Talk:Tawny owl/GA1

GA Review

Taking a shot at it. Guettarda (talk) 19:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks good overall. A few suggestions/questions

• Opening sentence boils down to: "The Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) ... often making its presence known through its quavering hooo call." Unless that's one of the most striking facts about it, I'm not sure that it should be the main focus of the opening sentence

• Second sentence: "Its underparts are pale with dark streaks, but the upperparts may be brown or grey" - "but" suggests that this is a little unexpected. Do you really meant to draw a contrast here?

• Second para, second sentence is a bit run-on. It would be more readable if it were split into two.

• Third para, first sentence: it goes from talking about "its retina" to "but ears which are...". It would read better if both retinas and ears were described in the same way (its retina...its ears" or "retinas are...ears which..."

• "Description" section, third para: "human(s)" would be better than "man".

• para 4, first sentence: "like other owls, the Tawny has ear openings that are asymmetrical in size and structure to improve its directional hearing". I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. Apart from the obvious (I don't follow how something can be asymmetrical in size...one ear opening isn't the same size as the other?), I come away from this feeling like there's something really interesting going on here that I want to know more about. Is there any way to expand on this a little? Within reason, of course.

• second sentence: "and are carried on a movable fold of skin"; are feathers "carried" on a fold of skin? That may be standard terminology, but otherwise I would be inclined to use another word.

• Taxonomy, second para, second sentence: the sentence might read better if it read "(formerly sometimes considered to be conspecific)"; in addition, you could drop either "formerly" or "sometimes" with very little "signal degradation"

• Third sentence: "is sometimes considered a paleosubspecies of the Tawny Owl, which would make it the immediate ancestor of S. aluco" - switching from Tawny Owl to S. aluco is likely to confuse some readers. This is more likely to be true when it follows four other Latin names. "which would make it the immediate ancestor of S. aluco" could easily be replaced with "probably its immediate ancestor".

• Fourth para, first sentence: "and are considered to be at a flexible stage of subspecies formation..." Since the existence of subspecies and the way in which they are formed is a function of one's species concept, shouldn't the "flexible stage" be stated a bit more tenuously?

• Distribution and habitat, para 3, sentence 2 - this sentence has a but, an and a colon. I think it's begging to be split.

• Behaviour, para 1, sentence 1: "Tawny Owls pair off from [the?] age [of?] one year"

• Sentence 2: "An established pair's territory is defended throughout the year and maintained in subsequent years with little, if any, boundary change" - "in subsequent years" or "from year to year"? Or does "the year" mean "the year in which they pair off?

• Sentence 4: "but normally just sit tight when this happens" - could use a "they".

• Para 2, sentence 1: "This species, like other Strix owls, is ..." just doesn't feel like it wants to be a paragraph opener. Either start with a general statement about aggressiveness in Strix owls, or just plough into this species. The aside, right at the start of the para, makes it feel like it should be following from something else.

• Breeding, para 1, sentence 4: I would split the sentence at the semicolon.

Overall, your sentences tend to be a bit long. Guettarda (talk) 06:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's all fixed, expanded hearing, not done too much about sentence length other than specific points above, since usually criticised at FAC for too short sentences (: jimfbleak (talk) 08:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination

I am glad to report that this article nomination for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of June 15, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Pass

2. Factually accurate?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images?: Pass

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to Good article reassessment. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. Guettarda (talk) 18:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)