Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds

WikiProject Birds

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Category:Birds of (African countries)

Isee back in 2016 someone deleted Categories: Birds of...(African countries)but just for the African countries, nowhere else. Long term project is to try to restore them in some fashion....Pvmoutside (talk) 11:06, 17 July 2023

2024 taxonomy update

I got some mail regarding updates to the eBird/Clements checklist. Information here. For those folks who are not subscribed to Birds of the World the site is going to be open-access for a brief window from 14 to 18 November starting at noon Eastern Time. Information on that (along with a webinar) here. Should be useful for those editors who don't currently have access to the site. Reconrabbit 17:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

It's gone completely worthless since Cornell took over Lynx HBW. Try entering Grey Heron or Black-necked Grebe in the search box . . . those species don't exist any more, it seems - MPF (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

The entries are "Gray Heron" (the American spelling) and "Eared Grebe" (alternative common name), respectively. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:44, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

In other words, complete cultural erasure of the original English in favour of enforcing American imperialism in names and spelling: totally unacceptable! If it were wikipedia, they would fall spectacularly foul of both mos:ties and mos:retain . . . and no, I am not ever going to mis-spell Grey, etc., just to suit their imperialist agenda - MPF (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It is the fallacy of false equivalence that British English is the original English and American English the derivative. The false equivalence is between where the language originated and where the ancestral traits of the language are currently used. Indeed, the most obvious difference (rhoticisation) is the opposite.

Given the origins of the two spellings of "grey", it doesn't make much sense to call one of them the original.

græi -> grai -> gray

græi -> grei -> grey

The Black-necked grebe article explains that the name "eared grebe" is older than "black-necked grebe". Grey Clownfish (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Grey Clownfish - it's nothing to do with that! It's that they have eliminated English as a permissible spelling, treating it as an error that cannot be tolerated or permitted to exist. When I said 'original English' I was referring to the text they took over from Lynx HBW, which was in English, not American. What I foresee this leading to is a requirement for American to be used in all future ornithological literature, to comply with their manual of style; this would include e.g. a requirement that the BOU change to American spellings for the official British bird list, and also (more significant here) demands that all wikipedia's bird pages be titled at American spellings to comply with Cornell's official list, and using American spellings in the text, even for species that have nothing to do with the USA and everything to do with countries that don't use American spellings.

As to the grebe, yes, "eared" is older than "black-necked", but "eared" (Latin, auritus) leads to obvious confusion options with Podiceps auritus. Given that these two species were often confused in the past, it is quite plausible that a lot of early usage of 'eared' referred to P. auritus rather than P. nigricollis. - MPF (talk) 14:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

American English is a dialect of English, there is no linguistic basis for treating it as a separate language.

By the way, the UK is not the same thing as England. So if American English is not English because it's not English English, then the same is true of Scottish English, Welsh English and Northern Irish English.

Maybe you could argue that American English is different enough from English English to be not English, but this is not the case with the other British English dialects. But that argument falls apart when you consider that the dialect that is the most different from Received Pronunciation is likely to be spoken in the UK or one of its territories. If Scots is a dialect of English, it's the one. But it's probably a separate language. So it may be Trista de Cunha English or one of the English English dialects.

If you're searching in a book though, you pretty much have to use the spellings/names that the book uses. It's fine for them to use their spellings/names. I mean, what would you think if some American complained about foreigners using British spellings?

By the way, searching for birds on eBird lets you use other names. You can even search for species by programmatically-generated 4-letter codes which have many homonyms and yes, will have synonyms too, based on alternative English names and scientific names. So BNGR is recognised as a code for Eared Grebe.

In any case, it is absurd to claim that eBird is useless just for using different names. Did you know that Wikipedia can use references in another language? And you think another dialect is such a big deal? While we follow IOC, Wikipedia doesn't even have anything saying that British English must be used for bird articles. Please see MOS:ENGVAR. Grey Clownfish (talk) 03:25, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Grey Clownfish "By the way, searching for birds on eBird lets you use other names" – it does not. As pointed out near the start of this section, entering 'Grey Heron' in the search box yields 'No matches' (I could upload a printscreen to demonstrate, except it would breach copyright rules); it does not exist as a legitimate option on the Cornell website. You are required to submit to American imperialism to access any data.

"I mean, what would you think if some American complained about foreigners using British spellings?" – I'd support them, when it is relevant. See e.g. my notes at Talk:Forster's tern or Talk:Redhead (bird) and my related edits on those pages.

"So if American English is not English because it's not English English, then the same is true of Scottish English, Welsh English and Northern Irish English" – American is the only one with an extensive range of different spellings. Every other dialect uses 'grey', 'colour', etc. So other dialects are scarcely distinguishable in typed text, even when they are readily audible when spoken. - MPF (talk) 10:36, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I also think they should follow the IOC or at least offer different variants, but complaining about this here is pointless as there is nothing we can do about it here in WP. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

That is so weird. So alternative English names don't work, but 4-letter codes based on them do? It's probably a bug. I very much doubt they would have done that on purpose. More evidence that it's a bug, searching for Pica pica doesn't get Pica pica! Yet Passer domesticus works. Grey Clownfish (talk) 11:07, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Merge?

We have a page Butorides for the genus of 3 species Green Heron, Striated Heron, Lava Heron, per IOC taxonomy. These three species are lumped by some authorities under the name Green-backed Heron, treating Butorides as monospecific; we have a page Green-backed heron for that, too. This of course covers exactly the same taxa as the Butorides page. Should the two be merged? My preference is for yes, at the Butorides page, and make 'Green-backed heron' a redirect to that. - MPF (talk) 10:57, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Do we have two articles covering the same material or an article and a disambiguation page? The separate disambiguation page would not be needed if the genus article was rewritten to explain the history prominently, but I don't think a redirect is suitable as the genus page now stands.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:46, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882 - there's a lot of duplication, but also some bits that would need to be transferred across in a merge. It shouldn't be too difficult, though. - MPF (talk) 23:17, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I think merge Green-backed heron into Butorides. I see no reason not to. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882, Jens Lallensack, and anyone else - shall I just go ahead, or does it need to be announced on the two talk pages? I'm a bit out-of-touch with current policies on this sort of thing after a long wikibreak - MPF (talk) 20:12, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Only thing is, shouldn't Green-backed Heron be the article name if that's the common name for the species, and Butorides redirect there (opposite of what Jens said)? FunkMonk (talk) 20:32, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. For unambiguity we should use the scientific name. Green-backed Heron can be used for different concepts. Butorides is unambiguous. But I support the merge with appropriate changes.  —  Jts1882 | talk  20:45, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that "Green-backed Heron" was the common name of a species. We should be careful to simply apply this name to the genus now, unless it is widely used as the common name, but I don't think it is. So Butorides should be fine. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:37, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@FunkMonk, Jens Lallensack, Jts1882 - I've been bold and merged the two, in the absence of any contrary comment. A query for the species table, please: is it possible to add captions to the photos? I added them at "image-alt=", but the captions I added are not showing. Thanks! - MPF (talk) 01:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

The |image-alt= parameter sets the alterative text shown when an image is not displayed. It also appears on mouseover. For the caption you should use |image-caption=. The caption is displayed in bold, so I wrapped it in a formatted span element:

|image-caption=<span style="font-weight:normal;"> caption for the image here </span>

It would probably be better if the formatting was applied to the caption by the template.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:03, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882 - thanks! I'd actually tried the image_caption= (like in taxoboxes) but that hadn't worked either, looks like it needs all that extra coding you added which I didn't know about 😳 MPF (talk) 12:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

The extra code is to get rid of the bold text. The parameter in the template uses a hyphen rather than the underscore used in taxobox parameters.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:19, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

White-tailed Tityra

On Tityra, should White-tailed Tityra (Tityra leucura) be listed as a full species? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is now accepted by IOC 14.2 as a valid species - MPF (talk) 20:04, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I've added it to the genus page, but not created the new page for the species - MPF (talk) 23:46, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I've written a page, but there isn't much known about it Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

It makes no sense that non-neornithines get to be in Category:Prehistoric birds when they aren't included in Aves

You can't seriously argue that our bird categories are for the same taxon as the one described on the Bird article then. This should be resolved. Either bird categories should be for modern birds only, or they should have their subject stated as Avialae rather than Bird. Or regular bird categories can be for modern birds only, but prehistoric bird categories for avialans. In that case, the prehistoric bird categories must not be categorised under the regular ones, and prehistoric neornithines should have their own stub template and categories to accommodate them as the overlap between "birds" and "prehistoric birds", and if they don't, they will need to be be put in both. So for example, Bush moa will need both Template:Paleo-bird-stub and Template:Bird-stub, even though it may seem redundant.

I think honestly, Wikipedia should move Bird to something like Modern bird or Aves and move Avialae to Bird. This is because "bird" in English includes other avialans. Only a handful of pedants argue that non-neornithine avialans are not birds as they aren't neornithines. Grey Clownfish (talk) 05:47, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

@Grey Clownfish: I think that's a pagename change too far for a major, high-traffic page like bird - MPF (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

So you're saying we shouldn't fix the discrepancy between how we define "bird" and how the majority of English speakers do because the Bird article is viewed a lot? If anything, that makes it even more important to fix. Besides, there's an discrepancy between the way we define "bird" in different pages (in various namespaces). That is why non-neornithines are included in categories for prehistoric birds.

Anyway, I've removed prehistoric bird categories from regular bird categories. This is on the grounds that the two types of "bird" categories use different definitions of "bird". Specifically, for the purposes of prehistoric bird categories, a "bird" is a member of Avialae, and for the purposes of regular bird categories, a "bird" is a member of Neornithes. There are some grey areas though, for example, should Category:Extinct birds use the avialan or neornithine definition? I decided that it should be the neornithine one, so I removed Category:Prehistoric birds from it. After all, only birds that became extinct in or after 1500 are to be included directly in it, and of course there were no non-neornithine avialans in or after 1500. Grey Clownfish (talk) 01:12, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Category:Endangered species by reason they are threatened has been nominated for discussion

Category:Endangered species by reason they are threatened has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you.

About 70 subcategories, the oldest from 2015, are also being proposed for deletion. There are a fair number of birds categorized by the threats to them, though coverage is quite incomplete. HLHJ (talk) 04:59, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

"True thrush"

As a follow-on from the recent discussion (4 up this page) about American Robin, I took a look at and expanded true thrush, the page covering the genus Turdus. I'd like to suggest it be renamed to the scientific name Turdus, as:

1. "True thrush" is a rather awful neologism that isn't in use for any species; there's nothing called "Mistle True Thrush" or (even worse) "Mistle True-thrush".
2. Neither is there by implied converse anything called e.g. "Siberian False Thrush" [Geokichla sibirica] or "Hermit Fake Thrush" [Catharus guttatus], etc. Is Wood Thrush [Hylocichla mustelina] a fraud? No!
3. The name "thrush" is universally treated as referring to the family Turdidae. Apart from that Turdus is the type genus, there's nothing that makes this genus 'truer' thrushes than any other genus in the family.
4. "True thrush" as a term is also not in any widespread use. iNaturalist uses the term 'Typical Thrush', which is better but still not ideal as it implies 'Atypical Thrush' for other genera. About the only use of it I can find is in Handbook of the Birds of the World, but they use it for the subfamily Turdinae, not the genus Turdus.
5. Scientific texts generally use "Turdus thrushes" to specify the genus explicitly (e.g. Clement, Peter; Hathway, Ren (2000-11-30). Thrushes. London: A&C Black. ISBN 0-7136-3940-7., HBW).
6. Finally, a lot of Turdus species are not (and never have been) called "thrush". As well as American Robin, of the six species common in Britain, only two (Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush) are actually called "thrush", the others being Blackbird, Ring Ouzel, Redwing, and Fieldfare; there are several other similar cases elsewhere.

Thoughts, please! - MPF (talk) 17:49, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Support. Agree, there is no such think as a true thrush. If it's a collective name for the genus it should be plural, the way BOW uses it for the subfamily. It's not a common name in use for the genus in the sense of WP:COMMONNAME, just a made-up vernacular name applied to the genus.  —  Jts1882 | talk  18:00, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Support - for all the reasons listed above. Turdus is a much better name for the article. Aa77zz (talk) 21:58, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Support for reasons elucidated above. MeegsC (talk) 12:37, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Support, although I would quite like there to be a Siberian False Thrush, couldn't be harder to see than the real one Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Aa77zz, @Jts1882, @MeegsC, @Jimfbleak – thanks all! Looks like consensus with no dissenting voice after a week. Could someone do the move please? And also found a related case, can True owl be moved to Strigidae (for all the same reasons), or does that need its own separate discussion? - MPF (talk) 10:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Moved both Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak – many thanks! - MPF (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Thoughts on true parrots, for the same reasons as above? Iloveparrots (talk) 12:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Iloveparrots – trickier, as they are neither a family nor a genus as circumscribed on that page; perhaps "typical parrots" might be better? In theory, just parrot should be enough (as none of the Psittaciformes excluded from that page are called 'parrot'), but I can see this conflicts badly with the common interpretation of 'parrot' ≡ 'Psittaciformes'. MPF (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd prefer typical parrots to Psittacoidea, agree that just parrot won't run Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:34, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Preferred source for synonyms?

What is the preferred source (if any) of this project for synonyms? Specifically in the context of listing synonyms in taxoboxes, as I've found that many bird articles have incomplete and/or unreferenced synonyms lists in their taxoboxes that I'd like to fix. I know we generally follow the IOC World Bird List for taxonomy, but they don't list synonyms for each species, only its placement and accepted common/binomial name. Sorry if this is a silly question, I just couldn't find any particular guidance regarding synonyms on the Taxonomy & resources page. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:53, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

For bird synonyms there is AviBase although the data is a bit hard to access/download. The HBW/BirdLife (v9.0) downloadable spreadsheet has a "Synonyms" column, with values for 22% of species (and HBW and IOC have 93% identical species). Two somewhat dated sources are Peters's Check-List of Birds of the world and Hellmayr's Catalogue of Birds of the Americas and the adjacent Islands. Both are in the BHL. I suppose most names are in GBIF, too, but I'm not sure how reliable GBIF is; that probably varies with the quality of its constituent databases (IOC too is slurped into GBIF but GBIF contained an obsolete version of IOC last time I looked) - Kweetal nl (talk) 04:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)