Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds

WikiProject Birds

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White owl

White owl currently redirects to the article White Owl (cigar brand). Should the lower caps version redirect to Snowy owl or Western barn owl, both known as white owls? Mika1h (talk) 11:23, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

The article about the cigar has a link to White Owl (disambiguation) right near the top, though it's slightly hidden by a template that's been there since 2009. I'll look at cleaning up the cigar article to see if that can be removed. I think that's adequate. SchreiberBike | ⌨  13:00, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike @Mika1h - as an aside, I have severe doubts that an obscure cigar brand like that meets Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) test for deserving an article of its own at all. My inclination would be to get rid of it as "not notable", and merge the disambiguation page with the main White Owl page - MPF (talk) 16:11, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I have brought some of the common names of the Western barn owl to the lead, which is a very short lead for a FA. I have changed the emphais within the DAB page. Snowman (talk) 22:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Suggest move White Owl to White Owl (cigar), with both White Owl and White owl redirecting to the DAB page. Snowman (talk) 22:11, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

@Snowmanradio - missed your reply earlier! That sounds sensible, if the cigar brand is deemed noteworthy enough to retain an article; can you do it? I'm guessing it'll need admin privileges to do the moves. - MPF (talk) 17:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

New member of the project, willing to take on any Australian/New Zealand bird article that needs an update.

I've joined Wikipedia very recently and am willing to work on any Australian/New Zealand bird article that is either empty, lacking citations or needs an update. I've got a practically empty daily schedule and am willing to take on anything. Zepherite (talk) 20:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I actually don't edit on birds all that often, but it's lovely to meet another Melbournian birder onwiki :) I wonder if we've inadvertently crossed paths at a twitch before!

There's plenty of work needing to be done - a lot of bird articles were written in the earlier days of Wikipedia and haven't been updated to reflect current information or Wikipedia standards. You can trawl through Category:Birds of Australia and Category:Birds of New Zealand to find pages to work on, but here are a few needing work off the top of my head:

• Australian painted-snipe has no footnotes besides the IUCN reference and needs a complete overhaul
• Black-fronted dotterel needs its distribution and habitat/behviour and ecology sections rehauled to include footnotes
• Varied sitella needs its description section rehauled to include footnotes
• Australian tern has only a single-sentence unsourced "Range" section - this needs to be filled out and renamed to "Distribution and habitat" per project standards
  • The description of Australian tern includes comparisons with mainly European and North American species; not particularly helpful! Comparison with other Australian species would be good - MPF (talk) 00:33, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
• Brown falcon only has a handful of scattered footnotes and also needs its headers renamed per project standards

If you need any assistance, or just want to chat about birding in Vic, feel free to leave a message on my talk. Looking forward to seeing your work! Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 05:38, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you for the list and the advice. I'll start drafting out some updates. Pleasure to meet you. Zepherite (talk) 06:49, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

A very useful source for information on Australian birds is the seven volume Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (1990-2006) (ISBN 0195532449) (HANZAB). (For species that also occur in New Zealand, scans of the articles are available from New Zealand Birds Online). -Aa77zz (talk) 07:49, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Western barn owl

This FA had lost a proper lead somehow. Looking at the edit histories, it looks like when the barn owls were split into separate species, the lead was not properly transfered. It is a bit difficult to trace, because the edit history is divided between western barn owl and the barn owl, which is now a dab. Could an admin unify the edit history? I have restored relevant parts of the lead, by copy and pasting from the earlier versions of the FA. Nevertheless, I think the leeds needs a throuough review. Snowman (talk) 09:41, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of, it seems all the barn owl articles are now just copies of the old pre-split barn owl article? That doesn't seem proper, to just assume they would all be the same... Perhaps the old FA has to be re-evaluated post split. FunkMonk (talk) 09:49, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I have not got time to look into the taxonomy nor to do a lot of wiki editing, so excuse me for signposting this issue. Can an FA be split and automatically retain its FA status? Snowman (talk) 10:09, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Depends on the situation and what is being split. In this case it seems it was barn owl that became featured, but later moved to Western barn owl, so the subject of the original FA isn't even the same as the current article, but wider. I think WP:FAR could be relevant here. FunkMonk (talk) 10:28, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

In this case, after "spliting" the FA into articles about seperate topics, one of the resutling new articles inherited FA status like magic. I think a WP:FAR is appropriate too. Snowman (talk) 10:57, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

This[1] talk page discussion seems to document how this mess was created. I also wonder if making barn owl a disambiguation page instead of merging it with Tytonidae was the right move. Both should probably have been discussed here at the project talk first. FunkMonk (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Although difficult to trace, the edit histories from 2017 of all the barn owl articles document how the mess was created. Snowman (talk) 08:59, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

The very convoluted first sentence at western barn owl needs cleanup and updating; IOC is no longer alone in accepting the split of the old Tyto alba into multiple species - MPF (talk) 01:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Barn owl, currently an index page

I have just made a DAB page at Barn owl (disambiguation). The Barn owl page is actually an index page, not a DAB page, not a list, and not an article. Is this index page needed? Should the Barn owl index page be changed to a redirect to the genus page or the family page or what? Would a list of barn owls be more useful? Snowman (talk) 23:11, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I like the use of index pages like that and think they should be used more often when vernacular names and taxonomy don't mesh well. The Andaman masked owl was also part of the more broadly defined species of barn owl. In HBW it was listed as "T. a. deroepstorffi (A. O. Hume, 1875) – Andaman Barn-owl – S Andaman Is." (subscription needed). I'm not sure of the timing, but I think it was split off, before the major three way split, so perhaps the list should have four species of barn owl. In addition, the Ashy-faced Owl and its subspecies were treated as barn owl subspecies at some point.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:27, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

But aren't the birds known as "barn owls" still a monophyletic unit? Why not have the barn owl page discuss all of them? LittleJerry (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The Tyto genus page had an inadequate one-sentence 33-word introduction, which appears to have been messed-up at the time the FA article was split. I have wrote a workable introduction by amending an old version from 2017 immediatley prior to the FA split. Please copyedit as needs be. I have found various common names for species in the tyto genus, and I am still a bit puzzled about names for the tyto genus. Depending on the species and the locality, common names include barn owl, common barn owl, grass owl, sooty owl, church owl, field owl or simply owl. Nevertheless, I think the current index page is too short and not very helpful. With a better introdction, the genus page would make a good landing for searches for 'Barn owl" making the 'Barn owl index page redundant. Snowman (talk) 08:09, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

As you say Tyto consists of sooty owls, grass owls, masked owls and barn owls. The barn owl is now considered a species complex, not all of them still called barn owls and the phylogeny suggests it should include some of the masked owls. The current Ashy-faced Owl is composed of one or three subspecies of the traditional single species barn owl and the Andaman barn owl (another former subspecies) is now the known as the Andaman masked owl. I'm not convinced Tyto is the place to describe this. The family Tytonidae is considered the barn owl family by both the IOC and BOW, so bay owls are just as much barn owls in the broader sense as the owls placed in Tyto. An article on the species complex makes sense taxonomically, but we don't usually do that.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:54, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

The Tytonidae article has a ton of content that is only about Tyto, and which could be moved into the genus article. Plantdrew (talk) 15:31, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

To keep the western barn owl article upto FA standard

I have started a discussion on Talk:Western barn owl indictating that is needs updating. This is the first stage towards a possiple WP:FAR. Snowman (talk) 10:54, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Expert needed: 2 articles

For anyone interested:

There are currently two pages in Category:Birds articles needing expert attention. The specific articles are Common raven physiology and Theunis Piersma. 🌳 Balsam Cottonwood (talk) ✝ 20:31, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Pyle as a source

Is the Identification Guide to North American Birds by Peter Pyle considered a reliable source? I band birds, so I am not concered about reliability; my main concern with this source is free access. Atlashrike (talk) 15:34, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Oops, worded this badly. I meant that I know the information is trustworthy, but I am unsure if it aligns with Wikipedia's criterion for a good source. Atlashrike (talk) 15:35, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Free access is not a requirement for sources, if it meets WP:Reliable sources it is likely useful. CMD (talk) 17:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks so much!

Atlashrike (talk) 18:28, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not that familiar with the source, but have heard of it. It seems it is a good source for certain technical aspects. It should certainly be considered a reliable source for what it covers, but there might be better less technical sources for general information. I see no problem with using it as a source.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:03, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

@Atlashrike I've heard of it as well; a good source for me too. One point to remember, when dealing with pages in English spellings other than US and Canadian, the term to use is 'ringing', not 'banding' - MPF (talk) 23:51, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

In Australian English we use "banding", not "ringing", so not neatly applicable to all English varieties outside of North America. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:03, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I was curious about what you use in Australian English! I am Canadian and I find that our terms tend to be halfway between American terms and the terms used elsewhere. I was aware of ringing as a term, but it is a good reminder (also merganser v goosander, chickadee v tit, etc). As an aside, the book in question only covers North America (it is generally used as the "reference text" when processing banded/ringed birds). What are analogous texts outside of NA (I am somewhat aware of the European/Asian sources as well)?

-Atlashrike (talk) 03:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@Ethmostigmus thanks! I didn't know about Australian usage. After checking around a bit, it's banding in New Zealand as well, but ringing in Africa, and in India at least in Asia. Seems to be interchangeable in South America, if this report is anything to go by.

@Atlashrike there's a couple in Europe; for passerines, the main one is Lars Svensson's Identification Guide to European Passerines; for non-passerines, J K Baker's Identification of European Non-Passerines - MPF (talk) 09:06, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

New page for avian moult patterns?

Sorry to create a second talk page subject in one day; I am still new to Wikipedia and I have a hard time navigating through the pages, so if there is a better place for me to direct these queries, please let me know!

I have started drafting a page in my sandbox on avian moult patterns. Please note it is partially-written and a good part of it is just shoddy point-form lists. Before I continue, I would like to know if it would be more beneficial to direct this content into plumage, moulting, and/or Humphrey–Parkes terminology. My rationale behind drafting the page is that generally, none of these pages seem appropriate for the level of detail I would like to go into (I would like to note as an aside that I am interested in editing all three of these pages regardless of page creation). Moulting is not avian-specific, and Humphrey–Parkes terminology does not cover... anything that is not Humphrey–Parkes terminology. Plumage seems like the best place in theory to direct this, but then I am concerned about it overlapping too heavily with moulting. I could split the information between the three, but I would probably have to create a new page for Wolfe-Ryder-Pyle terminology at minimum. Any advice regarding all this is deeply appreciated! Thank-you for reading through, and in addition, thanks in advance :)

- Atlashrike (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Atlashrike, I think this is an excellent idea and definitely worth creating as a standalone page separate from plumage, moulting, and Humphrey–Parkes terminology. While it is obviously closely related to those three articles, a detailed overview of bird moulting patterns does not fit neatly into the scope of the existing pages but is still of obvious encyclopedic value. What you've got written up currently looks like a great start, but might I suggest including an overview of the different molt strategies as outlined in this paper?

I assume (apologies if I'm wrong!) that you are located in North America, and would encourage you to try to give this article a global scope, noting that the systems developed in Europe and North America don't neatly apply to birds in other parts of the world where seasons function differently - enwiki often has a major Northern Hemisphere bias... If there's anything I can do to assist you with non-American/European sources please let me know, I have a decent library of Australian literature I would be happy to share with you. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 02:54, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that paper is awesome! I have it open as a tab right now, but I kind-of forgot about it, so thank you for the suggestion.

And yes, I am North American (but not US American, if my spelling of moult over and over goes to show). I definitely have thought about and want the coverage to be global, but I was not sure how to start. I tried to emphasize that one of the issues that the life cycle based system has is that it is based specifically on systems as percieved from the Northern Hemisphere, but I have a dirth of material actually covering Southern Hemisphere outside of that (and generally, knowledge-wise, I have a rough understanding of how it works in South America, but not much else). I am still trying to navigate writing the article in a way that covers different systems without confusing the reader. Thank you for the reminder, and if you have any Australian sources you would like to reccommend, I would deeply appreciate them!

- Atlashrike (talk) 03:09, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

HANZAB is the go-to resource for Australia/New Zealand birds, and is available for free online if you register with Birdlife Australia[2] - it is a truly excellent resource on birds in this region and I highly recommend it, it's my preferred source for working on Australian bird articles. The section on plumage is pages 28-40 in the Introduction, Acknowledgements, Contributors and Reviewers, Abbreviations and Conventions section of volume one. HANZAB follows the terminology of Birds of the Western Palearctic rather than H&P and outlines some of the differences between the two and the limitations of H&P's terminology, which seems like it would be useful for your article.

The Australian Bird Guide (the handbook used by most Aussie birders) uses a simplified system for classifying plumage stages, being a practical guide first and foremost, but may provide some useful information nonetheless - this one isn't available online, but may be available through a library in your area. If you have emails turned on, I would be happy to take photos of my copy and send them through to you - otherwise, WP:RX is an awesome resource for getting access to difficult texts. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@Atlashrike an interesting overview! The paper you cite by Yosef Kiat is a gem; one for every contributor on this wikiproject to read. It basically proves (as I'd long thought myself) that the Humphrey / Parkes terminology isn't comprehended by anyone outside of a narrow group in North America; I'd suggest we should in general avoid using it in wikipedia bird articles as per MOS:JARGON - MPF (talk) 09:41, 28 May 2025 (UTC)