Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 10

message: It's that time again. I don't have a book of Southern African birds with me. It is clearly a greenbul of some description though. Any thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird  talk 01:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you know Birds of Southern Africa by Sinclair et al. is searchable at Amazon?  I searched it and think that picture is an (African) Yellow-bellied Green/Bulbul, Chlorocichla flaviventris, but you can check for yourself.  —JerryFriedman 02:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not know that, but it is good to know. I agree with your suggestion too. I'll add it to the article and modify the Commons page accordingly. Thanks. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 02:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bird ID 

message: I neglected to mention this sooner, sorry, but yet more birds-by-order types have been proposed, and the passerines are getting huger by the instant:  I've proposed re-splitting, here.  Since some of these taxons have no corresponding "permcat" at present, there's no immediate precedent on whether to use "common" or Latin names for these.  Please comment on these as you see fit.  Alai 07:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More bird stub types 

message: Currently, I noticed that the genus Hylocichla redirects to Wood Thrush, the only species in that genus.  Do separate articles still need to be made for genera where there is only one species?  (I think Xanthomyza's only species is the Regent Honeyeater) Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 20:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Redirection of monotypic genera to their constituent species is our standard practice here. Good spot on Regent Honeyeater - please go ahead and create the redirect. SP-KP 21:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, Polbot is currently going through and adding species articles that she didn't create to genus articles that she did create (which weren't there before), and changing monotypic genus articles into redirects to the species articles. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about Article-less genera 

message: There is currently a debate underway at the main wikipedia manual of style regarding whether common names of animals should carry an initial capital letter (horse or Horse) when used in the body of the text. As the outcome may affect your project, if anyone would like to contribute to the debate, with either view, please visit Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Common names of animals. Thanks for your time. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aw, not this shit again. Thanks for the heads up though Uther, I'm glad someone is keeping an eye on MOS. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 12:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization debate at main WP:MOS 

message: this would require some input from use here.....cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Here we go again.. 

message: This was accidentally placed on the main project page. I've moved it here. Sheep81 08:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animals project proposal 

message: I found  which is way cool. It's not published yet, so either you guys might check it out, or I'll get it some time and mail it to you. It's so nice to have a seabird that smells of citrus instead of the more usual old-fish-and-maybe-stomach-oil... and especially as they seem to sniff their perfumed crests as a social display. How cute is that? Dysmorodrepanis 17:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A nice paper for Sabine's Sunbird (and any other seabird buff) 

message: Greetings. I am thinking about creating a template to help the bird list articles like this one: List of California birds. The use of the template would be that we could have the bird-family heading descriptions in one place so that they can all be consistent and changed easily. A single template could house the whole thing in the form . I think area and count would be optional; they would produce "there are 75 species worldwide and 36 species which occur in Chile", if desired. What do you think? -- Basar (talk · contribs) 00:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm in favor, since there are some minor improvements that could be made in the descriptions of the families.  And I'd be in favour of a setting for British spelling and one for American.    —JerryFriedman 00:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Different spellings? Never thought of that. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement the feature, so sure. -- Basar (talk · contribs) 01:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Might be harder than you think - you'd have to set up numerous individual cases, remembering differences in spelling like 'Brünnich's Guillemot' (UK Eng) / 'Thick-billed Murre' (US Eng). Even more difficult would be settings for different authorities - the family that "there are 75 species worldwide and 36 species which occur in Chile" according to the authority used for the Chilean national list, might have to be changed to "there are 67 species worldwide and 12 species which occur in South Africa" according to the authority used in South Africa, or "there are 78 species worldwide and 9 species which occur in Russia" according to the authority used in Russia; all for the same family. Precisely because of this problem, I've generally been getting rid of these statements in the lists I've been editing (particularly as they're not derived from the HBW listing that WP:Birds has generally chosen to adopt). - MPF 09:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also the US names used throughout by Avibase, the usual source of these lists may refer to a different species (eg Common Scoter is not on any autogenerated list, but Black Scoter is; similarly the Avibase name refers to the Am ssp, even when it isn't that form (White-winged instead of Velvet Scoter). Jimfbleak 09:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we can get around these issues. For one, the template would only have the heading and text directly below the heading, not any individual species. That indeed would make it quite complex. The sentence that gives the numbers of species for different areas is indeed a bit complex to implement, but it wouldn't be too hard. I don't suppose we could just agree on a standard world-wide number for each family of birds could we? That would make it a lot more standardized and less error prone, but I could make it so that the world-world wide number could be specified in each line like  which would produce "there are 102 world-wide species and 36 Chile species". -- Basar (talk · contribs) 16:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bird lists 

message: Anyone an expert on this bird? The categories need a good cleaning, as I'm not so sure all those "birds of..." categories are suitable. Categories should be important things: not just any (or all) things somewhat related to the subject. If the bird has a small population in a country (or countries), then I don't think the category needs to be there. RobJ1981 04:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A better solution would be that adopted for European species, where Birds of Europe is the only accepted geographical category. However, I don't think there has been any agreement or discussion to do that for Birds of Africa. Jimfbleak 05:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Bronze Mannikin]] 

message: Bay Owl should be Bay owl as it is a genus not species, and the Congo Bay-owl needs to move to Congo Bay Owl. Cheers. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 04:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done these, but there's nothing to stop you doing moves yourself, it's not an admin thing, Jimfbleak 06:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was under the impression non-admins couldn't move things when the target already exists, even as a redirect. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 08:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops -you're right of course, because it effectively involves deletion. Jimfbleak 09:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move request 

message: there's this! Jimfbleak 05:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Consider it done (i.e., cleaned up) Dysmorodrepanis 21:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Stubs take a little longer when you try to add a sentence or two about what the species have in common, as well as the etymology.  (These genus articles are the right places for etymology, I think.)  But one way or the other, it'll get done.  —JerryFriedman 13:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Or maybe things just take me longer than they take you, or my idea of "long" is different from yours. —JerryFriedman 20:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  And when we've done that 

message: User:Mmcannis is busy adding lots of cats to bird articles based on locations - but formatting them so they turn up on the category pages organised by type, so Red Fan-parrots are listed under F and Red-crowned Parakeets coming under P. I asked if there was a reason at Wikiproject Categories and was told it was the projects call to make which way we wanted it. Personally I prefer them to be alphabetical, so that Cassin's Auklet is found at C not A. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 03:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, I'd look for Cassin's Auklet under A, as in an index.  This does create a problem with Fan-parrots, I admit, but the last place I'd look for Red Fan-parrot would be under R.  —JerryFriedman 13:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories 

message: We need to do a clean out of the old nominations in the Collaboration of the Month; it's supposed to happen after three months. I suggest that any nomination that doesn't have a vote in the last month come the next choice 9end of the month) gets cleaned out and we nominate some new articles. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 22:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaboration of the month 

message: This might be a bigger problem than the shortwings.  We list Drepanididae as a separate family and Fringillidae doesn't contain them, but all the drepanidid genera I looked at have Fringillidae in the taxobox.  I realize this is a controversial topic, but can we make it consistent?  I'd be happy with "Drepanididae or Fringillidae" in the taxoboxes.  —JerryFriedman 17:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Similiarly we list the fantails, monarch flycatchers and drongos as subfamilies of the Dicruridae but the newer articles have them as three seperate familes (something the new HBW treatement supports, btw.) Sabine's Sunbird  talk 01:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I might have refs for both; I should at least for the former. In any case, the Jønsson & Fjeldså supertree is as good as it gets and it should allow me to find the papers we need here. The 'creepers are (I think) resolved as a subfamily in the Fringillidae now. Dysmorodrepanis 15:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are Hawaiian honeycreepers finches? 

message: * C - (Sabine's Sunbird  talk)Done
* R - any volunteers?  Okay, okay.  JerryFriedman Done.
:Sorry guys, I'll try and finish C soon. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 22:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of outstanding letters 

message: Would others consider a standardized morphometrics infobox useful for the bird articles with tarsus, wing, length, tail, bill and weights with sections for races and subsections marking gender if required. Shyamal 06:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morphometrics info box 

message: I've just added List of years in birding and ornithology to the "pages requested" section. Please see the few existing pages for layout. Thank you. 
Also, I suggest that year links in birding articles link to one of the above, and not the general year, as happens in other genres -  so 2005 not 2005 
:Signing for bot archival. Shyamal 01:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of years in birding and ornithology 

message: thumb|right
I decided this picture might be identifiable.  Anyone care to take a shot?  Sweetwaters Game Reserve, central Kenya, I think it was savanna habitat.
:JMK tells me it's a Winding Cisticola.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryFriedman (talk • contribs) 20:48, August 26, 2007 (UTC) 
::I'd agree with that...I looked it up in the HBW that covers cisticolas. Several cisticolas look like it but that is the only one found in that part of Kenya. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 00:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More id requests 

message: * Cacatua redirects to Cockatoo, as do Cacatuinae and Calyptorhynchinae. See main article for systematics, phylogeny, character evolution and literature. Placement of Cockatiel is very tentative. Check also literature for placement of Palm Cockatoo relative to Gang-gang Cockatoo and Calyptorhynchus.
*  Uragus redirects to Rosefinch SP-KP 18:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Arguably correct at the present state of page (if not research - I think I have a paper around); see second-but-last para in "Systematics". Dysmorodrepanis 21:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I have not found any new paper. Until the fallout of the Arnaiz-Villena et al study has settled and/or the Oriental Bird Club makes a move, the present situation seems as good as any, given that BirdLife still lumps them all into Carpodacus. What could be done is to add a note (or subgenus) to those species in the "Unassigned" part that might be placed in Uragus if it's restored. Dysmorodrepanis 09:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  To do 

message: Anyone know the source of Ammamanopsis on the list of bird genera?  There's nothing like that in Wikipedia, Zoonomen, the IUCN, or Avibase.
:No Google hits either, including Books and Scholar.  I'm just going to delete it.  —JerryFriedman 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or is Euodice what we do with them?  —JerryFriedman 05:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ammamanopsis, Euodice, Spermestes 

message: Just a heads up that photographers are becoming entrenched - here anyone want to intervene/suggest a way forward? also any thoughts on the hawk item above Jimfbleak 17:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I left a comment. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 21:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:hummingbird]] 

message: Professional attention required, I think.   
- Vendée (region of France) references a historical royalist faction called the Chouans (screech owls). (So naturally I wanted to link this.)
 
- Screech owl says 
The term screech owl can mean:
The barn owl, the primary British meaning of the term (from its discordant cry which is supposed to be an evil omen)
Any of various small American owls of the genus Otus, allied to the Scops owls – especially the Eastern Screech Owl of North America
- Barn owl (Tyto alba)  makes no mention of these birds ever being called "screech owls".
- Otus redirects to Scops owl. 
Scops owl says "Scops owls belong to the genus Otus of owls", and lists several dozen species. Does this mean that "Scops owls belong to Otus, and there are other species of Otus as well", or does it mean that the terms "Scops owl" and "Otus" are synonymous? 
- Eastern Screech Owl gives the genus and species as Megascops asio, in contradiction to Screech owl, which says that they are Otus.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.19.11.75 (talk) 15:27, August 28, 2007 (UTC) 
:I took care of the disambiguation.  It turned out to be the Tawny Owl, not a screech owl in any sense.
:Thanks for bringing the other problems up here.  Barn Owl should certainly mention the unofficial name "screech owl"; I'll do it when I get the chance.  The other ones will be solved when somebody makes a command decision on whether we should split Megascops off Scops Otus.  Any takers?  —JerryFriedman 17:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Jerry, Jimfbleak 17:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gimme til Saturday to check out my literature on the Otus/Megascops issue, then I'll be able to say whether I can do it. Dysmorodrepanis 20:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Screech owl disambiguation required 

message: I posted a to-do list on the talk page. I have also cleared out old nominations from the collaboration of the month page (that hadn't gotten any votes lately), so we can nominate some new articles. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 21:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  collaboration 

message: I found this spectacular image on Flickr to illustrate the concept of clay licks, but I don't have a birds of Ecuador book handy. There are clearly three kinds of parrot present, a macaw, an amazon and a smaller parakeet. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 00:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The parakeet might be a Dusky-headed Parakeet, the amazon a Mealy Parrot Sabine's Sunbird  talk 05:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The conure - Dusky-headed seems good, the head and the blue primary bases are a giveaway. The macaw - Chestnut-fronted Macaw as Red-bellied has a recognizably yellow face skin and the other similar spp are allopatric. The amazon - the toughest. Amazona ochrocephala nattereri and Amazona farinosa farinosa (=chapmani) are candidates. The dusting on the back and nape might be real or might be due to dusting with clay (see the macaw heads), and apart from that the coloration of the two is all but identical. But the size would support Mealy. A. o. nattereri has a smaller wing than C-f Macaw, with no overlap and weighs about the same as the macaw. The amazons seem to have wings about the same size as the macaws but are bulkier (= heavier) overall. Dysmorodrepanis 21:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 21:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The three amazons are all Yellow-crowned. Things worth noticing are size (compared to macaws + parakeets), exact tail-pattern (clearly visible on amazon in center), broadness of eye-ring, size of yellow crown-patch (in amazon on right), tiny red shoulder-spot (amazon on right), essential lack of powdery effect (the amazon on the left appears slightly paler-headed and the one on the right appears slightly paler overall, but not in the "powdery way" you typically see in Mealy; of course some Mealy lack this effect entirely, but it would be unusual to see it on three), etc. If there should be any doubts, drop me a note on my talk page and I can specify further.Rabo3 08:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birds of Ecuador ID 

message: It's an Amazon parrot - but what species? Anyone know? Thanks very much. --Kurt Shaped Box 19:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Amazona aestiva Rabo3 21:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great. Thank you very much. Info added to article... :) --Kurt Shaped Box 21:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parrot ID needed...