Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 74

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

Archive 70

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Archive 72

Archive 73

Archive 74

Archive 75

Great Britain vs United Kingdom

Any objections if I move the List of birds of Great Britain to List of birds of the United Kingdom? Northern Ireland, of which it is listed as a part of Great Britain at the regional bird lists, is not but is a part of the United Kingdom.. ...Pvmoutside (talk) 18:01, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that is the appropriate move:

The lede of List of birds of Great Britain says: "These reports were formerly geographically based and included the whole of the British Isles, but records for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are now published by their own ornithological associations."
The list at the BOU British list says "The BOU maintains the British List, the official list of wild bird record in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales and associated waters)".

Am I missing something? — Jts1882 | talk 18:10, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for shedding some light on the lists.. It still needs to be fixed. We could do two things...change the current list to birds of the United Kingdom and skim through Northern Ireland to see if there are any additional species to add noting the BOU doesn't look at Northern Ireland, or totally separate Northern Ireland from the current Great Britain list......Pvmoutside (talk) 19:18, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd keep the GB and NI lists separate, since GB is a distinct island (similar to how there's a List of birds of Metropolitan France and all the overseas territories have separate lists). The NI list could be in the vein of List of birds of England and List of birds of Wales (as an aside, someone also needs to make List of birds of Scotland for consistency). AryKun (talk) 05:54, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm still not clear what needs fixing. List of GB birds is the natural list, as would be list of birds in Ireland (island). The birds don't care about the political boundaries. If there are lists from good reliable sources for England, Wales, etc, then they are fine as well, but the primary list (and the one worth spending time and effort on) should be the GB one. — Jts1882 | talk 09:17, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

If the issue is the arrangement at Lists_of_birds_by_region#Northern_Europe then I think I've fixed it with this edit. — Jts1882 | talk 09:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

yep and looks greatPvmoutside (talk) 17:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Foul fowl taxonomy?

Perhaps I have missed something in the world of chicken taxonomy, but [1] how is this edit correct? @User:The Great Mule of Eupatoria? See also [2]. I know y'all here are generally better taxonomists than I, so a second look would be appreciated. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:39, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. These edits would depend on the domesticated chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), currently considered as a subspecies of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) being elevated to a separate species (Gallus domesticus). This is not supported by the ref provided (!!), nor does it appear to be adopted in any recent use (see Google scholar search for last two years). As such, these edits should be reverted pending a demonstration of their published scientific acceptance. Loopy30 (talk) 22:28, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I based my conclusion off several articles, https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-020-0738-1 this for example that states the existence of hybridisation with grey and Ceylon junglefowl alongside the wild red junglefowl. I have fixed my ref accordingly The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 01:26, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The Great Mule of Eupatoria, your own source (correctly) uses the subspecies Gallus gallus domesticus when it opens. Interspecies hybridization events that result in other species and subspecies are accepted speciation events, and thus the name for domestic chickens reflects this Gallus gallus domesticus.--Kev min § 02:44, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I see. It seems I was incorrect here, so I will be reverting my edits if they have not been already The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 03:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

A bunch of unsourced (but not unsourcable) content removed from Budgerigar today...

See the edits here. I don't think I'll have time to do anything today, but thought I'd mention it before I forget. Most of this stuff that the person removed is broadly correct (from my knowledge of budgies) and is probably sourcable with a bit of time. Anyone fancy helping out? --Iloveparrots (talk) 08:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist needed

Can you guys at least watchlist these 2 featured articles, peregrine falcon and bald eagle? Some people keep adding bad sources and no one reverted it, and the bald eagle article looks like it has a lot of unnecessary stuff added like this: [3]. OnlyFixingProse (talk) 11:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Takahē vs South Island takahe

For anyone interested, there is a discussion to change the name of the South Island takahe to the takahe....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

North America?

In wikipedia, when we refer to North America, are we talking about North America north of Mexico, like it is in many bird checklists, or how are we defining it? Aythya affinis (talk) 14:41, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

It should apply to the continent unless it specifically says otherwise (e.g. refers to a checklist). What examples are you thinking of? — Jts1882 | talk 15:11, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I was just clarifying, since the use of North America in bird checklists differs from the everyday use of the term. Thanks. Aythya affinis (talk) 15:19, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

The North American bird list incldes Mexico, all of Central America, and most of the Caribbean Islands, as well as the US and Canada....Pvmoutside (talk) 01:48, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I meant bird checklists such as from official organizations like the ABA, not the Wikipedia list. Aythya affinis (talk) 13:18, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Aythya affinis:, the ABA list only includes birds recorded north of the Mexican border. The AOU list (American Ornithological Union) includes anything north of the Colombian border. You would need to look at each "official organization's" inclusion statement to see what they include, because it's likely to vary. MeegsC (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I know that the ABA is the only one (though it also includes Hawai'i now, I believe. Anyway, that's not the point now. I understand that North America in Wikipedia articles refers to the continent, which was the only thing I wanted to double-check. Aythya affinis (talk) 14:18, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Hooded crow has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. OnlyFixingProse (talk) 06:49, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Defaultsort

Maias has been deleting the Defautsort function for many bird species and i have been joining him. He says the funcion is very distracting and i agree with him. It involves many pages so i thought i'd bring it up here......any objections?... Pvmoutside (talk) 17:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Resplendent quetzal/GA1

only If interested to take over and fix the remaining issues. BloatedBun (talk) 11:18, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Demarcation line between "parrots" and "parakeets"?

I was thinking of adding something about this to the parakeet article. How is it decided by taxonomists which species is a "parrot" and which is a "parakeet"? It currently implies (unreferenced) that the Alexandrine parakeet is the dividing line - a fairly large bird, also very commonly called the "Alexandrine parrot". Yet the burrowing parrot is of a similar size and is called "parrot", not "parakeet" so IDK (I always called it a Patagonian conure).

Also weirdness. The barred parakeet. It has a short tail, yet is called a parakeet because it's a tiny bird. Is this stuff just completely arbitrary? --Iloveparrots (talk) 01:11, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

You have to recheck the question " How is it decided by taxonomists" - in fact, the distinction is NEVER made by taxonomists who would deal only in binomials. It is much like dove and pigeon, hawk / eagle etc. largely arbitrary. Shyamal (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps I misspoke then.

Who are the people that decide the English names of bird species then? How do *they* decide on the appropriate nomenclature? There is a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense to me. Take for example the sun conure, Congo African grey parrot, umbrella cockatoo and peach faced lovebird. Three of the most famous and iconic parrot species. Yet their "official names" are "sun parakeet", "grey parrot", "white cockatoo" and "rosy faced lovebird" (Google around and see who's actually using those names - it's not the "official" names in common usage). I'd complain if I knew who to complain to and if I thought it would make any difference.

But I digress. How to the people who decide the official English names demarcate between "parrot" and "parakeet"? Or "conure" and "parakeet", for that matter. Iloveparrots (talk) 04:50, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

It is decided largely by traditions, and communities can differ, hunters can use one name, bird fanciers another, and bird-watchers still another. Things can change over time as well due to changes in taxonomic knowledge, and influences include books, particularly field guides. For the primary names used in English on Wikipedia we largely go with the consensus produced by the IOC committee on https://www.worldbirdnames.org - and yes, there are a slew of problems with achieving consistency especially for names that become more commonplace (so the IOC will not insist on "black thrush" for blackbird even if it clearly is a thrush, for instance). Shyamal (talk) 06:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Toco toucan beak

A student editor created an article on the toco toucan beak. Normally I'd tell them to upmerge it to the toco toucan article, but at 22k it's longer than the 13k parent article. And while it could use some cleanup, it seems decently referenced. I'm not quite sure what to suggest in this case. Any ideas? Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:32, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

This seems to largely be about toucan beaks in general, so merge to toucan. FunkMonk (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Just came here to ask about the same article. I am amazed by how much material there is on this topic, but standalone status seems rather debatable. It's too detailed, containing extensive summaries of individual papers (e.g. this materials/mechanics section). I agree this should be condensed and merged to toucan, where it will make a fine section. Nice work there! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I'd leave it as is. It's an interesting, well-referenced article. It's not doing any harm by being there. If someone had written all that in the main article then there would maybe be an argument for condensing it, but I can definitely see "mechanics of toucan beaks" being something that someone (maybe not many someones, but a few) would be looking for information about. Iloveparrots (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a "vote" on its talk page. But I'd strongly support a merge, I don't think "it's not doing any harm by being there" is a valid argument in this context. Little info would have to be removed by a merge, but I think some detail is excessive and number of subheaders. FunkMonk (talk) 14:29, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Phasianidae phylogeny changes

Hey everyone, last year I performed some major changes to the phylogeny of Phasianidae based on Kimball et al 2021, whose study had been used by the International Ornithological Congress to reorder its galliform phylogeny. However, while I am able to access many studies, this one was never made available to me, and thus I had to use a secondary source that reported on Kimball et al 2021: birdphylogeny.de , which is accordingly cited in most of these pages. This source used names for all the subfamily and tribe-level divisions, such as Rollulinae or Polyplectronini. Recently, Kimball et al. 2021 was finally made accessible on some sites like Semantic Scholar, and reading through the paper, none of these names were ever used in the paper, and the classification of one taxon (Tropicoperdix) differs between BirdPhylogeny and the original study. In addition, returning to the original BirdPhylogeny page, the phylogeny image must have changed sometime between when last summer and now, because the tribe names have completely vanished off of it, and using the Internet Archive doesn't turn up any previous versions of this image. Some of these names (such as Rhizotherini) were never used in any scientific literature, so my use of them on these articles derives from this one source. So now I am left with many entries that cite info that was never mentioned in the original paper and was removed from this secondary source. I'm not sure what to do now. Geekgecko (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

There's an archive page with tribes at https://web.archive.org/web/20210630122145/https://www.bird-phylogeny.de/superorders/galloanseres/galliformes/. You made the changes in good faith based on a secondary source, so I suppose you could cite the archived page. However, as they no longer use it and the taxonomic names are questionable, it's probably better not to, except perhaps as a temporary measure.

How much do the tribes diverge from the H&M4 listing overall? As you say Rhizotherini is problematic (its part of Rollulinae in H&M). I note the Wikipedia taxonomy has been picked up by GBIF. Pucrasiini and Meleagridini are other new tribes in birdphylogeny.de. Neither are necessary as the genera could be rolled into Tetraonini (H&M already places Meleagris there). A taxonomic revision could similarly put Rhizotherainto Phasianini rather than create a new tribe. It's a shame that these new phylogenetic papers often don't bother with potential revisions of the taxonomy and that the IOC doeesn't list the subfamilies and tribes even though they follow the sequence.

One solution might be to use the tribal listing in H&M and put notes on the genera found elsewhere in Kimball et al 2021. — Jts1882 | talk 14:55, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

That H&M4 listing lines up pretty well! The differences are that:

There is no Pavoninae, all members are classified in Phasianinae or Rollulinae

Lerwa, classified as the most basal member of Phasianinae by Kimball, and given its own tribe by birdphylogeny, is classified in the Coturnicini by H&M4

Tropicoperdix is given an outdated classification, being synonymized with Arborophila, despite Kimball finding them to fall between the Pavonini and Polyplectronini and birdphylogeny placing them within Pavonini. The same is for Rhizothera, which is classified in the Rollulinae rather than the Phasianinae

Haematortyx and Galloperdix are placed in the Polyplectronini by birdphylogeny, which lines up with Kimball's placement, but H&M4 lists them as incertae sedis

Perdix was placed in Phasianini by birdphylogeny, somewhat lining up with Kimball's placement (though a distinct tribe would work better, given its heavy morphological differences from the pheasants), but is listed as incertae sedis by H&M4

Pucrasia and Ithaginis, both of were placed in distinct tribes by birdphylogeny, are classified as incertae sedis by H&M4

And of course, Meleagris is classified as a grouse

Geekgecko (talk) 05:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Did you ever try to get the original source at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request? awkwafaba (📥) 12:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Hm, the original source I used for my edits last year was the birdphylogeny.de link above, which previously compiled names from multiple different papers and applied them to Kimball's study. If by "original source" you mean the Kimball et al study, I wasn't able to access the paper until earlier this month when it was made available to the public for the first time, which was where I found that none of the names used on the birdphylogeny site were used in the paper, and the site itself had also since removed the tribe names (which I had accordingly created pages for) that it had applied to the paper's work. Geekgecko (talk) 02:04, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

So are there any solutions? It seems that H&M4 itself was not based on Kimball's 2021 paper and was rather based on several previous papers, hence some of the erroneous classification such as Tropicoperdix within Arborophila and Rhizothera within Rollulinae. Geekgecko (talk) 15:07, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

H&M4 was published in 2013 (non-passerines) and 2014 (passerines) (see cover page). The online version just makes this available with errata and corrections. Its pros are it uses subfamilies and tribes, which the other major checklists don't, and it has a comprehensive list of footnotes (also available in the online edition) The downside is that it hasn't been updated for new information. For the non-passerines the cut-off for publications must be approaching a decade.

The solution, unfortunately, is that we need to wait for someone to make the taxonomic revisions at subfamily and tribal level. Your list of differences above seems fairly clear and it just needs someone to assign tribal names and make decisions on lumping or creating new tribes. The study of Chen et al (2021) agrees with those differences, apart from the position of Rhizothera, which they find sister to Teraonini + Phasianini rather than sister to Perdix + Phasianini sensu H&M4. This probably means it should get its own tribe. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to find any alternative source and have drawn a blank.

As for your new pages, I suppose they should be changed to redirects. The text can be recovered when a new taxonomic study is published. I can't think of a better solution. — Jts1882 | talk 19:23, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Turkey (bird), which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
_{Delivered by — MusikBot ^talk 00:09, 23 May 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team}

Picture of the day

Hey there! I'm the new Picture of the Day co-ordinator, and I've hit a bit of a snag with a bunch of featured pictures of birds: The articles connected to them are either so short or so uncited that I can't put the image on the main page.

If anyone's interested in improving any of these articles, I'll quite happily schedule them into the next slot (or, at least, next slot that's not right next to another bird.) I should warn that this won't be instantaneous - I'm currently preparing pictures of the day for December - but that target's always moving forwards.

Oh, um... please tell me when you have, though. Cheers! Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.9% of all FPs} 17:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Have there been any scientific studies about parrots interacting with Alexa and similar?

Something I maybe want to add into the grey parrot and sulphur crested cockatoo articles, if possible. I'm sure I've read preliminary studies and websites (with vids) but I can't find them again now. Parrots interacting with smart speakers (Alexa/Echo Dot/etc) in a meaningful way. Asking for the light to be turned on and off, asking for specific music or radio stations to be played, asking Alexa to tell a joke, saying "Alexa, I love you", saying "tell me about African Grey/Cockatoo", etc. There have been news reports of parrots ordering shopping using smart speakers too. Of the type of "strawberry" x 10 and "apple" x 10, and getting it delivered to their human's house unexpectedly.

About a year ago, I saw a website about a researcher that wanted to look into this, but I can't find it now. It wasn't Pepperberg, for whatever it's worth. Though that does sound like something she might be interested in. Any ideas, folks? --Iloveparrots (talk) 09:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Cattle egret

The articles cattle egret, western cattle egret, and eastern cattle egret all have contradictory taxonomy, with all stating that the subject of the article is a full species. Per the IOU, both former subspecies are now treated as full species, so the cattle egret article should at least be changed to state that it is, at most, a superspecies. However, I would instead prefer the cattle egret article being changed to an index article with links to teh western and eastern subspecies, as we do with other superspecies where the former common name isn't used for either of the split subspecies (eg long-tailed mountain pigeon). AryKun (talk) 07:03, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Notes on the split

Cattle egret is a FA – promoted in 2008 – main editor was Jimfbleak.
Although split by the IOC, the cattle egret is not split by Birdlife, Clements or H&M4
There is a journal article cited by the IOC that compares the morphology:
- Ahmed R. 2011. "Subspecific identification and status of Cattle Egret". Dutch Birding 33 (5) 294–304. available here
Rasmussen and Anderton 2012 (Birds of South Asia) split the cattle egret (see Vol 1 Plate 7, Vol 2 p. 58)
I haven't found any molecular data for the split

A similar situation arises with the barn owl article which was promoted to FA status in 2014

IOC splits the barn owl into 3 species: western barn owl, eastern barn owl and the American barn owl.
The barn owl is not split by Birdlife, Clements or H&M4.
IOC cite two molecular genetic articles:
- Aliabadian, M.; Alaei-Kakhki, N.; Mirshamsi, O.; Nijman, V.; Roulin, A. (2016). "Phylogeny, biogeography, and diversification of barn owls (Aves: Strigiformes)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 119 (4): 904–918. doi:10.1111/bij.12824.
- Uva, V.; Päckert, M.; Cibois, A.; Fumagalli, L.; Roulin, A. (2018). "Comprehensive molecular phylogeny of barn owls and relatives (Family: Tytonidae), and their six major Pleistocene radiations". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 125: 127–137. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2018.03.013.

We should follow the IOC. Ideally we should create an index article to replace each of the featured articles – but before doing so we need to make sure that the split articles include material present in the parent FAs. This represent quite a bit of work. - Aa77zz (talk) 10:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

A fourth article, Bubulcus, is also part of the related set. William Avery (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

For Barn owl (and related pages) page titles - see 2017 archived discussion here. Loopy30 (talk) 23:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Bird taxonomy

The Working Group Avian Checklists has posted an update on their website:

https://www.internationalornithology.org/working-group-avian-checklists

It appears that the committee are making good progress towards their objective of creating an agreed world checklist. The IOC will be incorporating the decisions in their future updates. But one sentence worries me: "BirdLife also plans to adopt many of these decisions, but must move more slowly because of integration with the IUCN Red List and their Data Zone." If BirdLife only adopt a subset of the decisions then we still won't have a single list. - Aa77zz (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the numbers the WGAC checklist makes a net 15 lumps from the IOC list at the half-way mark. That suggests Clements will need to make a number of splits and Birdlife a number of lumps. I can see that a problem for Birdlife is when there are IUCN assessments, as these also need changing if there are lumps. — Jts1882 | talk 12:08, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

The IOC lumps may include the cattle egret and the barn owl mentioned in the above section. - Aa77zz (talk)

Subtribes of Arini (tribe)?

See this edit here, which introduced three subtribes of Arini - Arina, Ognorhynchina and Thectocercina. Is this a valid edit? I searched for these three terms on Google and I couldn't find anything to confirm. Maybe this is new and just appeared in some paper that's not indexed yet. No references were provided though. Anyone know anything about this? --Iloveparrots (talk) 16:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I can't find anything on Thectocercina or Ognorhynchina apart from this article and a site that copies it. I suggest removing it with an edit summary that it is unsourced. If legitimate, it can be restored with an appropriate source. — Jts1882 | talk 12:02, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Reverted now. I see that the user has been blocked as a sockpuppet anyway. Probably worth going through their edits to see if anything else is broken/wrong? Iloveparrots (talk) 13:33, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Unfinished sentence in the Galah article...

Just noticed this, at Galah#Distribution_and_habitat - it says "A large population expansion occurred in the 1960s following many escapees due to the....". Whoever added that didn't finish their sentence. What do you think it should say? "Pet trade", maybe? Iloveparrots (talk) 11:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

FA reviewer needed for American goldfinch

American goldfinch has received two "Satisfactory" notations at WP:URFA/2020A and we are looking for a third reviewer to ensure this article still meets the FA criteria. Can someone review the URFA/2020 instructions and make a notation indicating if it still meets the FA standards? Feel free to ping me if you have any questions. Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

What are we going to do with Crow?

It's just a list of crows at this moment, as a duplicate of List of Corvus species. I think we either have to change it to talk about the crow or make it a redirect to Corvus. There was a previous revision which had the Crow page as Corvus, so we could change it to that and then change it to just be about crows. Keep in mind that this is a high traffic page as well. KakarikiNZ (talk) 07:23, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps Corvus even needs to be moved to crow? FunkMonk (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

No, Corvus includes birds other than crows. It should probably be redesigned like the Raven article. KakarikiNZ (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense. FunkMonk (talk) 08:18, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Ostrich

The Ostrich article is not great, and it's currently getting nearly double the views of the far more substantial common ostrich article (~1370 to 800). [4] I think the best solution would be to copy paste large amounts of material from the common ostrich article into it. Thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:13, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Copy-pasting is not a good option. There are issues with attribution. MeegsC (talk) 12:24, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Copy-pasting is fine per Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia as long as it acknowledged at least in an edit summary, and preferably with additional notes on relevant pages. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:40, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

What are you going to copy? Do you know that those sections are appropriate for the Somali ostrich as well? (It is, after all, supposed to be an article about the genus, not the individual species.) If not, are you planning to add the appropriate info for the Somali ostrich? MeegsC (talk) 15:59, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Species lists in family and subfamily articles

There appears to be a trend to add long lists of species to articles on bird families and subfamilies.

My view is that to avoid burdening articles with long lists, family level articles should list the genera within the family, genera level articles should list the species, species level articles should list the subspecies. This is particularly important for the larger families. A separate article can be created for a list of species, an example is List of hummingbird species.

My comment here is prompted by the recent addition by editor Cs california of a set of tables listing all the species in the subfamily Picinae. The subfamily contains 204 species and 33 genera. I've reverted this addition as inappropriate. Do other editors share my views?

- Aa77zz (talk) 10:06, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I've just noticed that there is already a List of woodpecker species. - Aa77zz (talk) 10:12, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that large species lists that dominate an article should be avoided. I wouldn't be too dogmatic on only showing the next level down, as a species list could improve an article on a small family.

In this case, the new table with photos is more suited to a list article and can be used to improve the existing list article. — Jts1882 | talk 13:57, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Aa77zzI see you removed the table, which I don't mind but what issues did you have with the Genus authority? please add it back in-Cs california (talk) 01:59, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC about boldfacing of the scientific names of organisms

A Request for Comment has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms.

If the proposal is adopted it will mean that the scientific name of a bird species will be presented in boldface (as well as italics) in the lead of an article.

If I've understood correctly it will mean that:

The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family...
becomes
The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family...

This will impact the c. 11,000 Wikipedia articles on bird species.

- Aa77zz (talk) 09:32, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

IOC 12.2 spreadsheets

The IOC 12.2 spreadsheets have been released (see here). From past experience, it may be some time before all the web pages are updated. The new release adds 14 species, deletes 9 and changes the English names of 38. (see the summary here).

I assume some of these changes are to bring the IOC into line with the other lists as part of the efforts of the Working Group Avian Checklists (WGAC) (see here). Other lists may need to make more changes, for example I don't think the BLI/IUCN list has yet incorporated the large number of changes to the humming bird taxonomy resulting from the study by McGuire et al that was published in 2014. - Aa77zz (talk) 17:56, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

This means we have to change common names accordingly, right? FunkMonk (talk) 18:50, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, we change the English names – which means in Wiki jargon that we move the articles. Moving the article will leave a redirect. We usually include the former name in the lead. This isn't new – according to the summary page linked above - IOC 12.1 which was released in January involved changes to 34 names. Some of the name changes are to align with the other lists. - Aa77zz (talk) 19:51, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I will take care of all of the changes to hummingbirds, as I'm in the process of expanding the stubs in that family anyway. Most of the rewrites are ready for upload as soon as the individual hummingbird web page reflects 12.2 so the citations will be accurate. (As of 9 August they're still 12.1.) Craigthebirder (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

All hummingbird changes are ready, just waiting for the hummer web page to be 12.2 - it's still 12.1 as of 21 August. Craigthebirder (talk) 15:58, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The individual Birds of the World lists are now version 12.2. Craigthebirder (talk) 12:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

New Clements

If anyone has any interest, the newest version of Clements has just been published. I've just started implementing changes....Pvmoutside (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Moving HBW.com links to new site

About 200-250 pages have links to the "Internet Bird Collection" => ibc.hbw.com The domain is down and was replaced with https://birdsoftheworld.org/ where the same content seems to be hostet. I have replaced a couple of those links but this is too much work for myself, maybe a common effort could fix this better. Search Link Kayron TB (talk) 16:30, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

If there's a straight forward search and replace like everyplace Wikipedia has "ibc.hbw.com" change it to "birdsoftheworld.org", I could do that pretty quickly with AWB, but it's seldom that simple, like what about archived links. Let me know. I will also do some research myself on the list you linked to above. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 21:32, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

It's not a straight forward search and replace. For instance at Fish crow I changed:

with this edit http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Fish_crow&diff=1111223525&oldid=1107795895

It'll take a bit of work and it appeared that some old pages for families and genera aren't there in the new website. And, a lot of material says "This content is available exclusively to Birds of the World subscribers." SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I would think that "This content is avialabe exclusively to B of the W subscribers" refers to the written content that would be linked to the headings on the left side of the web page, which are inactive to non-members". Is thata correct? I'm not a member. Snowman (talk) 09:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

There are three links to the Conell Lab in the external links currently on the page, which is probably too many. Why not use one link to the intorduction page (this one), where there are easy-to-find links including a link to the vidoes? This would be easier and, I would say, an improvement. Snowman (talk) 09:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I have not looked at it in detail, but it looks like it may be possible to "crack" the structure of the URL links on the Conell Lab website, which could be useful for advanced users of AWB. Snowman (talk) 09:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Parisoma redirects

Parisoma and Parisoma (genus) are listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 November 13#Parisoma. One redirects to Curruca, the other redirects to Sylvia (bird). According to species:Curruca, the type species of Parisoma is Sylvia subcaerulea, accepted as Curruca subcoerulea, which would make Parisoma a synonym of Curruca. It would be nice to have a better source than Wikispecies that indicates the type species of Parisoma, but I'm having trouble finding one. Plantdrew (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

An excellent source for genera and their type species is Peters – here we need volume 11: Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1986). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 11. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Parisoma Swainson 1832 type is Sylvia subcaerulea Vieillot. p. 267

Curruca is listed as one of the juniour synonyms of Sylvia Scopoli

Curruca Bechstein 1802, type by tautonomy is Motacilla curruca Linnaeus. 270

My understanding is that as the genus Curruca, as current constituted, includes both type species: the chestnut-vented warbler, (Curruca subcoerulea) and the Lesser whitethroat (Curruca curruca), Parisoma becomes a junior synonym of Curruca. I've add Parisoma as a synonym to the taxobox of Curruca - should I specify the type and give a ref? - Aa77zz (talk) 19:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I've now added the type and a reference to the Curruca taxobox - Aa77zz (talk) 19:19, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

It appears that Philhydra Billberg 1828, type Sylvia communis Latham, is another junior synonym. I don't usually bother with junior synonyms in the taxoboxes. - Aa77zz (talk) 19:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Parrot hybrid

Wow, look at this. Did an African grey parrot somehow, by some means crossbreed with an Amazon parrot? Never seen anything like this before. I didn't think that would even work. Was considering mentioning that in the article. Iloveparrots (talk) 01:25, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps when it's described by a reliable source. A photo on Flickr is not a reliable source. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 02:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I think it is not very uncommon to see this. Perhaps, it is something to do with keeping these birds in captivity. It is not a hybrid. Incidentally, I feel it is a bit sad to see a picture of a pet parrot with clipped wings. Snowman (talk) 09:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not a hybrid with an Amazon but with a Jardine's parrot. I've just seen such Psittacus x Policephalus hybrids in few sources but none of them is reliable - unless Youtube can be somehow reliable (in the video it's a 2nd generation hybrid of cape x Jardine's hybrid with the timneh parrot) Rozalka00 (talk) 18:35, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Albatross under FA review

I have nominated Albatross for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. George Ho (talk) 07:41, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Refrence of birds from you surrounding area.

Plzz answer 2405:201:1003:F0FB:84E0:2DC8:7DCD:E39A (talk) 11:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking, but ebird lets you type in where you live and see what birds have been seen nearby. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:51, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Putative and contested species

I created Sushkin's goose and noted that we do not have many guidelines for dealing with putative/contested taxa (although I do understand that all species concepts are, at their roots, contested!). Shyamal (talk) 08:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

We have a good deal of such articles, but I guess all they have in common is Category:Controversial_bird_taxa, which should probably be added there too. Very interesting article, by the way, somehow never heard of it. I see you've used some sources in Danish, feel free to ask if anything is unclear in them, Danish is my main language. FunkMonk (talk) 06:36, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind offer, so far Google has been doing meaningful translations! Shyamal (talk) 11:05, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it has gotten a lot better, it seems. By the way, I'm surprised it took so long for this article to be created. Perhaps worth looking through something like Julian P. Hume's Extinct Birds to check if there are more extinct or possibly extinct bird species missing here? FunkMonk (talk) 11:26, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Appropriate scope of List of birds of Great Britain.

Please see the discussion at Talk:List of birds of Great Britain#Scope of list where there is discussion about changing the scope of List of birds of Great Britain. Please contribute there to keep all the discussion in one place. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 00:03, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Triple Crown for the project

I've created a Triple Crown for Wikiproject Birds; feel free to nominate yourself if you qualify. AryKun (talk) 17:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi AryKun – I qualify! In fact, more than once... ;) MeegsC (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey MeegsC, I see you’ve added yourself to the list. Generally, for a triple crown, you don’t award one to yourself, but nominate yourself at the nominations page and wait for someone else to award it to you (like a barnstar). AryKun (talk) 04:47, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah! Oops! Will remove it. MeegsC (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Okay. I've now done an official nomination, using your link. MeegsC (talk) 09:02, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

User:MeegsC absolutely deserves it for the sterling work she has been doing for the project. Does this process involve a support vote? Shyamal (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

No, you just nominate yourself and if you qualify (have one DYK, GA, and FA under the scope of the project), you get awarded. AryKun (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Titles of species articles

Since IOC is the standard for bird names, should species articles be renamed when they're not standard? Examples are Perijá metaltail and Chocó woodpecker. The article titles use diacritical marks but IOC does not. I assume that changing would be tricky because these, and probably many more, have redirects from the IOC name to the non-IOC named article. Craigthebirder (talk) 02:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed Featured articles year-end summary

Restoring older Featured articles to standard:
year-end 2022 summary

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

**Examples of 2022 "FAR saves" of very old featured articles**
Solar System 2007 FA J. K. Rowling 2007 FA June 26, 2022 TFA Antarctica 2006 FA Joan of Arc 2006 FA Speed of light 2010 FA
All received a Million Award

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

Biology
Physics and astronomy
Warfare
Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

Literature and theatre
Engineering and technology
Religion, mysticism and mythology
Media
Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 through 2022 by content area

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 from November 21, 2020 to December 31, 2022 (VO, O)
Topic area	Delisted	Kept	Total Reviewed	Ratio Kept to Delisted (overall 0.62)	Remaining to review for 2004–7 promotions
Art, architecture and archaeology	10	6	16	0.60	19
Biology	13	41	54	3.15	67
Business, economics and finance	6	1	7	0.17	2
Chemistry and mineralogy	2	1	3	0.50	7
Computing	4	1	5	0.25	0
Culture and society	9	1	10	0.11	8
Education	22	1	23	0.05	3
Engineering and technology	3	3	6	1.00	5
Food and drink	2	0	2	0.00	3
Geography and places	40	6	46	0.15	22
Geology and geophysics	3	2	5	0.67	1
Health and medicine	8	3	11	0.38	5
Heraldry, honors, and vexillology	11	1	12	0.09	6
History	27	14	41	0.52	38
Language and linguistics	3	0	3	0.00	3
Law	11	1	12	0.09	3
Literature and theatre	13	14	27	1.08	24
Mathematics	1	2	3	2.00	3
Media	14	10	24	0.71	40
Meteorology	15	6	21	0.40	31
Music	27	8	35	0.30	55
Philosophy and psychology	0	1	1	–	2
Physics and astronomy	3	7	10	2.33	24
Politics and government	19	4	23	0.21	9
Religion, mysticism and mythology	14	14	28	1.00	8
Royalty and nobility	10	6	16	0.60	44
Sport and recreation	32	12	44	0.38	39
Transport	8	2	10	0.25	11
Video gaming	3	5	8	1.67	23
Warfare	26	49	75	1.88	31
Total	359 ^{Note A}	222 ^{Note B}	581	0.62	536

Noting some minor differences in tallies:

A URFA/2020 archives show 357, which does not include those delisted which were featured after 2015; FAR archives show 358, so tally is off by at least one, not worth looking for.
B FAR archives show 63 kept at FAR since URFA started at end of Nov 2020. URFA/2020 shows 61 Kept at FAR, meaning two kept were outside of scope of URFA/2020. Total URFA/2020 Keeps (Kept at FAR plus those with three Satisfactory marks) is 150 + 72 = 222.

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject

If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == [[URFA/2020]] review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. Comments added here may be swept up in archives and lost, and more editors will see comments on article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Co-nom article at WP:FAC

Is anyone interested in co-nominating the article Markham's storm petrel to WP:FAC? Therapyisgood (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed move of Fish owl to Ketupa

I've proposed that the article on the owl genus Ketupa is moved from Fish owl to Ketupa. Please comment here. Many thanks - Aa77zz (talk) 15:57, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Daphne Major finches

Daphne Major finches started out as an article about a hybrid population now covered in Big Bird (bird). It now lists all the finch species found on Daphne Major, mentions Peter and Rosemary Grant's long term research project and the hybrid. I don't think the finches of Daphne Major are a notable topic. What should happen to the article? Redirect to the island, the Grants, or delete? Page history pertains to the hybrid, so maybe there should be a history merge?

None of the sources use "Daphne Major finch" as a common name for the hybrid (although it is the only finch found exclusively on Daphne Major). In this interview, the Grants start out using "Big Bird" to refer to the individual male founder of the hybrid population, but at the end seem to be using "Big Bird" as short hand for the population. Would Big Bird lineage be a better title for the article about the hybrid? Plantdrew (talk) Plantdrew (talk) 20:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I have tweaked the article for accuracy (eg. it is a reproductively isolated hybrid population, not yet a distinct species), but I believe that the article should be merged with the Big Bird (bird) article. Loopy30 (talk) 20:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Bird nest vs bird's nest

There's an article move suggestion regarding the above here, in case anyone wants to comment one way or the other. MeegsC (talk) 23:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

IOC update

Version 13.1, the latest IOC version, has just been published.Pvmoutside (talk) 03:07, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I will create the articles for the five newly-split hummingbirds and revise the articles for the species they were split from. Craigthebirder (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

A summary of the changes introduced in IOC 13.1 has been posted on Birdforum here. - Aa77zz (talk) 17:53, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

It looks as though they've finally split the eclectus parrot. This has been discussed on here previously. As previously mentioned, sorting the images out may prove to be tricky, particularly for the male birds. Iloveparrots (talk) 22:09, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The hummingbird article updates are done. Craigthebirder (talk) 23:57, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

The eclectus parrots are now split into Papuan eclectus, Moluccan eclectus, Sumba eclectus and Tanimbar eclectus. The latter two articles in particular could do with some embiggening. Iloveparrots (talk) 08:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Adding "European Starling" to the list of "Talking Birds" able to mimic human speech

Adding "European Starling" to the list of "Talking Birds" able to mimic human speech Earlgreytyson (talk) 06:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Sorted list of sources

I am soliciting input to a discussion regarding the desirability of sorted sources in the Bird vocalization article. Talk:Bird vocalization#Removal of sorted list of sources

Background- As an improvement to the bird vocalization article, I created this now reverted version that featureed a sorted list of the source references for the voluminous citations (over 150). I would think this would be helpful to readers to view in an organized way the supporting material for the article using a style familiar for books on this subject- short references are made for chapters, and the full citation appears later in the bibliography. Actually there was a substantial amount of other the work- such as upgrades of plain text to cite templates, recovery of lost references and other typical improvements and conformance with conventions that novice contributors are unaware of.

The actual text content in the body of the article was not changed.

Another editor rightly pointed out that it would have been best to seek consensus before conducting such a massive change. Based on that principle, unfortunately all these improvements are now lost due to a revert.

It would be helpful if any members of the WP Birds community would express an opinion whether the article is more or less desirable in the version with the sorted list, or the former version. Thank you. J JMesserly (talk) 21:49, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I think we followed the alphachronological sequencing of sources in Egyptian vulture but to be fair, it is a bit problematic to maintain unless the citation helper of the visual editor could include a new feature to recognize this style and automatically follow the convention. Shyamal (talk) 04:06, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Is it a maintenance problem for Egyptian vulture? The article World War II has a mix of both long and short citations in what corresponds to Vulture's "Footnotes" section. Not all sources are listed in their cited sources section. It is GA rated and many contributors make citations the usual way in the visual editor. It is a trivial matter for a more experienced editor to come by periodically and move citations to the sorted list if required by whatever citation style is in place for the article. Since these articles get a random edit every month or so, it is not much work. The benefits of sorted sources are no doubt clear to the main contributor to Egyptian vulture, but the key ones have to do with maintaining high quality citations. They make it simpler to see how balanced the sources are- whether any dubious sources have been used, whether the sources reveal uneven coverage or whether sources with notable perspectives have been omitted. I personally favor it but of course if it WP birds community thinks that Bird vocalization and Egyptian vulture would be better off without sorted sources, then of course the change should remain reverted. J JMesserly (talk) 04:47, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Personally I don't like the short citation style. A problem on Wikipedia is the popups on mouseover show the short citation and not the actual reference. It takes away from the interactivity that websites allow. — Jts1882 | talk 11:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Right. It is annoying because it currently requires an extra mouseover to see the full citation. Technically there is no reason not to display the actual full citation on mouse over, but you are right- that's the way it is for now so that is a minus along with the lack of visual editor support. If typical articles on birds are mostly based on unfamiliar authors, it is a little annoying to have to make the extra hover to see the full cite.J JMesserly (talk) 20:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

An alternative to sfn that is supported by the Visual editor and gives the full reference with no extra popup is to use Template:rp with named refs. This has the advantage of seeing quickly which references are heavily cited from unlike those with sfn. This method comes at the disadvantage of no sorted list and no support for quotes or other notes for a particular reference (which sfn supports with the loc field). I personally find the superscript notation in the article a little off putting, but it works. If the Project decides this method is preferable, then articles rarely using sfn could be transitioned over to this method.J JMesserly (talk) 04:25, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposal

While it is straightforward for citation maintenance editors such as myself add important missing information to citations such as ISBN, there is a formidable practical barrier to making any changes to an article regarding sfn usage.

May I suggest that for articles such as Egyptian vulture which do use sfns, that there is a suggestion in the project guidelines that the article state on the talk page what the rationale is for including sources in the alphabetized cited sources list. This will help editors performing citation maintenance to determine which citations should and should not be moved into or out of the section. For practical reasons many new citations not only omit important fields like ISBN, the contributor will add them to an sfn article without sfns simply because it is not clear to how to use them or even that it is the convention for the article to use them for particular purposes. Typical contributors needn't be burdened with any of that if it is simple for maintenance editors to come along and bring the citation up to the article's standards. The usage standard for Egyptian vulture appears to be- anything cited should have the citation placed in the cited sources section. But not all styles are so obvious, and there are many other sorts of rationales so I am not suggesting any particular style is better. In the WWII example the cited sources list would have become lengthy, so their rationale (also unfortunately unstated) appears to be- a citation is added to a sorted list of sources if it is heavily used or notable.

When no such rationale is stated, citation maintenance editors such as myself are reluctant to make the significant time investment to query the editors on the talk page and wait for enough responses to determine consensus on what the sfn style is. This consensus may or may not ever be achieved.

If that is agreeable, then may I propose that I scan for all articles using sfns and take my best guess at what the style is, and describe it on the talk page. What I'd need is for a few project members to agree to make changes to the rationale where I got anything wrong. J JMesserly (talk) 20:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a series of templates to indicate which version of English is used for an article, e.g. {{British_English}}. There is a list of alternatives at Template:British_English#See_also. These are placed on the talk page to indicate the preferred style for the article. Perhaps there is a similar way of indicating citation style on the talk page. If not one could be created if there was demand. — Jts1882 | talk 20:46, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Hey Jts1882. That's an excellent idea. On the Talk:White stork page you will see a prototype citation style notice. I have surveyed many of the 300 Wikiproject Bird articles using sfns, and it seems there are maybe two other styles being used- one of them pure sfns, no refs, but most of them are of this first type. The notice template is simple and has a parameter for setting the name of the section where the citations are listed, which on Birds articles is often "cited texts", but there are many others such as sources and "works cited". Example template is used below. Any comments on this template/ objection to its use on WP Birds articles? If not, I will place the notice on the articles which currently adhere to this particular style. J JMesserly (talk) 05:33, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

This article uses shortened footnotes to avoid duplication of information for unique though largely identical footnotes. In cases where footnotes refer to the same source but different pages, the full citation is placed in the Cited sources section and a short footnote with page number is used next to the passage to be footnoted.

Further information

Per Wikipedia:Citing sources, please continue to maintain the same style of use when adding citations using the {{sfn}}, {{harvnb}} and <ref> syntax. Footnotes will be altered to fit this article's style if they do not conform to the following rule: If a source has multiple footnotes to different pages or footnotes to the same source are unique in other ways such as due to quotations or annotations specific to a particular footnote, then the full citation for the source is to be included in the Cited sources section, and use Template:sfn or similar template to make the footnote to the particular page, or indicate the quotation, annotation or other unique information particular to the footnote. See the article for usage examples. If you have any problems, please ask on the talk page and someone will be happy to help you. Thank you.

White-bellied parrot article problem

The current White-bellied parrot page is a disambiguation that directs to three species articles, Green-thighed parrot (Pionites leucogaster), Black-legged parrot, and Yellow-tailed parrot. These three are recognized as species only by BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World. White-bellied parrot is the IOC name for P. leucogaster, treated as a single species that has the three taxa as subspecies. The South American Classification Committee of the AOS and the Clements taxonomy agree with IOC.

So, because IOC is the Wikipedia standard for bird names, the "Green-thighed parrot" article should be named "White-bellied parrot" and replace the disambiguation page. It and the "black-legged" and "yellow-tailed" articles need significant rewrites, which I'll be happy to do but only after the page move.

The move is complicated by various cross-references and I don't know how to properly do it; I'm not even sure I have that permission. Unless there's disagreement, can someone make the move and the other necessary changes? Craigthebirder (talk) 15:16, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Green-thighed parrot, Black-legged parrot, and Yellow-tailed parrot all have entries on the IUCN Red List, for whatever it's worth, so it may only be a matter of time until the IOC catches up - but I suppose that all three should be merged for now, for the sake of consistency. When did they stop calling these guys "caiques", as a matter of interest? Iloveparrots (talk) 11:30, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The various checklists are in the process of converging through the WGAC process (last update: WGAC June 2022 update. Most of the recent IOC changes are to align with other lists. The IOC made some changes to parrots for the recently released 13.1 list, but it's not clear if this means WGAC has reviewed the parrots. Until the first consolidated list is published, I would keep the status quo, as it avoids complex page moves that may need to be reversed. The three species/subspecies do have IUCN assessments and if merged then there is no longer a valid assessment.

Which brings up a problem with the current arrangement. The Green-thighed parrot page treats the taxon as Pionites leucogaster in the IOC sense (but with the IUCN name for the page title), and mentions the proposal that the species should be split. The taxobox shows a conservation status of VU, even though Pionites leucogaster is being used in a broad sense to include subspecies which both have LC IUCN statuses. Perhaps the pages should be modified to deal primarily with the subspecies (page title, taxobox) and discuss the treatment as species by the IUCN prominently in the text. — Jts1882 | talk 13:19, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

IUCN uses BLI/HBW taxonony, so of course they have separate assessments. Given that the BLI/HBW treatment is the outlier, I think it's just as likely (or possibly more so) that the eventual consolidated list will lump the three taxa rather than keep them split. And we have no idea when the consolidation will finalize, so to my mind it behooves us to be accurate now. That means a white-bellied parrot article that fully addresses all three subspecies, noting that BLI/HBW splits them. And make it plain in the black-legged and yellow-tailed articles that only BLI/HBW treats them as full species. Craigthebirder (talk)

I agree with Craigthebirder....Pvmoutside (talk) 14:28, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Aa77zz, Jimfbleak, DarTar, SchreiberBike, Pvmoutside, Catfurball You've all been active in bird-related pages so I'm asking you to comment on my suggestion. Thank you. Craigthebirder (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the article should be created. Catfurball (talk) 17:04, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Craigthebirder - we should follow the IOC here. The HBW and BirdLife checklist introduced many splits - often based on rather weak evidence. Only some of these have been adopted by the two other lists. - Aa77zz (talk) 17:17, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

The point I was trying to make above is that we can't use a IUCN assessment in the taxobox if we use the IOC definition. Logically the broader species will be LC as some subspecies are LC, but we can't provide a source for this. If we want to use IUCN assessments we need separate articles, which could be at the subspecies level. — Jts1882 | talk 20:28, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

See painted parakeet for how I've handled this situation several times. Craigthebirder (talk) 21:15, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Moved and updated. Craigthebirder (talk) 19:19, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Malherbe's parakeet move request

I just encountered this move discussion for Malherbe's parakeet and thought it was probably a good idea to mention it here for further input. The issue seems to be that this parrot is (apparently) rarely referred to by that name in its native New Zealand and therefore should be renamed to something more suitable. Iloveparrots (talk) 15:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Further complicating things is that one of the suggested names, orange-fronted parakeet is the name currently given to a South American conure species... Iloveparrots (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Bridled white-eye

There appears to be a conundrum here. The nominate Guam population of the Bridled white-eye (Zosterops conspicillatus) is extinct, however, the subspecies , Z. c. saypani native to the nothern Mariana Islands, which is sometimes treated as a distinct species, is extant. The IUCN considers saypani a distinct species [5], and therefore considers the species Zosterops conspicillatus to be totally extinct [6]. However, recent research papers consider Z. c. saypani to be a subspecies, and therefore the species to be extant. [7] [8] [9]. I am not sure what the IOC's position is here. Should the article be split? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

We follow the IOC who treat Z. c. saypani as a subspecies. We do now follow the BirdLife/IUCN. Our article states "The remaining subspecies, Z. (c.) saypani, is separated as a full species by some authorities" - which is correct. We do not need to split the article. - Aa77zz (talk) 19:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:34, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

How to handle this? Israel/Palestine edits on feral chicken

See here. I already reverted it once, but the IP changed it back again. Then I realized that I don't really want to be involved in an edit war over this kind of political thing, especially over chicken. Should this just be left alone anyway? Iloveparrots (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Generally, I'd say follow what the source says. I've edited the page to link the places and removed the Israel/Palestine reference. Not ideal but perhaps it keeps the politic away. — Jts1882 | talk 19:30, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think a (mostly) unsourced list of "Locations famous for feral chickens" is something that really needs to be included anyway (although it does form the bulk of the article). If the list is kept, it should be rephrased. If you asked people about things for which Los Angeles is famous I don't think anybody would come up with "feral chickens" (perhaps if you asked Los Angelenos about particular parks or neighborhoods, there might be some smaller places where feral chicken populations are well known). Plantdrew (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree, the list is rather pointless, and perhaps the article itself too? FunkMonk (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

There's probably a lot more that could be said about feral chickens. Someone on the talk page a few years ago mentioned this article here, which seems quite informative and in-depth, but that they were unable to edit. The WP article needs a lot of work, for sure - but I don't think it's unsalvageable. Iloveparrots (talk) 20:05, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I think just removing all non-sourced entries on the list, and then converting into a non-list article about the actual specifics of feral chickens, would be the best outcome. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Kākāpō Featured article review

I have nominated Kākāpō for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:42, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Boldface in the series of "List of birds of ..."

There are about 400 lists in the series of "List of birds of ...". There is a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds/Country lists#use of bold to change how boldface is used in those lists. Please contribute there if you desire. Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:15, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Large amount of uncited (but not uncitable) stuff removed from European herring gull

See the edits here. As far as I'm aware, most of the removed stuff is true and obvious behavior - and can be confirmed just by watching how gulls interact with each other and their environment. However I don't have any sources handy to cite it to WP's standards. Anyone able to help? Iloveparrots (talk) 19:15, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

That looks like a bot error. AnomieBOT fixes citation errors and adds date tags to citation needed templates. I don't think it should remove material based on the lack of sources. An edit revert would have been appropriate, but you've made changes since. Hopefully a few eyes will improve the article. — Jts1882 | talk 19:39, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Oops. I linked to the wrong diff. I meant this one. Will fix my OP. Iloveparrots (talk) 19:43, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

BirdLife template broken

The BirdLife template is broken. See Eurasian blue tit.

BirdLife|22711944|Cyanistes caeruleus produces "This taxon is Not Recognised as a species by BirdLife International." on http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/22711944 --Espoo (talk) 16:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this a template issue? The taxonbar works using a different ID (http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/103761667) wheras the failed template used id=22711944. Could there have been some taxonomic change involving different IDs. If no one else solves this beforehand, I'll have a look tomorrow. — Jts1882 | talk 19:32, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The template works using {{BirdLife|103761667|Cyanistes caeruleus}}

BirdLife species factsheet for Cyanistes caeruleus

The template was added with this edit in 2016. I'm not sure it ever worked as the 2017 version of Birdlife (form Internet Archive) gives the same species not found error. But it's not a template error. — Jts1882 | talk 07:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Quality image - wrong species?

Take a look at this one, boys and girls. It's currently used in Brotogeris and List of parrots (and some other articles in other languages) as an example of the Grey-cheeked parakeet. I don't think that's right. It looks like a blue-fronted Amazon to me. Any thoughts? I think this has been misidentified.

Am I wrong? Does this image need renaming and recategorizing? Thanks. An Amazon parrot is a big bird, and the Brotogeris parakeets are quite small, with proportionally longer tails. Iloveparrots (talk) 20:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Large amount of uncited (but not uncitable) stuff removed from European herring gull

See the edits here. As far as I'm aware, most of the removed stuff is true and obvious behavior - and can be confirmed just by watching how gulls interact with each other and their environment. However I don't have any sources handy to cite it to WP's standards. Anyone able to help? Iloveparrots (talk) 19:15, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

That looks like a bot error. AnomieBOT fixes citation errors and adds date tags to citation needed templates. I don't think it should remove material based on the lack of sources. An edit revert would have been appropriate, but you've made changes since. Hopefully a few eyes will improve the article. — Jts1882 | talk 19:39, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Oops. I linked to the wrong diff. I meant this one. Will fix my OP. Iloveparrots (talk) 19:43, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

BirdLife template broken

The BirdLife template is broken. See Eurasian blue tit.

BirdLife|22711944|Cyanistes caeruleus produces "This taxon is Not Recognised as a species by BirdLife International." on http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/22711944 --Espoo (talk) 16:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this a template issue? The taxonbar works using a different ID (http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/103761667) wheras the failed template used id=22711944. Could there have been some taxonomic change involving different IDs. If no one else solves this beforehand, I'll have a look tomorrow. — Jts1882 | talk 19:32, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

The template works using {{BirdLife|103761667|Cyanistes caeruleus}}

BirdLife species factsheet for Cyanistes caeruleus

The template was added with this edit in 2016. I'm not sure it ever worked as the 2017 version of Birdlife (form Internet Archive) gives the same species not found error. But it's not a template error. — Jts1882 | talk 07:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Binomial name for the Kākāpō

On the Kākāpō talk page I've started a discussion on the correct form of the specific epithet for this Critically Endangered New Zealand parrot.

This subject has been discussed before on the talk page. We currently use habroptilus but all the main taxonomic authorities (including the IOC) use the feminine form habroptila. - Aa77zz (talk) 17:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sun parakeet#Requested move 27 June 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sun parakeet#Requested move 27 June 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

IOC 13.2

The new update is still in draft, but should be finalized soon. Two of the revisions call for a split of northern goshawk into American ggoshawk and Eurasian goshawk and a return to western flycatcher (lump) of Cordilleran and Pacific-Slope flycatchers.....Pvmoutside (talk) 14:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Link here, by the way. Interesting, they're going to split the citron-crested cockatoo off as a new species. I thought that might happen eventually. Iloveparrots (talk) 18:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The new IOC pages have been finalized except for the family indeces but can be figured out.I have begun the updates.Just another note, the Clements update, which usually arrives in October and is how most of the country lists are based, should be updated then.Pvmoutside (talk) 14:06, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Quality image - wrong species?

Take a look at this one, boys and girls. It's currently used in Brotogeris and List of parrots (and some other articles in other languages) as an example of the Grey-cheeked parakeet. I don't think that's right. It looks like a blue-fronted Amazon to me. Any thoughts? I think this has been misidentified.

Am I wrong? Does this image need renaming and recategorizing? Thanks. An Amazon parrot is a big bird, and the Brotogeris parakeets are quite small, with proportionally longer tails. Iloveparrots (talk) 20:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

You're right, this pic is wrong used - it's an orange-winged amazon.

And yes, it is a grey-cheeked parakeet on the second pic. Rozalka00 (talk) 09:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I've now requested a pagemove for this image on Commons. Iloveparrots (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistency in orange-winged amazon article

Just noticed this now. The article body states "The species is considered to be monotypic: no subspecies are recognised", while the taxobox shows images of purported individuals of A. a. amazonica and A. a. tobagensis. Is this another situation where the taxonomy has changed and the article hasn't been updated properly? Iloveparrots (talk) 18:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

The orange-winged amazon is monotypic in the IOC 13.2 list but has two subspecies in the Clements v 2022 list. We normally follow the IOC. - Aa77zz (talk) 07:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

The taxobox classification should follow the IOC for consistency (i.e. don't list subspecies there), but the article text should give both approaches. I'd amend the text along the lines "The species is considered to be monotypic by some authorities,^[1] while others recognise two subspecies, A. a. amazonica and A. a. tobagensis.^[2]" — Jts1882 | talk 09:00, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you perchance give me specific cites to use and I'll change that ASAP. Iloveparrots (talk) 16:07, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

References

^ IOC
^ Clements/BOW

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 18:12, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Is Birding Bob a WP:RS?

I'm working on getting Bronx County Bird Club into shape for a GA review. One of the sources is Birding Bob. I don't know where to put this on the RS spectrum. Does this meet the "established expert" criteria of WP:RSSELF (https://www.birdingbob.com/about-bob)? RoySmith (talk) 12:55, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Depends on the claim, but Birding Bob (Bob DeCandido) is probably the best known birder in the NYC area. For information about the birds of NYC and the history of birding in the city, he's an established expert. He's a biologist, long-time parks department guy, and has been working with (and sometimes studying) birds in NYC for decades. He's become a fairly controversial figure in NYC because he relies on some birding techniques many regard as unethical (like loudly playing bird calls out of a bluetooth speaker to attract birds for people on his walks, see Birding_in_New_York_City#Sound_playback). At this point, between being one of the most frequently interviewed experts in the area and the controversial stuff, he probably meets WP:BIO (e.g. [10]). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:49, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Is there a reason for leaving dinosaurian clades out of bird taxoboxes?

Recently I was looking through some modern bird articles, and noticed that the taxoboxes do not include Theropoda or Dinosauria, but skip straight from Aves to Chordata (see, for instance, Dodo). This seems to be the case for all articles that fall under Ornithurae, and looking at that clades taxonomy template I found the following line of code:

"The skip here is to prevent Bird's taxobox from having dinosaur stuff in it; only used by Bird"

This seems weird, as scientific consensus has agreed upon Birds nesting within Theropoda and by extension Dinosauria for quite some time. I think it would be more than proper to at least include Dinosauria or Avemetatarsalia in the bird taxoboxes to more clearly show their evolutionary origin, but I thought I'd run it by you all first to see if there's any pre-established consensus on the matter. The Morrison Man (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

> "The skip here is to prevent Bird's taxobox from having dinosaur stuff in it; only used by Bird"

Where does it say that, as a matter of interest? Maybe that should be changed.

But yeah, I'd support what you suggest. As far as I know, the current scientific consensus is that birds are the last surviving lineage of dinosaurs. Iloveparrots (talk) 21:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Do we know who added that note? Could ping them to ask. FunkMonk (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

The note is right at the top of this template for Ornithurae, which seems to solely exist to leave out Dinosaurian clades per definition. You can see it when you edit the source. The Morrison Man (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

From looking through the history, that was added by Peter coxhead in 2016. He still seems to be active, so will ping him. Iloveparrots (talk) 13:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

This really a better discussion for WP:TOL. Looking at the history of both templates, it seems that the main reason for this is to avoid having higher linnean ranks nested within lower ones. I don't know if that issue has now been resolved. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Decided to take this discussion there as well, made a post about it on the WP:Tree of Life talk page just now. Olmagon (talk) 22:46, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
We don't put fish clades in human or bird taxoboxes even though we are both descended from fish. Linnaeus wrote without awareness of evolution. We are trying to make modern sense of a premodern system. Doing that for birds, just because we (relatively) recently became aware of the relationship doesn't make sense to me. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 22:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
We also (relatively) recently became aware that cetaceans are artiodactyls, and for a long time Cetacea was deemed a seperate order from Artiodactyla, yet the Wikipedia pages of every cetacean taxon (whether alive or extinct) says 'Order: Artiodactyla' and 'Infraorder: Cetacea' in the taxobox because it is now clear that cetaceans are artiodactyls, just as it is now clear that birds are dinosaurs. Olmagon (talk) 21:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

First, Hominids are not descendants of "Fish", but inside Amniota, that is inside Gnathostomata. Second, some cases as Termites including Blattodea in their articles have proven that isn´t a problem. With all the respect, Dinosauria and Theropoda MUST be on Aves Taxobox. Yewtharaptor (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I must point out how ridiculous this is. Birds as the descendants of reptiles has been pointed out ever since the discovery of Archaeopteryx back in the 19th century. Ever since the 1960s there has been exactly no doubt, it is definitely not "relatively recently" in terms of scientific advancements. Hell, the structure of DNA wasn't even known in 1950. And to say that we don't put fish clades in human taxoboxes is absolutely wrong, the terms Sarcopterygii, Gnathostomata and so on most definitely signify evolutionary steps within fish. —Snoteleks 🦠 23:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

There are two different issues here.

It was agreed by WP:BIRDS that they did not want the dinosaur clades displayed. The 'skip mechanism' in the automated taxobox system allows alternative taxonomies to be used. I was merely the 'technician' in this – I spend quite a bit of my time here maintaining the automated taxobox system, particularly taxonomy templates.
A specific problem, as Hemiauchenia noted above, is that of inconsistent Linnean ranks. Since many (if not most) ornithologists appear to treat birds as a class, all the levels above in the classification hierarchy embedded in the taxonomy templates must be either unranked (usually clades) or be of a higher rank. The current set of taxonomy templates is engineered to maintain this consistency.

Any change needs to be very thoroughly discussed. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:28, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

What about renaming either Aves or Sauropsida as a clade instead of a class in the template? —Snoteleks 🦠 08:23, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Sauropsida is already treated as a clade. Plantdrew (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Linking to the discussion on this topic at WP: Tree of Life; most discourse has been happening there, including a very good reply by paleontologist JGN. Further input from people here would be much welcomed. Zach Varmitech (talk) 02:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Junin grebe#Requested move 6 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Junin grebe#Requested move 6 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 10:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Taxonomic history at Davison's leaf warbler

I have been trying to figure out the taxonomic history here and it looks somewhat like a Ship of Theseus - it is unclear as to whether anyone finally sequenced Oates' type specimen of davisoni ... I see a statement in Alstrom saying "Seicercus affinis needs to change name to Phylloscopus intermedius and Phylloscopus davisoni must change to Phylloscopus intensior (see explanations in del Hoyo and Collar, 2016)" but I am missing that reference - del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., 2016. HBW and BirdLife International illustrated checklist of the birds of the world. Volume 2: Passerines. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Can someone with access help me with the relevant text from that source? Or perhaps the explanation as to why davisoni is made a synonym of intensior? Shyamal (talk) 16:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of the duplicate ornithurae template

More context on the WP:TOL talk page, but basically Ornithurae has two templates (one of which was made specifically to exclude dinosaurian clades from taxoboxes) and we've come to receive near unwavering support that the duplicate template serves no meaningful purpose, thus it is best deleted. However, said template is a protected page and currently none of us are able to tag it for deletion, so despite the near unanimous support we cannot take action and the thread has sort of died. Is there some way to get a mod's attention towards this topic so that this obviously incorrect use of a template can finally be removed?

Edit:now that I check again, that page isn't protected. Can we just straight up tag it for deletion then?

Olmagon (talk) 23:52, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Whooping_crane: Anybody care to update?

Whooping_crane says

The total number of cranes in the surviving migratory population, plus three reintroduced flocks and in captivity, exceeds 800 birds as of 2020.

Anybody care to update this or anything else in this article ?

- 189.60.49.251 (talk) 00:19, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Intermediate egret split

The IOC has accepted the proposal that Intermediate Egret be split into 3 separate species, as of 26 September 2023. They are Yellow-billed Egret (Ardea brachyrhyncha), Intermediate or Median Egret (Ardea intermedia) and the Plumed Egret (Ardea plumifera). WHen do we create articles for these new species? Will the current article be edited to deal with A. intermedia sensu stricto or should there be a disambiguation page? Quetzal1964 (talk) 18:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

The yellow-billed and plumed are each now covered by subspecies articles under their English common names and the subspecies boxes can be converted to species boxes at the appropriate time.Quetzal1964 (talk) 12:20, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Remember to redirect every possible binomial/trinomial combination to each article. FunkMonk (talk) 21:23, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Broken taxonomy templates?

A bunch of bird articles I've been watching (example 1, 2, 3) have suddenly had their taxonomy templates break; anyone know why this is happening? AryKun (talk) 17:57, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Null edits fix them. Presumably the issue is related to the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Can_we_try_and_achieve_a_consensus? regarding displaying Dinosauria (and potentially other clades) in bird taxoboxes, which is something WikiProject Birds editors should comment on. Plantdrew (talk) 19:12, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we have an automated way to do this? I really don't want to add null edits to a hundred pages just to fix the template rendering. AryKun (talk) 08:13, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

A poll for the taxobox

A straw poll is currently occurring in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life over which clades should be displayed in bird taxoboxes, thought it would be best to notify this project as well. Olmagon (talk) 23:26, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Years in birding and ornithology

There are currently over a hundred articles about different years in the field of ornithology, all listed at List of years in birding and ornithology. Most of them are stubs with minimal referencing. I'd like to get these organized, either by cleaning them up or just merging them into a longer timeline, but I'm not much of an ornithologist. Does anyone here have any thoughts on this? Pinging Notafly as you were active in this area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:07, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I like this idea. I think a singular article could be quite long especially if you end up including everything from each article. You could chunk it up into groups of 10 years, 100 years? If you're planning on standardizing the categories on the pages, I think 2014 in birding and ornithology is a good candidate for what could be included. grungaloo (talk) 00:41, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

There are a lot of similar "Year in Topic" article series like this, and grouping them by decade is something that I'd like to do for a lot of them. But there's also already articles like List of bird species described in the 2010s, so we don't want to create redundancy either. And then it looks like the articles are inconsistent in what they cover. Part of the reason I asked for input here is simply because I don't know what info is and isn't relevant. 2010s in birding and ornithology (or even just 2010s in ornithology) would make a good starting point though to get these organized. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:10, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

The X years in paleontology, especially the recent ones, are much better- perhaps you could draw inspiration from there? 2023 in paleontology, for example. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 13:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Bird name author(s): to be edited to conform with the current IOC list?

Hi, I've noticed that there are quite a few bird pages where the part that IOC calls "Authority" is not the same as in current IOC. For instance, I find 9 out of the first 100 names to be different. And I don't mean trivial spelling-different but really different: a different author(s), a different year, or different in parentheses.

Examples:

wiki: Tinamotis pentlandii (Vigors, 1837)
ioc: Tinamotis pentlandii Vigors, 1837

wiki: Chauna torquata Oken, 1816
ioc: Chauna torquata (Oken, 1816)

wiki: Cygnus buccinator Richardson, 1832
ioc: Cygnus buccinator Richardson, 1831

Do we want these changed to be the same as current IOC? I am willing to fix these errors (it will take a while) but I would like to get confirmation that IOC is indeed regarded as the authoritative source. Thanks. Kweetal nl (talk) 05:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The IOC is the preferred source for determining which species have articles and the taxonomy in the taxobox, but alternative treatments by other sources should be mentioned in the text. In the case of the details in the authority, I think we should consider other sources as well.

In the trumpeter swan example, the IOC may be wrong in having Richardson 1831. Richardson, 1832 is stated in The key in BOW (click info icon) H&M4, and Birdlife. I've asked at Bird Forum. Both James Jobling (author of The Key) and David Donsker (editor of IOC list) read the taxonomy threads there and both often make corrections following discussion there.

The sources seem in agreement that it is Tinamotis pentlandii Vigors, 1837 (no parenthesis) and Chauna torquata (Oken, 1816) (with parenthesis). These are Wikipedia errors.

In short, I think we should consider case by case rather than strictly following the IOC for this kind of information. — Jts1882 | talk 08:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I’m surprised that you found 9 errors in 100 – I would have expected the error rate to be less than this. The bracket errors probably arise when a Wiki editor is not familiar with significance of bracketing the authority. These are the most common type of error in Wikipedia articles. Changes in the year are sometimes the result of the publication of a detailed study on the publication date. My view is that it is safe to follow IOC – it is highly unlikely that the IOC has an error. In a few very rare cases when I’ve come across an error in the IOC list, I’ve emailed the maintainers and they’ve promptly acknowledged the error and undertaken to correct their list in the following update. - Aa77zz (talk) 08:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

An example of a reported error in IOC 13.2. The list has "Bradornis Smith, A, 1874". This is a typo and should be "Bradornis Smith, A, 1847". - Aa77zz (talk) 08:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

According to the replies at BirdForum, the IOC is correct using Richardson 1831. So it seems the IOC is correct for all three examples. The IOC will be a reliable source in the vast majority of case, but how do we know when there are exceptions. If we say follow the IOC, someone might change Smith 1847 back to 1874 following the IOC source. Perhaps these need to be flagged with an HTML comment in the taxobox. — Jts1882 | talk 09:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I've followed the good suggestion by Jts1882 and added a hidden note on the year to the speciesbox in the Bradornis article. - Aa77zz (talk) 10:00, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

When there is a discrepancy between the IOC list and other sources in the authority or the year it is often useful to look at the Zoonomen website maintained by Alan Peterson. In the footnotes he gives the background with references. - Aa77zz (talk) 10:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Strangely zoonomen uses Chauna torquata (Oken) 1816. I haven't seen just the name in parenthesis before. — Jts1882 | talk 10:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the ICZN code explicitly stipulates that the date goes inside the parentheses.

And that there may be a comma but nothing more, between authorname and date. Kweetal nl (talk) 11:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I'd expected less errors too. I think it may also be some bad luck; n=100 is a low of course (I just looked at the first 100).

Let me give you all ~~10 (not 9, sorry)~~ errors (wi=wikpedia, db=IOC):

wi Rothschild, 1897 Crypturellus_berlepschi Berlepsch's Tinamou Berlepsch' Tinamoe
db (Rothschild, 1897)
wi (Zimmer, JT & Phelps, WH, 1945) Crypturellus_ptaritepui Tepui Tinamou *Tepuitinamoe
db Zimmer, JT & Phelps, WH, 1945
wi Tschudi 1844 Crypturellus_atrocapillus Black-capped Tinamou Zwartkoptinamoe
db (Tschudi, 1844)
wi ~~(Lesson, R., 1842) Crypturellus_cinnamomeus Thicket Tinamou Struiktinamoe~~
db ~~(Lesson, RP, 1842)~~
wi Chapman 1929 Crypturellus_casiquiare Barred Tinamou Gebandeerde Tinamoe
db (Chapman, 1929)
wi (Gray, GR, 1867) Rhynchotus_maculicollis Huayco Tinamou Huaycotinamoe
db Gray, GR, 1867
wi Gray 1867 Nothoprocta_pentlandii Andean Tinamou Andestinamoe
db (Gray, GR, 1867)
wi (Saint-Hilaire, 1832) Eudromia_elegans Elegant Crested Tinamou Kuiftinamoe
db Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I, 1832
wi (Vigors, 1837) Tinamotis_pentlandii Puna Tinamou Punatinamoe
db Vigors, 1837
wi Oken, 1816 Chauna_torquata Southern Screamer Kuifhoenderkoet
db (Oken, 1816)
wi Richardson, 1832 Cygnus_buccinator Trumpeter Swan Trompetzwaan
db Richardson, 1831

It occurred to me that I could also run this little program against all 11000 species, not change anything, just make a wiki-IOC-diff (where IOC "Authority" is concerned) Kweetal nl (talk) 11:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I mean to say, we could then together discuss the validity of each author+date+parens 'datum'.

(I have to say I am a little taken aback by the apparent need to so scrutinise author+date+parens; after all the main decision, the important and actual taxonomic decision has already been made by IOC, and we say: we follow the IOC list. It strikes me as somewhat unnecessary to then expend much work on the author+year (which after all, follows directly, as no more than bookkeeping, from the first decision). But fair enough. I'll make no edits until further notice.) Kweetal nl (talk) 12:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I have made NL-wiki bird species agree with IOC 'Authority" a while ago. During that process I have also, sometimes, made changes on this (EN) wikipedia: if and only if IOC and BOW agreed on "Authority" (which was often but not always). That seemed a reasonable course. Kweetal nl (talk) 11:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Kweetal nl: I think you should go ahead and align the English Wikipedia with the IOC list. I can help you with this if you provide a list - perhaps on a subpage of your user page or by email.

I'm strongly in favour of closely following the IOC. The only exception would be when there is taxonomy section in the article that justifies why the IOC is not being followed.

I've now added a taxonomy section to the trumpeter swan article mentioned above. I've previously added taxonomy sections to several hundred Wikipedia bird articles and in so doing I've found almost no errors in the IOC list - but I've found many errors in the Wikipedia articles. By far the most common type are errors with parentheses.

Note also that the IOC list includes the initials of some authorities to avoid ambiguity. For example there is a Gmelin, JF and a Gmelin, SG, a Peters, W and a Peters, JL etc. etc. Other sources sometimes omit initials but this can easily cause confusion (with editors linking to the wrong authority on Wikipedia). - Aa77zz (talk) 14:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

That sounds familiar: I have a preliminary list at sandbox (still ~10% 'errors', fsvo error). Most are parentheses differences.

I'll make the rest of that list later (later this week, probably).

Note that in this list, for Wikipedia, the authority-value given is mangled (by my program) to a standard form (the form that IOC uses), to make the comparison easy. (JE Gray -> Gray, JE; J. E. Gray -> Gray, JE - etc) The IOC value is literally the "Authority" value as found in the 13.2 spreadsheet.

I have a few, ahem, 'recommendations' that I hope we agree on:

I'd like it when all Author, year were separated by a comma - I know it is not really obligatory but it's surely the most usual way of citing.
Most authornames need no initials but the brothers Gray, both prolific, should be given their initials as 'Gray, JE' and 'Gray, GR' (I know I can go spelunking in the link, but that's just awful).
I take your 'initials' point, I try to follow IOC here too. Kweetal nl (talk) 14:28, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I've now sorted out the brackets for the examples listed above. In some cases the genus was introduced after the species OD was published. - Aa77zz (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. May I recommend my sandbox. I can only help editing later in the week (and maybe in evenings).

Yeah, the year/date value can be illuminating: there was even one case in IOC (apart from the above Bradornis) where the genus-year was later than the species-year, and no parens: Cossyphicula isabellae (has been reported, to be fixed in 14.1). Thanks again - Kweetal nl (talk) 15:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

A comma separating the author and year is much more common on Wikipedia than omitting the comma (this goes for animal in general, not just birds specifically). But there are a few databases for some groups of animals that omit commas. Plantdrew (talk) 16:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Should we use periods in the initials per MOS:INITIALS (eg Gray, G. R. vs Gray, GR)? I know IOC doesn't use them, but this like more of a stylistic choice than anything related to the bookkeeping aspects of this discussion. AryKun (talk) 15:49, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we have Broadbill bird experts here?

At WikiJournal of Science, we have two submissions on Broadbill birds: Black-and-red broadbill (Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchos) and Banded broadbill (Eurylaimus javanicus) that have been awaiting second peer review for content and accuracy since last year's summer. Do we have any subject matter experts here who can volunteer to perform peer review on either (or both) submissions? (Note that this will be published in Scopus-indexed journal, which means that the "peer review" is conducted in the sense of academic publishing and not Wikipedia's version of "peer review") OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Clements Checklist v 2023 released

The 2023 Clements list has been released. The notes are here and the spreadsheets here.

The updated list includes 124 splits and 16 lumps. The two new families, Hyliidae and Paradoxornithidae, are already recognised in the IOC list.

The updated list includes "most" of the decisions made by the Working Group Avian Checklists (WGAC) through June 2023. - Aa77zz (talk) 08:01, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

The last update on WGAC was 2022, which has a list of families reviewed or being reviewed. If Clements have " implemented most WGAC decisions through June 2023", can we work out which addition families have been reviewed?

This Clements/BOW update also makes a lot of genera changes. For instance, in Otididae, Eupodotis was split into four genera, adding Lophotis, Heterotetrax, and Afrotis, which is in alignment with the IOC; both already agreed on the species.

With the two new Clements families, they are now closer to alignment with the IOC. Clements recognises 251 families and the IOC 253. The differences are recognition of Oxyruncidae by Clements/BOW (part of Tityridae in IOC) and recognition of Alcippeidae, Erythrocercidae, and Cettiidae by the IOC.

There are even more differences at ordinal level: 41 orders by Clements and 44 by the IOC. The Clements/BOW list recognises Galbuliformes and Cathartiformes (respectively included in Piciformes and Accipitriformes by the IOC), while the IOC splits Caprimulgiformes and recognises Caprimulgiformes, Steatornithiformes, Nyctibiiformes, Podargiformes, Aegotheliformes and Apodiformes.

While I understand they are currently focused on genera and species, it's a little strange that Alcippeidae, Erythrocercidae, and Cettiidae have been reviewed by WGAC. but still aren't recognised by Clements/BOW. We'll have to wait until next year when Clements plan to release their update "in conjunction with the release of the WGAC Checklist". — Jts1882 | talk 09:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Improve large bare species lists with authors?

To add author+year to the bare scientific name; is this something we want? Please compare List of hummingbirds with its improvement sandbox21. I do this automatically, running from current IOC data, so maintenance doesn't need to be a problem. But I know some people don't like authors on names. I would say it should be done on the otherwise bare species lists, especially the larger ones (and not on the nice wordy lists with picture and text). See also proposed woodpeckers, tyrant flycatchers. See sandbox for more such lists. - Kweetal nl (talk) 12:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure, that seems like an improvement; more informative anyway. I don't think maintenance would be a problem even if you were doing these manually; I don't think author combinations change all that often anyway. AryKun (talk) 13:28, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a good addition. But I would request that you add some explanation to the lead paragraphs if you're going to do this – explaining what the name and year represent (including the difference between names with and without parentheses). I'd also suggest linking to appropriate author articles, but maybe that's too much work. MeegsC (talk) 13:33, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

A header saying binomial name with the authority should be enough, although the authority link should redirect to an appropriate article.

Such taxonomic lists with the authority are not uncommon on Wikipedia. Many of the plant ones have author links. The authority isn't as important for birds as all have articles and nearly all of those will have the authority. — Jts1882 | talk 14:59, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I've added "authority" to all species on the lists of the largest 5 families (Tyrannidae, Thraupidae, Trochilidae, Columbidae, Muscicapidae)) . Linked when the pubyear < 2000 (avoiding redlinks) - Kweetal nl (talk) 09:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Automatically adding the Authority has the advantage that obsolete (or just wrong) scientific names immediately show up: they are a bare name without author. Because they were not found in my IOC-database they had no Authority added. Looking for such absent authornames in sandbox27 I found already a few names that needed to change in the original, and there are many more. TWIMC: do not make changes in that sandbox, make changes in the original: List of birds of India. Btw, I like the nice formatting with the separate tables for groups. - Kweetal nl (talk) 05:20, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I note you are adding IUCN conservation statuses in a comment column in some of the lists. You can decorate these lists with the icons (see: commons:Category:IUCN_Category_individual_icons). Other species lists use the icons, e.g. List_of_endemic_birds_of_Japan, List of mammals of Massachusetts. — Jts1882 | talk 07:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

It's not really the case that I add anything other than the "Authority"; if there is something else, it was there already. I understand that I could undertake more automatic editing (than just the Authority) of these lists but I am also a little reluctant to make the change too large. (I see your point though, I'll see what I can do with those icons) - (talk) 07:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Howard & Moore recent download

It would be nice to have a recent machine readable H&M list to do a comparison with the three other world bird lists (Clements 2023, IOC 13.2, HBW/BirdLife v7). Is there such a download of H&M? I see they let you download (for now) the family pages which seem to have quite a lot of info, maybe even everything; but to parse those and compile them into a regular table is maybe a bit too much (I don't even know if it's allowed). - Kweetal nl (talk) 13:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

You used to be able to download the Excel files for versions 4.0 and 4.1 from their links page. In fact the option is still there but no longer functional: https://www.aviansystematics.org/links. Unfortunately these files are not available at archive.org, although the family pages are if you want to compare H&M4.1 with the new updates. — Jts1882 | talk 16:49, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

peculiar name form: Genus epitheton (author1, year1) author2?, year2?

In List of Galliformes, I encounter several names of this form:

Melanoperdix nigra (Vigors 1829) Jerdon 1864

and

 C. o. oculeus (Temminck 1815) Blyth 1861

The second author (i.e., Jerdon, Blyth) seems to be taken from the genus. They look weird to me, slightly botanical even. Is this a convention I did't know of but that should be allowed? (TBH, I think it's just wrong) - Kweetal nl (talk) 12:20, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Not an accepted convention in zoology. Shyamal (talk) 12:35, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Iirc, in botany they give the original author in parenthesis and the recombination author afterwards, but don't give the years. That format gives the best of both worlds (recombination author and years) but isn't used by either code. — Jts1882 | talk 13:38, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I've never seen this used anywhere in ornithology, it's almost certainly just wrong. AryKun (talk) 13:46, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the double names, in the end there were only a handful. It occurred to me that perhaps in fossil names there could be a convention like this (so I let the fossil names as they were). - Kweetal nl (talk) 14:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Because paleontology sources often need to use names under both the ICZN and the ICNafp, they frequently use the same convention for authorities, particularly in lists, which can otherwise look a bit odd if they have dates for animals but not for plants and transferring authors for plants but not for animals. I'm not sure that this is exactly a "convention", but you will find certainly find it in some of the literature. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

if you are going to use both the original author and recombination author there is actually a convention for this, it was described by Pyle and others in the last 20 years. I use it in wikispecies when I add names, eg:

Chelodina (Chelydera) burrungandjii Thomson, Kennett & Georges 2000 sec. Thomson & Georges in Shea et al. 2020

In this sec. is short for secundum and in this situation basically means according to. Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 17:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to add dinosaur taxa to bird taxoboxes

There has been proposal to change the taxa in the taxobox of the Bird article, with some proposing the addition of multiple dinosaur taxa. Some want them in every bird taxobox and have pre-emptively made the changes while the discussion is ongoing. The discussion is at WT:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Dinosaurian_clades_outside_bird_taxoboxes. — Jts1882 | talk 15:51, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

What has happened to olive-backed sunbird?

I was looking for the page on this species, which has a wide range including northern Australia, and find it has morphed into garden sunbird, a Philippines endemic. So what happened to the birds occupying the rest of its former range? Maias (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

8-way split, see the note for the species over at list of sunbirds. Clements has split based on some pretty convincing genetic studies, but IOC hasn't yet, so that article shouldn't have been split yet. I don't doubt that IOC will follow suit in this or next year's update, but it seems Robusuta has jumped the gun a bit on the split. AryKun (talk) 13:30, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Moved back to Olive-backed sunbird. Sub31k (talk) 01:39, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

This is decision taken by the Working Group Avian Checklists (WGAC). The Clements notes are here) The IOC has announced their intention to also split the species (see Oct 4 here and the details here).

The other 7 species will need new articles - when IOC 14.1 is released. They are:

- Aa77zz (talk) 13:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Any idea when 14.1's coming out? AryKun (talk) 13:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

January 2024, but see diary of the previous releases, for some reason it takes some time:

Aug 28 Transition to IOC 13.2 is completed.

July 11 Begin transition to IOC 13.2.

Feb 5 Transition to IOC 13.1 is complete.

Jan 22 Begin transition to IOC 13.1

July 21 Initiate transition to IOC 12.2.

Aug 12 Transition to IOC 11.2 complete.

July 20 Transition to 11.2 complete except for BOW pages.

June 30 Begin transition to IOC 11.2.

Feb 5 Transition to 11.1 complete

Jan 11 Begin transition to IOC 11.1.

Kweetal nl (talk) 14:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

New Howard & Moore checklist updates

The Avian Trust have started publishing updates to their checklist in their family by family listing. So far they have updated the families through Apodidae.

The family updates will be completed by the end of next year and they plan to introduce a subscription model. The basic checklist will be free, but the footnotes and references will be behind a paywall.

Under “H & M Online” we have now provided details (“Introduction to evolving online material for the H & M Checklist”) regarding the updating of the 2013/14 checklist. This explains that we are transitioning from working through the entire checklist family by family to making reasonably prompt changes in any family with fresh version-numbering with issue dates. This transition requires a temporary two-source system: one source being the newly revised families which, once uploaded, become subject to prompt change, the other – gradually dwindling – is data from the 2013/14 Checklist as we have been displaying it since 2019. We aim to complete the transition in 2024.
https://www.aviansystematics.org/the-howard-and-moore-complete-checklist

The website currently offers all our material free of charge. At the recent EGM the Trustees approved plans to change for some on-line information; however, access to the listed taxa across all families will remain free to all. Charges will be for access to information that we do not display.
It is intended to place the following information behind a “pay wall”: (1) the lists of footnotes, (2) the lists of references and (3) other initiatives creating fresh displayable information. Access to this material will be offered to individuals under a subscription scheme.
We do not expect the pay wall to come into force until the second quarter of 2024 (when all the non-passerine families have been updated/revised and the duly published in the displayed checklist). Becoming a subscriber through an agreement to set up an automatic annual payment making a payment for a 12-month period will be rewarded by a reduced charge for Year One. We anticipate the annual subscription will be £20 so the reduced change will be £15.
https://www.aviansystematics.org/the-howard-and-moore-complete-world-checklist-of-birds-online

— Jts1882 | talk 15:57, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone compared the H&M4 checklist with the updated families? It would be interesting to see if their changes are consistent with WGAC. — Jts1882 | talk 08:46, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

H&M Format

H&M pages (like this one) have several details that I cannot find explained anywhere:

What do the little 'v's stand for?
What do the numbers in front of some taxa names mean exactly? Some sort of grouping, evolutionary distance?
Genera names have M or F which I guess stands for masculin / feminine gender?
what does the >> mean?
what does α or δ mean?

Thanks!
Kweetal nl (talk) 16:34, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The little numbers indicate subspecies groups (see column AA in 4.1 spreadsheet). I think eBird has something similar.

The >> looks like it may relate to migration. (breeding area >> wintering area (e.g. check Brant (goose)).

Not sure of the v, but some subspecies have i as an alternative. — Jts1882 | talk 17:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

p. xix: "The "v" symbol for variable endings precedes the distribution statement." I assume this indicates that the specific epithet has to agree with the genus name - cf invariant when noun in apposition. - Aa77zz (talk) 17:41, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense, thanks. - Kweetal nl (talk) 17:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, seems ike it's v for variable endings and i for invariable. AryKun (talk) 17:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The δ may be something to do with original spelling (see footnotes 14 and 41 in Anatidae) — Jts1882 | talk 17:49, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

p. xvii: A δ indicates a change to the publication date compared with that listed in Dickinson et al 2011. Took me while to find this - far from obvious.

p. xvi: an α indicates that the spelling is changed compared with H&M3 or Peters Check-list. - Aa77zz (talk) 18:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Bird genus articles & genus authors

I've checked for all bird genus pages whether they have an Authority. This seemed mostly to be the case. I've done small changes, often the year just needed a small change. Remaining differences in author(s) are here: User:Kweetal nl/sandbox45, I am a bit reluctant to change these to the IOC value. I'll leave these for now; if any of you feels more confident, go ahead. - Kweetal nl (talk) 08:38, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll look at these over the next few days. I think it unlikely that the IOC have errors - but I'll check.

I've changed the authority of Cygnus to follow the IOC and cited the original diagnosis (a plate). The change is based on: Welter-Schultes, F.W.; Klug, R. (2009). "Nomenclatural consequences resulting from the rediscovery of Les figures des plantes et animaux d'usage en médecine, a rare work published by Garsault in 1764, in the zoological literature". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 66 (3): 225–241 [238]. doi:10.21805/bzn.v66i3.a1.

- Aa77zz (talk) 09:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Name changes

The American Ornithological Society says it's going to change English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary, focusing first on those species that occur primarily within the U.S. or Canada. I don't know what the status of AOS names is in relation to our articles or how "official" they are, but thought I'd mention it here for those interested in this project. Schazjmd (talk) 23:58, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

The project uses the IOC for the source of English vernacular names and the general classification that determines article titles and the taxobox classification. Alternatives are discussed in the text. Any new vernacular names created by the AOS would be added as alternatives when they are adopted by other sources. The new names would not be common names in the Wikipedia sense until widely adopted. — Jts1882 | talk 07:26, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The IOC have put a statement on their home page: "The IOC World Bird List is closely following the AOS discussion of patronymic English bird names. Our advisory team of experts will continue to review proposed changes from a global perspective, and on a case-by-case basis, as posted on this web site." - Aa77zz (talk) 13:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

IOC versus Clements

Until the Working Group Avian Checklists (WGAC) completes a sweep though all the bird families, there will still be cases where the Clements taxonomy differs from that of the IOC. I've noticed a number of cases (perhaps 20) where our Wikipedia articles follow Clements rather than the IOC. I've held off changing these articles as I'm waiting for the WGAC to decide which taxonomy to adopt - I don't want to waste my time making changes that will later need to be undone.

Following both Clements and the IOC can get very confusing - for example we have articles for the yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata) (per Clements) and the myrtle warbler (Setophaga coronata) (per IOC). - Aa77zz (talk) 14:46, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we could try to keep parent articles for species that are controversially split or split only recently on the basis of genetic data as "species group" style articles, while also having articles for the lower taxa that are split off; this wouldn't work perhaps for poorly known species, but in the case of Western or cosmopolitan species like yellow-rumped warbler and intermediate egret, I think it would be both manageable and useful for readers. AryKun (talk) 15:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

How did that happen? Those two articles have coexisted for almost 20 years. Did Clements lump the Myrtle warbler, Audubon's warbler and Goldman's warbler recent? Generally, I agree that waiting for the WGAC list makes sense, rather than making changes that may need to be reversed next year. — Jts1882 | talk 15:50, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested moves for Feral parrot and Feral parakeets in Great Britain

Seems appropriate to mention this one here. Discussion is happening at: Talk:Feral_parrot#Requested_move_27_November_2023. Iloveparrots (talk) 06:32, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

[1] IOC

[2] Clements/BOW

[1]

[2]