- see Aquarium for an example of this. Perhaps Aviculture (parrots) can have general information on the specific needs of different families and genera, or perhaps it might eventually grow into several articles with information on different species. -- Ginkgo100 22:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The Feathers Category is a bit of a joke. Every article within it is a stub, and there aren't particually that many of them. I think they should all be merged into feather, or at least a new " types of feathers" article, and should form a key part of the proposed series for bird anatomy. Or at least thats what I think. Anyone else agree? mastodon 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest that a new article should be created to deal with this broad subject. There is already a bird skeleton article to deal with such a narrow subject, seems pointless to clutter the bird article with so much detail that will enevitably be added. I have ordered the current article to deal with the information as it stands, but it will not do for long. I say split; comments welcome - mastodon 21:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone with some background in aviculture take a look at the softbill article? There is a new editor there who insists on completely deleting the existing article's text and writing his own article from scratch. Moreover, his new article is not in Wikipedia format and does not cite references within the article.
His totally new article is rather at odds with the previous article and I am not knowledgeable enough to determine the truth, although his attitude ("What, me format?") is enough to cause me to revert back to the original.
In other words, help! Thanks, Oscar 04:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Small thing: can someone confirm that this is a male? Image:Tufted titmouse perching 2006-11-23.jpg Thanks, — coelacan talk — 19:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
List of Puerto Rican birds is up for a peer review. Please leave your comments/suggestion here. Joelito ( talk) 16:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Kakapo, Albatross and now Elfin-woods Warbler have made the grade as Featured Articles - but we don't appear to have many bird articles listed yet as Good Articles, the relatively new stepping stone category on the way to FA status - just Australian Ringneck and bird itself. I'm sure we have plenty of potential candidates - if you can think of some, can I encourage you to nominate them at the nominations page. I'm happy to review nominations - just leave a note on my talk page. SP-KP 21:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
As well as the main Wikipedia collaboration of the week, there are topic-specific collaborations e.g. the "New Zealand collaboration of the fortnight" - would there be an appetite for something similar on birds? SP-KP 15:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Just to let you know that Ivory-billed Woodpecker is now a Good Article SP-KP 23:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
... and, I've now listed it for peer review, as the next step towards FA status, hopefully. Any & all comments appreciated. SP-KP 07:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Check out Mariana Mallard if you like. I mentioned some refs I would like to have in there but do not have at hand at present in the source, as comments. Also, I will make a map and possibly get my hands on some pix: this and this page's images should be copyright-free (US Gov't work), or not? The second is a "superciliosa" type drake (the last male); I'd guess that the first shows the last female as the flanks and scapulars (or what one can see of them) seem to agree. Bill has me wondering though; so I'd like a second (third...) opinion. Dysmorodrepanis 17:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I have submitted Albatross for Featured article status, I'd appreciate comments or support. Sabine's Sunbird talk 15:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I've thrown another bird family into peer review with a mind to getting it featured. I'd appreciate any comments on what is missing from the article and what needs to be tightened up. Come check it out here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd appreciate either support or comments! Thanks. Check it out here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 08:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I've started a second peer review for seabird, hopefully I can finish the bugger off. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I question an article like "Scrub Jay" (a totally New World group ocurring in only Latin America and the U.S.) being written in British English. While I'd expect an article on Skylark or even Winter Wren to be written with British English, this struck me as odd. What do others think about this? - Natureguy1980 20:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I really did not know where to put this discussion so if anyone feels it belong in another category feel free to move it. I feel like we need to start assessing the articles under this WikiProject and that we should start to collaborate more between ourselves.
To kick this off I made some changes to the {{ BirdTalk}} template. There are new parameters to help assess the importance and quality of bird-related articles. Also I am in the process of creating some sub-pages to help us in these tasks.
We now need to start discussing the definitions for article importance. Quality definitions have already been discussed at length in Wikipedia so there won't be much need to discuss them. We need to start thinking which articles should be Top importance, High importance, etc.
When the sub-pages are ready I will post the links for them here and will create a navigational bar.
Also there will need to be a discussion for the categories' names. For example Category:FA-Class Birds articles or Category:FA-Class Bird articles or Category:FA-Class birds articles. Joelito ( talk) 21:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Joint custody for Archaeopteryx is fine as long as we are willing to work on the article. How about this classification scheme?
However some cosmopolitan or domesticated species (e.g. Chicken) should probably be given higher importance ratings. Joelito ( talk) 15:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I think a better idea would be: Top for Orders, High for Families, Mid for Genera and Low for Species. I also endorse the idea of promoting "notable" taxa up a category. Bird migration is such an important topic it should go in the Top category, surely? SP-KP 22:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Also, could we get a developer or bot to whizz down through the Tree of Life's birds branch and add this automatically to the 1000+ articles that are there, rather than having to do it manually? I've just added it to the Bird articles I've created and it's taken ages. SP-KP 22:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I seem to have become an involuntary arbitrator in some edit conflicts on that page (see talk:guineafowl). Peace temporarily has descended, but I'd welcome a second opinion, especially on the cookery issue. jimfbleak 13:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Arctic Tern is on peer review. Please leave comments here. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated seabird for FA status. I'd appreciate support or comments. I can't wait to get this one featured so I never have to look at it again. Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I have included numerous useful links to free to view journals and other online sources of reliable information in the Taxonomy and references section of this project page. If you know of any other free journals that are worth including please add them. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Seeing Homo florensis get the FAR treatment today made me think that our earliest featured article, Kakapo, could probably use a spring clean. Its a little citation light by todays standards, and we should maybe work on it a little to keep it featured. The current issue of Notornis, here, is actually entirely about the natural history and conservation of the species. It would be good to catch it before it goes to FAR. I'll start looking at it tonight. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I've nominated Arctic Tern to be a Featured Article. I'd appreciate any comments or support you may have. Please see it here. Thank you, everyone. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:39, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.
The plugin has two main modes of operation:
As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.
For more information see:
Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. -- Kingboyk 11:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Barring changes, Procellariidae will appear on the Main Page as today's featured article on October 22. To help fight vandalism, click here to start watching the page if you have not already started. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 15:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
A current featured article candidate, Amchitka, needs a little help. Would somebody mind writing a paragraph or two on the birds of this island? Two possible sources I've found are Birds of Amchitka Island, Alaska and Notes on the Birds of Amchitka Island, Alaska. Thanks, Jakew 11:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Please comment on the move and reversion jimfbleak 05:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I have placed Mourning Dove on Peer review. Please leave comments, input, and suggestions here. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 21:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I listed American Crow for peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Peer review/American Crow. - Elliskev 23:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
There is currently a barnstar proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Wildlife Barnstar for a barnstar which would be available for use for this project. Please feel free to visit the page and make any comments you see fit. Badbilltucker 15:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Just to let you know that Surfbirds made it onto the Spam blacklist here; I've got it removed, hopefully this will be permanently but it's possible that it'll get re-added. One to watch for when adding external links, references etc. SP-KP 19:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Beginning cross-post.
End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.
This article needs more despite being graded a good article. The structure of the article and sections need to be thought of more carefully and citations need to be improved. All the group level animal articles need a little more attention in general - since these are going to popular starting points and their organization/structure can really help people forage for additional information. Shyamal 03:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
There is now a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Veterinary Medicine to deal with matters of veterinary medicine, a subject which currently has disproportionately low content in wikipedia. Any wikipedia editors who have an interest in working on content related to the subject are encouraged to indicate as much there. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
One of your flagship pages Parrot needs a bit of a clean up, I think. Snowman 00:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
How do I join WikiProjectBirds? Teak the Kiwi 04:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Kakapo has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
A modest proposal:
{{
User:Aerobird/WP Birds Userbox}}
-
Aerobird
21:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Please be aware of the proposed Species microformat, particularly in relation to taxoboxes. Comments welcome on the wiki at that link. Andy Mabbett 15:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Aviculture. The purpose of this project is to help increase the amount and quality of content related to aviculture on wikipedia, and to maintain and organise articles relating to the subject, eventually bringing as many as possible up to good- or featured-article status. I feel that is sufficiently different to WikiProject Birds (aspects of ornithology and biology) to need a separate project. Snowman 17:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on a page for the Rock Wren of New Zealand, which has exactly the same name as the Rock Wren of North America (even on the HBW website). I'm wary of using the name suggested on the New Zealand wren article ( New Zealand Rock Wren) as I've never seen that name anywhere else. So, do we go for the clunky New Zealand Rock Wren or do we have Rock Wren (New Zealand)? (p.s. yes, I might finally be back) Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I am a new member of WikiProject Birds. Recently i am trying to categorize African estrildidae according to countries which they are native in. However, it was proposed to merge all of the subcategories into Category:Birds of Africa. I was wondering if any of the experts here have any idea to organize the category/ subcategories? See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Category:Birds of Africa, for discussion. Luffy487 04:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if there is any subspecies taxobox example available? See Green-backed Twinspot, Solitary Tinamou and Star Finch, for examples. Luffy487 06:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi all,
Recently, the WikiProject Dinosaurs team has been working to improve Archaeopteryx. Since this article is partially under the purview of the Bird folks, I thought I'd stop by and drop an invite to you all to come help improve or refine the article in any way you can. Best wishes, Firsfron of Ronchester 04:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)