User talk:Sabine's Sunbird/archive4

• Archive No 1: October 2004- March 2006

• Archive No 2: March 2006- Feb 2007

• Archive No 3 Feb 2007- Jan 2008

Bird Evolution Authors

Sure, I understand the need for brevity, even if it is just one paragraph that I wrote. The thing is, I don't think all of this stuff actually is in the bird evolution articles is it? If you would eb so kind as to transport it to one of those articles rather than deleting it I'd owe you a big one. Thanks for being cool about it.Jbrougham (talk) 02:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Corvidae map request

Hi Sabine's - Here you are: Image:Corvidae.png. It treats the Corvidae in the classical sense, not the expanded list as at Commons:Corvidae (which could do with tidying up!!). Should mention I found conflicting evidence for the southern limit in South America; the text in Madge & Burn mentions Plush-crested Jay in Uruguay, but their map doesn't show it going that far south, stopping in southern Brazil; I was conservative in my map but can easily extend it if you have better info. - MPF (talk) 15:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! When did the NZ ones go extinct? I'm guessing post-Maori, pre-European? I was thinking of 'recently extinct' i.e., scientifically described from live birds not fossils, being the only ones that rate a blue colour. I'll have to edit the pic anyway as I've realised I left out Cape Verde (Brown-necked Raven), and blue Malta (Jackdaw, extinct c.1950 due to excessive shooting), but I'll wait for your comments on the NZ ones and any info on the S limit in South America - MPF (talk) 20:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I'll leave them out and change the caption to 'recently extinct' as being the simplest option. Cross-hatching doesn't render too well in thumbnails, and their distribution within NZ must be somewhat speculative (and I don't know the fossil sites where they have been found!) - MPF (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave S America as is then. Goodwin and Madge & Burn both map Brown-necked Raven and Pied Crow right up to the west African coast, so that should be OK - MPF (talk) 21:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hola

Still interested in a bird article collab.? How's the Phd going? Thanks for replying to my query about the camera by the way, that helped - no worries about the delay, sounds like you are pretty busy in general. I see Bird is an FA now, good stuff. Cheers, Kotare (talk) 04:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

correcting refs

Regarding a recent edit to Grey-capped Warbler, CmdrObot corrected a sentence which was possibly misspelled (sp: an unique→a unique). While this may be correct (I always thought that an was used for words starting with vowels, interesting that I am wrong, must read about that) the correction was to a reference and the article cited had the error in the title, which was copy-pasted direct. I think our cites should match the cited work accurately, could CmdrObot flag changes to references sections for people who follow the articles to check the changes maybe? I'm guessing most mistakes in citations are editor errors here rather than in the initial cited work, and that this isn't massively important, but I thought I'd mention it. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sabine, thanks for the feedback. You're completely right, I should be leaving references alone. I've added an exception to my bot so it won't try to miscorrect that title again. Your suggestion of flagging reference sections is an interesting one. I'll add it to my to do list :) Cheers, CmdrObot (talk) 01:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sea otter

Hi Sabine's Sunbird. I've got Sea otter pretty much filled out now, and I'd love it if you could drop by and comment or edit. There is a discussion on the Talk page about structure, and your opinions there would be most welcome. Best wishes, Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 04:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Bird scale

I'll have to look around for some good dorsal profiles to base it on, but I'll certainly give it a try! Have one or two other charts on my plate but I should have some time tomorrow to do several, I'll keep you posted! Dinoguy2 (talk) 04:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Upload Gallery on Commons

Hi Sabines, just uploaded a load of Uganda bird images to the Commons on Feb 17 (using Commonist) but most don't appear in my User Gallery [1] Just seems a bit strange, have tried shift-reloading the page but it appears not to show them. Any ideas? Aviceda talk 05:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Bird update tag

Not much, simply use the sequence of List of birds, but it needs 4 changes:

• switch the Charadriiformes between Galliformes and Sphenisciformes. They are placed there because in the Clements system that they shared many traits with Anseriformes - plesiomorphies, we know now, and a placement soon after the Galloanserae is advised. It can't harm to place them immediately beding them as the pattern of diversity and the fossil record as well as some molecular data suggests that they were the first Neoaves lineage to diverge (if you do not count Metaves which looks more and more suspect)
• Cathartidae have been moved but apparently something went wrong; from the wording they shluld have gone into Ciconiiformes. But they should actually become an own order (as per AOU's recent update) and placed behind Ciconiiformes
• tropicbirds becomes separate order Phaethontiformes
• Hoatzin becomes own order as per HBW.

Cheers! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Those edits

Well I don't know... I see the point, but it's not really "clean": seach for "avialae" here. See also here but note that this is Sereno's personal project, and the dispute has elements of a feud between hima and Gauthier.

David Marjanovic has drafted a phylogenetic definition that looks good, but he's got other work to do. In any case, the onomatophore (Linnean-Stricklandian) approach would stand unfazed, as it's simply, put into modern words, "the largest clade containing [chicken or European Sparrow, I caould never remember which] and the order it belongs to, and doesn't conflict with any others."

In any case, a) yes it is not resolved what Aves is exactly, b) this belongs (and for a large part alreasdy is) in the text, and c) the exact limits of the Aves are irrelevant in the scope of the article, because it is about "birds" which may or may not be the same as Aves.

But all that is discussed, linking to no less than 3 articles which whole or in part deal with that issue. It probably should be "Aves (and see [[#Evolution and taxonomy|text]])" though. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 03:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Commons multi-links

20-Feb-2008: Hello, Wikid77 here. I linked the taxonomy family along with genus/species, in advance of work on Wikimedia Commons, because sometimes, the genus-category does not yet exist over there, but the family-category does, allowing insight into what genus sub-categories do exist, or are needed. It is not unlimited linking, but mostly just 2 links (as a form of data-redundancy): sometimes the genus-category does not exist yet, sometimes it has been taxo-renamed, or sometimes it has been hacked (perhaps by people preferring the other genus name). It's the age-old concept of avoiding a single point of failure, which helps circumvent a broken link (by providing an alternate related-link approach). -Wikid77 (talk) 11:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• The links from "Tanager" are more complex, because the genera span multiple families. The taxonomic treatment of the family Thraupidae members is currently in a state of flux. The categorization for tanagers is not identical to linking family "Thraupidae" (and the Commons categories are not connected as tanagers). As more of these birds are studied using modern molecular techniques, it is expected that some genera may be relocated. Already the Euphonias and chlorophonias, which were once considered part of the tanager family, are now treated as members of Fringillidae, in their own subfamily (Euphoniinae). Likewise the genera Piranga, Chlorothraupis, and Habia appear to be related to members of the Cardinal family and may soon be reassigned by the AOU [see reference: Yuri, T. & D. P. Mindell. 2002. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Fringillidae, "New World nine-primaried oscines" (Aves: Passeriformes) Mol. Phylogen. Evol. 23:229-243]. I put just 5 links because I had not yet checked the other categories for tanagers on Commons, but you are right that just 5 links is ridiculous. I will try to add more links, perhaps up to 9, in the coming weeks. Thanks for spotting that issue. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking of taxonomy

20-Feb-2008: Wikid77 here again. I agree that overlinking is a problem: on every Wikipedia species article, every level (K-P-C-O-F-G) is wikilinked from the infobox. I say let people type in "Chordata" and look it up as an article; but on balance, those are just 6 links for KPCOFG. The major rampant problem involves the stacked, collapsible navboxes being tacked onto thousands of articles. I wrote a new technical essay, Wikipedia:Overlink_crisis, after I calculated the millions of overlinks being propagated, such as by a 150-wikilink navbox transcluded at the bottom of 2,000 articles: 150*2000= 300,000 wikilinks, where a standalone navpage menu of 150 links would be okay as just one link. When a template is edited/saved, the wiki-servers queue those 2,000 related pages and re-index those articles on the job queue. Of course, the wiki developers must be proud that the WP servers can do that massive re-indexing, unseen in the background by users, but it makes me cringe when I change a template and realize that all 2,000 articles will be re-indexed, beginning a few minutes after I edit/save the template, to adjust only one link. I try to carefully make all changes together, and save the edited template just once, to then queue those 2,000 index jobs just once. Of course, only the templates queue reindexing of articles; changing the article "Chordata" will not cause reindexing from all the wikilinks to "Chordata". Wikipedia technology is still evolving about using templates for "boxifying articles" to become navboxes, with hopes for a type of subpage navbox that does not require re-indexing all articles every time it is edited, to update those 300,000 (or millions) of entries in the page-link databases. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Your note

Hi SS, what I do when I need to cite page numbers is this.

• If I know I'll need to cite the same page several times, I write <ref name=Smith44>Smith, John. ''Name of Book''. Name of Publisher, 2008, p. 44.</ref> And thereafter <ref name=Smith44/> This prevents a long list of Smith, p. 44 every time I cite it.

• If I have to cite pages that are very close together, I sometimes cite a page range instead, such as <ref name=Smith44/50>Smith, John. ''Name of Book''. Name of Publisher, pp. 44-50.</ref> The range shouldn't be too large (it shouldn't be 44-150, for example), but I think a ten-page range is fair enough, especially if the citations are about roughly the same issue. The exception is if you're handling contentious material, in which case you need to cite individual page numbers.

• As for whether to use short citations in the Notes section (as in Corvidae, that really is a matter of choice. Sometimes I do, sometimes not; that is, sometimes I write <ref>Smith 2008, p. 44> and then give a full citation in a References section, and sometimes I just keep on repeating the full citation between the ref tags. I prefer to give a full citation each time (but without ISBN numbers), because then I'm not making the reader (and editor in edit mode) jump to the end to see who I'm talking about. People sometimes get annoyed with me for repeating full citations each time, but I do it particularly if I know the article might be edited a lot by different people (as it will be if it gets on the main page), because then people fiddle, remove things, question sources without looking properly, so I find if the citation is simply repeated in full each time, it reduces the questions.

• If I repeat the full citation each time between ref tags, I then usually don't give a full citation in a References section too, though I do if the Notes section contains commentary, because then it can be hard to distinguish the sources from the comments. See Brown Dog affair and Rudolf Vrba for examples, which some people have said they find helpful, and others have said they find needlessly repetitive.

• I can see the sense of the Variegated Fairy-wren system, though I think I'd probably give the full citation (without ISBN numbers) between ref tags on first use, then a short citation thereafter, as you've done on Procellariiformes. Then I'd repeat all the citations in the References section, with ISBN numbers. But repeating the latter is just my quirk; most people don't if a full citation is already in the Notes section.

• Something I noticed in Procellariiformes is that you're writing pp. even if it's just one page -- p. is enough for one, while pp. is for a page range.

I hope this helps a little. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Farallon Islands / Farallone Islands

Fair enough for you to question the alternative name Farallone Islands. It is the name used by the National Park Service for the islands, for their listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The islands as one group, "Farallone Islands", appear to be listed. I am preparing to add info about the NRHP listing to the article, but i am not quite ready, as I have to wait for a postal mail delivery of the NRHP official nomination/registration document, from the NPS. I added the Farallone alternative name today only because I happened across another article with a red-link to Farallone Islands. I think i set up a redirect from Farallone to Farallon, so you would be able to see that in-link; I don't know if there are others. Anyhow, when I add the NRHP info, it will be more obviously necessary to have mention of the alternative name in the lead of the article. Hope this helps, doncram (talk) 21:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds March 2008 Newsletter

The March 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 18:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Birds of Queensland List

Hi Sabines, How are you going with the Fiji list? Are you ready for me to look at the Seabirds refs yet? Also could I ask a favour? I've just put up a 'Qld-bird list" on my Sandbox[[2]] (...is it OK to use the sandbox like this BTW?) unfortunately as I used the latest Clements list on Avibase there are plenty of broken-links. Could you have a quick look and let me know what else I should do (I will probably add a few images later) before uploading it as an article? Aviceda talk 10:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

bird

Hi Sabine's Sunbird, as you seem to be the main author of the article to me and taxonomy is a hot issue, I rather ask you here instead of the discussion site: Why don't you use the "The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (2003)" as basis for the article's taxonomy? Best regards, Domski3 (talk) 11:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

congrats!

On 11 March, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Channel-billed Cuckoo, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

-- well done Victuallers (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Rarities References

Hi Sabines, thanks for the heads-up regarding the Channel-billed Cuckoo, apparently I just got there in the nick of time! On the Qld List page I'm considering linking rare vagrants to the relevant Birds Australia Rarities Commitee page, should I add the link at the end of each species-entry or add a blanket link at the end of the page? (I would like to do the former, if acceptable) Aviceda talk 07:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

avian taxonomy

Thanks for answering my question. I do hope you're saying isn't that a nest full of cuckoos? does not mean, you asume that I suggest you something. I rather see my question as a stiring up a hornets' nest;-) and thus refuse to put it into discussion on the bird site. I just asked that as we translated you're excellent work into Polish and like to provide the best taxonomic solution to Polish readers. And as we are too, more or less amateurs and for sure volunteers, we have the same problems in choosing the right systematic. So we are keen to get every info:-). But that's for sure: due to you're great work we're going to get a medaille here, thanks for that;-), Domski3 (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC) One thing more: Don't you think, there is a need to mention ornithology as science in the article? Best regards, Domski3 (talk) 14:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Input

Hello, Sabine's Sunbird! A few days ago I left a comment on Talk:Barn_Owl#Article_name and was hoping for some input. I did not want to move the page without an involved editor's opinion. When you have a chance, your opinion would be appreciated. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 22:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

DYK

On 21 March, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Togian White-eye , which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Maxim_(talk) 12:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

To be fair I don't really deserve this, other editors did far more than me. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:HAWAII Improvement Drive

Hey Sabine. Wikiproject Hawaii is starting an article improvement drive for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and related articles in April. Since you have been lucky enough to actually go there (I envy you greatly), I was wondering whether you would like to participate in some respect. SeanMD80^{talk | contribs} 23:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:Mammal

9-4 looks pretty dang close to a consensus to me. Just saying. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 17:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds April 2008 Newsletter

The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue II (April 2008)
Welcome to the second issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. Good news for our FA-class article Bird: It's now the top Google hit for both "Bird" and "Birds"!	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Song Thrush (March 20) New good articles: Emperor Penguin (March 20) Hooded Crow (March 17) Featured topic update Work on our first potential featured topic is nearing completion, with only New World vulture (B-class) and Cathartes (stub-class) left to go. Any help you can give in bringing either article up to GA/FA status would be appreciated.
Project news The current project collaboration is Cattle Egret. Help us to improve the article about this widespread species, which is found throughout most of the world—often lurking near the feet of foraging livestock. On a related note, be sure to vote for May's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 April. Nominations are listed on the collaboration page; feel free to add a new article to the list if there's one you'd especially like to see worked on. A drive is on to bring all of our bird family articles up to at least start class. Currently, 44 families have only stub-class articles. See the list of families needing improvement to help with the project. Our list of articles awaiting assessment has dropped in the past month, and now numbers less than 1,900. If each project member assessed just a couple of articles a day (most will be stub or start class), we could continue to drive that number down. To find articles needing assessment, have a look at the Statistics table here and click on Unassessed for a listing. Special thanks to Dixonsej (talk · contribs), who has been assessing up a storm!
Aviculturalists wanted... Snowmanradio (talk · contribs) is hoping to help start up an Aviculture task force. Anyone who'd like to help improve our coverage of aviculture-related topics is encouraged to get in touch.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Please contact MeegsC (talk · contribs) with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Artamus mentalis? Artamus leucorhynchtrs mentalis?

Pls come to T:TDYK. There are issues with your nomination of Fiji Woodswallow. You may want to come and clarify. Thanks. --74.13.124.35 (talk) 17:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK

On 4 April, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Fiji Woodswallow, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bobet 13:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

I edited - you should be able to rollback now. Let me know if it doesn't work. Alternately, let me know if you want to run for adminship, Moving pages is a big part of adminship as well. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I will second that offer. Adminship is not about knowing every policy detail. I think some Admin stereotypes really need to be broken. Article development should indeed be the central activity. Everything else should really be minor. Shyamal (talk) 04:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, fine. But only because I agree with Shyamal about the admins and content. And I still feel it I'll get shredded, only I really don't care. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Bombs Away.....

OK - here we go. Note your acceptance here: Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sabine's Sunbird

I should add, much of the stuff I do is Moving and Protecting/unprotecting, also, the different articles on my watchlist means I have picked up stuff missed by others. Anyway. I'll transclude the page once you've written some answers. Alot of editors agree with Shmayal (me included) about who should be admins. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Nevemind Hesperian jumped in to support before you'd even accepted! (hope he won't oppose now...) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

....just following the step-by-step rules,....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Good luck, and don't worry yourself too much over the next week. It seems frightening, but its really a breeze ;) -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:RFA question

There's a catgory of administrators willing to make difficult blocks here and here. If you don't want to answer the question, then don't touch it. Malinaccier Public (talk) 11:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Aviculture Project Proposal

Since you had expressed some interest in a separate Aviculture Wikiproject I thought you might wish to see this Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Aviculture --OnorioCatenacci (talk) 12:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Crossposting?

Hi Sabine's Sunbird, not sure if I understand "crossposting", but I only posted once, and at the science desk. I appreciate that the bird project wikipedians would be busy – it's a bi-ig area to cover and I appreciate that you've taken trouble to add the wag and link. I went to the article to find something on it but had to ask when it wasn't there. I was puzzled because it's central to its descriptive name. Good to know you're onto it and thanks for making the difference, Julia Rossi (talk) 02:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, a flurry of vigilance between us both : ). Vigilance suits them well -- and the WW is being co-labbed by coincidence, how cool is that? Look forward to learning more, Julia Rossi (talk) 02:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Just been to the WW page – v impressive, cool lil mota and great pics – a firm contender for sure. Best, Julia Rossi (talk) 03:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Pic of the Day?

Just wondering has this young bird pic in the WW article[3] been pic of the day? Julia Rossi (talk) 03:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

A pity. Good luck next time, Julia Rossi (talk) 04:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Chough

Thanks, I've tweaked Pyrrhocorax to make chough (as the English name) the subject, and moved to Chough. Thanks for updating my user page - I don't even have to do my own vanity now!

I don't understand ndashes either, but that's no big deal since I just paste the text into Word and do a find/replace. I can't say I like the cite templates, but it saves time in the long run, especially with a collaboration where there are multiple editors. I didn't check who did the refs but I'd be very surprised if there weren't several offenders!!! It only matters because, as you know, at GA/FA even minor errors and inconsistencies will be picked up, let alone footnotes within refs.

The RfA is looking pretty good at the moment, sorry about the rant against the opposers, but it's such a stoopid basis for objecting. best wishes, Jimfbleak (talk) 06:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Seen message, no time no, back Sunday Jimfbleak (talk) 04:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I've done the moves, but not tidied up the articles to reflect the moves at all. Jimfbleak (talk) 15:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Outreach

Good idea! I've done some stuff for a few of the birding magazines in the US and the UK, and could talk to the editors there. Most of them are always looking for stories... MeegsC | Talk 22:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Your RfA

Congratulations, I'm pleased to let you know that I've closed your RfA as successful, and you're now an administrator! May I suggest you visit the Wikipedia:New admin school to get a few ideas on the best way to start using your shiny new buttons? If in doubt, feel free to give me a shout! Well done and all the best, The Rambling Man (talk) 07:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Congrats ! Shyamal (talk) 07:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Way to go. You almost got 100 supports.-gadfium 08:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hah, wasn't so hard now was it? Congrats. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on your successful RfA! Razorflame (talk) 14:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations - very well deserved Howie ☎ 13:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on your RFA! I would of voted for support but forgot, anyway hope your a successful admin now and for the future!--Pookeo9 (talk) 19:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! ;-) - Ken Thomas (talk) 09:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Way to go! Now we'll have another admin we can pester about blocking those pesky vandals! : ) MeegsC | Talk 10:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Shucks. I knew I would eventually regret paying less and less attention to RFA. I big "Congratulations!", only a year and a half after I pestered you about getting the mop. ;D I was delighted to see your name in the Signpost. - BanyanTree 23:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

thank spam

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with 194 supporting, 9 opposing, and 4 neutral. Your kindness and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I look forward to using the tools you have granted me to aid the project. I would like to give special thanks to Tim Vickers, Anthony and Acalamari for their nominations. Thank you again, VanTucky

Congratulations

Congratulations for the adminship . Happy Editing - Tinucherian (talk) 16:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Congrats - A bit belated, but I've been away. Jimfbleak (talk) 05:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line File:Cape Petrel (Pintado) at Antarctic Convergence Zone.jpg The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue III (May 2008)
Welcome to the third issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. Good news: we've finally eliminated our massive backlog of unassessed articles! Never fear though; we have plenty of new group tasks to keep us busy. See details below...	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Emperor Penguin (April 5) Red-billed Chough (April 10) New good articles: Cattle Egret (April 18) Featured list review candidate List of birds in Canada and the United States Needs to be sourced (see the list of citations requested here) to avoid being de-listed. Welcome to our newest members jmgarg1 (talk · contribs) Lighthead (talk · contribs) OnorioCatenacci (talk · contribs) Rocky Mountain Goat (talk · contribs) Welcome banner We've got a new greeting, which can be put on the talk page of new members to welcome them to the project. To use it, simply paste {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Outreach/Welcome|~~~~}} into the talk page.
Project news Last month's collaboration (Cattle Egret) was promoted to GA status before the month even ended! Help us do the same with Cockatiel, which is our current project collaboration. This is a good chance to help our Aviculture task force get their first project off the ground. On a related note, be sure to vote for June's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 May. Nominations are listed on the collaboration page; feel free to add a new article to the list if there's one you'd especially like to see worked on. Thanks to tag team efforts by Maias (talk · contribs), Dixonsej (talk · contribs) and MeegsC (talk · contribs), all previously unassessed bird articles have now been assessed. Excellent work—thanks to all who helped with this massive task! A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. These will need to be re-added to all appropriate articles (that is, all articles for which the IUCN has a listing) by hand—unfortunately, the use of a bot to do this is apparently out of the question! To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in the article.
Bird family article drive A drive is on to bring all of our bird family articles up to at least start class. Currently, more than 40 families have only stub-class articles. See the list of families needing improvement here to help with the project.
Bird list template creation As a first step in creating templates for the bird family headers used in various country/state/province birds lists, there's a page here to set up and edit the information we'll put in the templates. Please help to improve our lists by writing a short summary of a bird family or two. We have nearly 270 to do!
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

birds of Australia by state and territory

I've replied on my talk page. Shall we keep the discussion there? Hesperian 04:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

DYK

On 1 May, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Tesia, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 15:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Image:Wrentit.jpg

A tag has been placed on Image:Wrentit.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I9 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the image appears to be a blatant copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted images or text borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[ Talk:Image:Wrentit.jpg|the talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Polly (Parrot) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Image talk:Wrentit.jpg

Just telling you I have replied at the above page. J Milburn (talk) 18:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Cattle Egret

I took the liberty of putting you as co-nom for this. I'm going to be away most of Tuesday and Wednesday, can you pick up any issues here please? Jimfbleak (talk) 05:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Corvus

I wanted to ask your your continued input over at talk:Corvus (genus) Thanks! Plcoffey 16:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well done!

Firstly, I'd like to say well done on getting Cattle Egret to FA. I was looking through some of the articles I had made significant changes to, Cattle Egret being one of them, and was in awe at the progress you have made with it!

The main reason I am contacting you is to ask for your assistance. Sting au and I would like to get the Pigeon racing article to GA. I've done about all I can do with it on my own and would like an outside opinion and some assistance.

So please, have a look, tell me what you think needs to be done, and edit where you see fit!

Your fellow editor, Abbott75 ღ 09:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Farallon Islands, Spanish Names

Hi there, as a contributor with local knowledge, would you have a look at the Farallon Islands discussion page [4], regarding the Spanish names of individual islets and rocks? Maybe you have seen documents or maps where the Spanish names are used?--Ratzer (talk)

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

have you heard or seen much about this? There is not much online and I wondered how real it was. fascinating (if depressing) topic...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Melampittas

IONO, I remember doing some work on the Greater, but IIRC it was just some ecological tidbits, maybe just dropped the ref as annotation though. I can look over it next week or so, and til then see what I can scrounge up regarding refs.

The monarch flycatcher paper is apparently: Barker, F. K., Cibois, A., Schikler, P., Feinstein, J. & Cracraft, J. (2004). Phylogeny and diversification of the largest avian radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 101, 11040–11045.

The interesting thing here is that Bayesian probabilities are high, but bootstrap support sucks. Basically meaning that closer to the Monarchidae than to anything else is the least awkward place for them and not the best or most reproducible one. And I guess it has something to do with the monarchs generally being grossly undersampled in mol-phyl.

I have added them in Passerine based on the Barker paper. The 2005 supertree places them within Monarchidae but that's actually an artefact. But all that is the data of 2 1/2 years ago, maybe the picture is clearer now; I'll look it up. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds June 2008 Newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue IV (June 2008)
Welcome to the fourth issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. It's been a good month for article improvement, with six new GA articles, and one new FA article. And we managed to save the featured status of List of birds in Canada and the United States, which had been threatened with delisting. There's still plenty to do on all fronts, of course...	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Cattle Egret (May 8) New good articles: Pamela C. Rasmussen (May 8) White-winged Fairy-wren (May 17) European Robin (May 19) Common Treecreeper (May 24) Puerto Rican Amazon (May 26) Flammulated Flycatcher (May 30) Welcome to our newest members Kirkmona (talk · contribs) Pamela Gardiner (talk · contribs) PrehistoricManiac08 (talk · contribs) Sting au (talk · contribs) Bird article statistics Bird articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 19 61 152 234 FL 1 6 23 30 FM 616 616 GA 6 10 34 149 199 B 10 37 66 229 342 C 12 100 253 1,055 4 1,424 Start 5 114 832 6,175 3 7,129 Stub 16 1,310 7,969 1 9,296 List 10 75 734 107 1 927 Category 4 3,866 3,870 Disambig 2 195 197 File 1 305 306 Portal 57 57 Project 58 58 Redirect 1 14 98 222 2,016 2,351 Template 1 276 277 Other 6 6 Assessed 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 9 27,319 Unassessed 10 10 Total 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 19 27,329 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 98,541 Ω = 5.29
Collaboration efforts We improved our April collaboration (Cattle Egret) all the way to FA status! Help us to do the same with this month's project collaboration. The White Wagtail is a very variable species (or is it several species, as some authorities insist?) found throughout much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and in small numbers in westernmost Alaska. Be sure to vote for July's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 June. We could use a few new nominations...
Domestic pigeons task force We have our first official task force, covering articles related to domestic pigeons; new project member OnorioCatenacci (talk · contribs) started the group in May. If you're interested in helping with that suite of articles, drop by the new task force page at WP:PIGEONS.
Project news The ongoing drive to improve our bird family articles continues; there are still at least 36 bird family articles currently rated as stubs. If you'd like to help improve one or more, the list of those needing work is here. A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 12:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Melampitta

On 3 June, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Melampitta, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

		The Bio-star
		For Melampitta. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

RE: tagging cats of birds of

Thanks for pointing it out, it must have been an oversight on my part. --Gibmetal 77^talk 08:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Great Frigatebird

Surely this is within arms length (or a wingspan) of GA too....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. It is quite comforatable sittting where it is - the good thing is that low-traffic articles rarely attract the IP erosion that high traffic ones do - keeping up with vampire and lion can be a headache...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

PDF

Solved the mystery of the PDF symbol in refs - I changed the skin in preferences, and i see them now! jimfbleak (talk) 12:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Antbirds

Just got back yesterday—and to say my body clock has no idea what time it is would be an understatement! I'll try to get a few loaded for you today or tomorrow... The antbird article is looking great! MeegsC | Talk 04:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Lark scan

Thanks for the offer! If you send me the scans, I'll use them, but I was thinking of a few small improvements, which may not be what you have in mind as "significant". I'm definitely putting my work on family articles, such as it is, into de-stubbing rather than bringing them to B or A level, much less a tour de force like Antbird (which you'll notice I just drove by). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Antbird songs

Barred Antshrike Black-faced Antthrush Finally got the chance to upload a few files for you. Hope they're helpful! MeegsC | Talk 13:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

RfA Review

Hello Sabine's Sunbird. I've noticed that you have a completed set of responses to the RfA Review question phase at User:Sabine's Sunbird/RfA review , but they don't seem to be included on the list of responses here. If you've completed your responses, please can you head to Wikipedia:RfA Review/Question/Responses and add a link to them at the bottom of the list so that they get included in the research. We have a closing date of midnight UTC on 1st July, so please add your link before this date. Once again, thank you for taking the time to participate in the Question Phase of RfA Review.Gazimoff ^Write_Read 16:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Nuthatch

Promoted while I slept! I'll send this too FA later today, it's had a fair bit of input from others, esp with the images, so something of a team effort. Sitella's changed out of all recognition - I had a look while writing nuthatch since I had no idea what they were, nice work jimfbleak (talk) 06:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

July 2008 Birds Project Newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue V (July 2008)
Welcome to the fifth issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. June was another good month for article improvement, with a total of seven achieving the highest classes—we're well on the way to reaching our first 100 milestone.	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Common Treecreeper (June 4) White-winged Fairy-wren (June 4) Tawny Owl (June 22) Red-backed Fairy-wren (June 24) New good articles: Willie Wagtail (June 18) Antbird (June 21) Nuthatch (June 27) Welcome to our newest members Kahuroa (talk · contribs) Presidentman (talk · contribs) Bird article statistics Bird articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 19 61 152 234 FL 1 6 23 30 FM 616 616 GA 6 10 34 149 199 B 10 37 66 229 342 C 12 100 253 1,055 4 1,424 Start 5 114 832 6,175 3 7,129 Stub 16 1,310 7,969 1 9,296 List 10 75 734 107 1 927 Category 4 3,866 3,870 Disambig 2 195 197 File 1 305 306 Portal 57 57 Project 58 58 Redirect 1 14 98 222 2,016 2,351 Template 1 276 277 Other 6 6 Assessed 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 9 27,319 Unassessed 10 10 Total 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 19 27,329 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 98,541 Ω = 5.29
100 FA/GA article push Earlier this year, Casliber (talk · contribs) challenged the project to try to get 100 articles to FA or GA status before the end of the year—and we're certainly well on our way, with more than 80 articles currently at those levels. Casliber has made a listing of existing articles with significant content here; if you'd like to try your hand at improving an article, this might be a good place to start.
Collaboration efforts Move us nearer to that 100 article goal by helping to improve this month's project collaboration. The Hoatzin is an unusual South American bird known for its unique digestive sytem, foul odor and clawed wings (as a juvenile). In a related note, be sure to vote for August's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 July. We could use a few new nominations...
Project news The ongoing drive to improve our bird family articles continues; despite significant efforts by a number of editors, there are still at least 37 bird family articles currently rated as stubs—mostly because we keep finding articles we'd forgotten to include! If you'd like to help improve one or more, the list of those needing work is here. A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

Pelecaniformes

Given your interest in seabirds, what do you think we should do with it. Is it pretty well undisputed that the cormorant/gannet/darter clade (with frigatebirds as a sister clade) is a distinct group now? And either have Pelicans/hammerkop/shoebill as this order or into ciconiiformes (?) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Tody talk

Hi again. Can you tell me your source for the statement that todies call all the time? The Firefly article says the Jamaican Tody is almost silent outside the breeding season. (The article is by C. H. Fry, though I don't guarantee he wrote the photo caption in which that statement appears.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they're "vocal, at least in the breeding season"? Anyway, I've been working on it from Firefly, so there's now a reference for most of what you added, though HBW would be more authoritative. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking HBW.

Raffaele et al., Birds of the West Indies (Princeton Field Guides) says the Jamaican Tody is "almost silent during the non-breeding season", so I think we can assume HBW just didn't bother to mention it. I'll put the information in with the Raffaele reference. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Sittella DYK suggestion

Hi Sabine's Sunbird. Your Sittella DYK request requires a response. Please see Sittella DYK suggestion. Thanks. Bebestbe (talk) 19:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sittella

On 3 July, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Sittella, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 12:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

message

I'm sending this to all the wikiproject:mammals participants. There's a naming guideline up for discussion on the talk page, and the more people get involved the more valid any consensus drawn. Ironholds 19:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

DYK suggestion

There is a query on your DYK suggestion for Jamaican Blackbird at Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded on July 2. --maclean 18:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It's just that the article is offline and thus I have no way to check it. Is there something from the abstract you could use as a quote? Is there an abstract I can look at online? Daniel Case (talk) 02:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

That's good. I'll see if I can work a quote from it into the footnote. I totally understand about journal articles not being available online; that's why I ask for quotes in the footnotes. Daniel Case (talk)

Sorry about the use of that word .. I meant to say "statement". Yes, anyone on Google can look up the cite (really, when I have link to an abstract I prefer to use {{cite journal}}, which makes it easy to link to an abstract). I am sorry once again if I seemed horribly anal, but we've had some incidents in the past of people using sources which didn't back up their hook facts, and the alternative if I don't ask you for a quote is (for me) to leave it unreviewed and let someone else put it in an update on good-faith grounds. I have put quotes in notes to support my own submissions where I knew it would be impossible to verify online (And I think in a really spirited FAC, someone will do that to every single citation used in an article. At least they should). Daniel Case (talk) 04:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't want every footnote to include a quote, just quotes where the cited source isn't readily available (My personal example from DYK is Radovich v. National Football League. The DYK hook, that the case began with the argument being drafted on the back of a cocktail napkin, is from a book I have that is long out of print but still under copyright. You're not going to get it from Google Books. Not one word. I provided the quote for that reason.

I suppose the increasing requirements for FAs have been why I have not been the prime mover behind an FA yet (despite tomorrow's Main Pager, New York State Route 32, being half-written and all photographed by me). I know that whenever I get around to getting Anna Wintour or The Devil Wears Prada ready for a go, it will require quoting some otherwise hard-to-check sources, and I'll make that possible. But it will take a lot of work.

I understand, too, having written academic papers, that our preferences here go beyond requirements in the professional fields where this knowledge is created. I submit that, in the case of your article (or one on any narrowly-defined scientific subsubject FTM), there is a difference between writing the journal article for the small community that will read it and probably not only have access to either or both the data base and the paper library where the issue in question is kept, but probably has the issue at home somewhere and can recall the article in question (sort of like adroit lawyers do with all the case law in their field), and for a general encyclopedia audience.

Speaking of which, see here for another reason I asked you for the quote. With sources behind some form of firewall, it's difficult to verify that some sort of plagiarism isn't taking place. By asking for the quote, I let any potential plagiarist (we have some, alas, at DYK, who I won't name and wouldn't necessarily say they're trying to plagiarize, just a little lazy. But, as any academic knows, that doesn't matter come grading time ... you get the same F or discipline for being lazy as you do for being inadequately sneaky) know that his or her job will be that much harder. I certainly don't think you were lifting text from elsewhere, certainly not in that short, clearly-written article. But AGF notwithstanding, our job at DYK is дoвepяй, нo пpoвepяй (trust but verify), as the oft-quoted Russian saying goes.

Hope you don't mind the further explanation. Daniel Case (talk) 05:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't be so pessimistic. I find with firewalled journal articles the abstract is very often enough to verify, and that's usually (as you were able to do) publicly viewable. Daniel Case (talk) 02:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Jamaican Blackbird

On 6 July, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jamaican Blackbird, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 13:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sunbittern

Thanks for the clean up. Jcwf (talk) 03:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC) It's quite a bombshell, that paper isn't it? Jcwf (talk) 03:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Bowdleria

Because there are remaining doubts whether it is not actually part of a somewhat more ancient relict lineage with the emu-tails, sitting somewhere in the Megaluridae - Malagasy warbler - Donacobius group (presumably between the megalurids and the Malagasy warblers). That is the alternate possibility to synonymy with Megalurus, and neither has actually been tested. Good molecular data is nonexistent, whereas the anatomy (particularly of the skull) actually suggests against a close relationship to Megalurus but that may be due to convergence. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

GCT

Thanks for the helpful edits and comments. I've made these changes on the basis of your remarks. jimfbleak (talk) 06:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I was seduced by the Australian pictures I'm afraid. Sheer luck that Cooper chose this as his example species too. I'll think carefully before doing another species that doesn't breed closer to home. jimfbleak (talk) 07:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Bird Scales

Thanks Sunbird. I think your arrangement makes a lot more sense. I added the scales part when a user complained that the bird article didn't even mention scales, but now it does, and for more detail they can go to teh anatomy section. Good work.Jbrougham (talk) 20:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Nothing to it really, perhaps I should do hummingbird next (:

Thanks for kind offer, the tern is obviously the next real contender. jimfbleak (talk) 05:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No worry, I want to try to get some polish on it myself anyway. Hot and sunny here, didn't realise cyclones got to NZ. jimfbleak (talk) 05:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

New Article

Would like to create 2 new bird-related articles, one on the Birding-Aus Mailing-List [5] and another on my ABID image database (It's a non-commercial one but I realise I might get some opposition regarding Conflict of Interest...what are your thoughts?) Aviceda talk 06:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

RfB Thank You spam

Thank you for participating in my RfB! I am very grateful for the confidence of the community shown at my RfB, which passed by a count of 154/7/2 (95.65%). I have read every word of the RfB and taken it all to heart. I truly appreciate everyone's input: supports, opposes, neutrals, and comments. Of course, I plan to conduct my cratship in service of the community. If you have any advice, questions, concerns, or need help, please let me know. Again, Thanks! — Rlevse • Talk • 08:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Greater Crested Tern

Hi, I've temporally removed the following sentence from the tern FAC Like many seabirds the Greater Crested Tern may also exhibit site fidelity, returning to their natal colony to breed and returning to the same colony in successive years. This contradicts a sentence further down with two separate references saying that it frequently changes its colonies. One of the refs goes on to say that even when it does use the same colony, it often changes nest site.

I know some seabirds are very site faithful, but many tern species are very fickle, changing nest sites at a whim. i hope you don't mind me taking it out, but I don't want the contradiction picked up by a FAC reviewer before we've discussed this. jimfbleak (talk) 06:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

So how can it be rephrased?

• it shows site fidelity but frequently changes..." obviously won't make sense as such.
• sometimes returns to the same nesting site, but frequently changes... makes more sense, but loses the philopatry link
• leave as currently is, keeps the link, but downplays extent of site fidelity.

I'm also not completely clear what fidelity means even when it occurs. Do you mean the same colony, or the same part of the colony? jimfbleak (talk) 07:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Help with Bird Talk Magazine

I was looking for someone to help with the article for Bird Talk magazine. I saw you in WikiProject Birds, and thought you might contribute, or know someone who could. I realize it's not a scientific journal, but at least in the distant past at least one established academic contributed to it. Someone, apparently acting on behalf of the publisher, is adding many articles about their publications with a heavy advertising slant. Those articles are coming under scrutiny, and one has already been deleted. Regards, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 23:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Photo of Kim Sterelny needed

Would you be able to take a photo of this guy? I'm not sure if he's at your university at the moment, or whether you know him, but you seem like the perfect guy for the job.

By the way, I'm sure you don't upload here anymore, but I found Image:Western gull chick.jpg and moved it to Commons. If you could go back through your old image contribs and move anything else to Commons as well that would be great. Richard001 (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sabs, he used to be a regular on Birding-Aus Mailing-List (years ago).... Aviceda talk 10:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheeks Island Pigeon

That article can indeed be speedied. If it's a cut-and-paste-and-switch hoax as you say, it's speediable per WP:CSD#G3 (blatant misinformation). I tagged it as such. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 22:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds August newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue VI (August 2008)
Welcome to the sixth issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. Things were a bit slower in the "Articles of Note" department last month, but many editors were quietly working away on an impressive array of tasks. Casliber (talk · contribs), in particular, has expanded multiple articles—getting many of them featured in the Main Page DYK section in the process.	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Nuthatch (July 25) New good articles: Greater Crested Tern (July 15) Great Spotted Kiwi (July 29) Bird article statistics Bird articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 19 61 152 234 FL 1 6 23 30 FM 616 616 GA 6 10 34 149 199 B 10 37 66 229 342 C 12 100 253 1,055 4 1,424 Start 5 114 832 6,175 3 7,129 Stub 16 1,310 7,969 1 9,296 List 10 75 734 107 1 927 Category 4 3,866 3,870 Disambig 2 195 197 File 1 305 306 Portal 57 57 Project 58 58 Redirect 1 14 98 222 2,016 2,351 Template 1 276 277 Other 6 6 Assessed 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 9 27,319 Unassessed 10 10 Total 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 19 27,329 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 98,541 Ω = 5.29
Macaws Collaboration efforts This month's collaboration is our first group attempt to upgrade a genus level article. Ara is a genus of macaws—spectacularly large parrots which live in the neotropics. Several of the eight living species are highly endangered (at least one is already extinct), and all are beloved by aviculturalists. Help us improve the article about these intriguing birds. In a related note, be sure to vote for September's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 August. As always, we could use a few new nominations...
WikiProject Birds Cleanup listing Thanks to Snowmanradio (talk · contribs), there's now a link to the most recent cleanup listing right from the navigation bar. And according to that listing, we've added nearly 100 new bird articles in the past month, with only a small rise in the number of articles needing attention, so we're doing something right! There are still more than 700 articles requiring work though—everything from copyediting and the addition of sources, to requests for expansion and verifications of facts. If you're looking for something helpful to do which takes less time than creating an article from scratch, sorting some of these problems out might be right up your alley. Special thanks to Rabo3 (talk · contribs), who's been plugging away on the neotropical articles, resolving all sorts of issues...
Project news Improve me! We're finally down to fewer than 30 "stub" bird family articles, thanks to herculean efforts by Sabine's Sunbird (talk · contribs). Can you help to improve the remainder? If so, the list of those needing work is here. A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

Image:20070414IMG 1433 Gulls Akaroa.jpg

Would this be a silver gull or red-billed gull? Is it possible to tell? Richard001 (talk) 10:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have uploaded it as Image:Gull flying at Akaroa.jpg. Richard001 (talk) 11:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

These would be black-headed gulls, right? Is there anything else that looks like that? Richard001 (talk) 09:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: IUCN Status

Thanks for your comment. I came across this discussion—Template_talk:Taxobox#Rewrite_of_conservation_status_code—and realized that these waters are deeper than I thought. Can I safely assume that most or all of the 'Conservation Status' in the bird articles are the IUCN categories? Every bird that I've checked on the IUCN website has so far confirmed the bird's Conservation Status as it was listed in the article here. It's rather tedious to change these things one by one, even in large batches of copy and paste, so I don't want to get too far into this without a better idea of what's going on here. First Light (talk) 17:50, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Antillean Piculet

On 23 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Antillean Piculet, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Pigs as predators of Great Spotted Kiwi

Hmm that's a good point.. personally I'd never come across any sources citing them as predators so to me it just seemed like an assumption. However I just looked at the BNZ "Save the kiwi" site and found this

http://www.savethekiwi.org.nz/AboutTheBird/Threats/Predators/

Wild Pigs

"Pigs are omnivorous and eat vegetation, insects and other animals. Although not a major kiwi predator, a pig can easily root out a kiwi burrow. Sometimes people deliberately (and usually illegally) release wild pigs into the bush to provide hunting quarry. The consequences for kiwi of wild pigs and pig hunting dogs is a double disaster. While pig dogs can be trained not to hunt kiwi, wild pigs cannot. "

So yes they are! My bad, I'll reinstate it and use this page as a reference. Thanks for pointing it out.

Cheers, Kotare (talk) 02:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

MoS and FAC

Thank your for the kind note, SS. Thanks weren't needed, and I'm sorry you became the example, but I didn't want (what I consider to be faulty) notions about MoS and FAC to take hold on such a public forum. Many editors have told me you're a kind and considerate editor; they were right :-) All the best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Common Kingfisher

I'm afraid I've had to remove your additional ref for now. At FAC they don't like mixes of refs from two template families, and all the rest are the cite template, rather than citation. Normally I'd convert, but I can't sort this one out. It looks as if it should refer to the book (citebook), but there is no page number or isbn; it has a doi, but isn't a journal afaik, so not citejournal, and it says "online" but no url, so not citeweb. The Ogilvie ref covers this point anyway, so not a big deal. Thanks anyway, jimfbleak (talk) 05:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to Antbird, had a sneak preview and it looks pretty good - and I checked the ref formatting (-:

I'm going off Kingfisher: despite its pretty pictures, there is actually surprising little out there, and one of my regular sites, Animal Diversity Web uses unreliable sources (Wikipedia) for this species - have to see it through though. With Birds of North America, for White-breasted Nuthatch I used a non-templated ref(!) eg <ref name=BNA>Pravosudov, Vladimir V.; Grubb. Thomas C. (1993) White-breasted nuthatch (''Sitta carolinensis'') in Poole, A.; Gill, F. (eds) ''The Birds of North America'', volume 54. Philadelphia: The [[Academy of Natural Sciences]]; Washington, D.C.: The [[American Ornithologists' Union]]. 1-16</ref>, similar with Birds of the World I think it's easier for these books with chapters by different authors. jimfbleak (talk) 07:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

NZ Quail

Have just noted a possible eror on the Stubble and NZ Quail page, both read It is sometimes considered conspecific with the Australian Stubble Quail, which would then be named Coturnix novaezelandiae pectoralis as it was only scientifically described after the New Zealand birds were....shouldn't that be Australian Brown Quail? Aviceda talk 03:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Gull landing.jpg

Any ideas what this species might be? The image provides no information at all... Image:Seagull 1.jpg is the same species in flight. The author doesn't say where it is, but the website might give a hint. Richard001 (talk) 04:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Swallow-tailed Gull

On 15 September, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Swallow-tailed Gull, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 06:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for supporting me in my RfA, which passed with a count of (166/43/7). I appreciate your comments and in my actions as an administrator I will endeavor to maintain the trust you have placed in me. I am honored by your trust and your support. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 02:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Visual gallery of toucans

In view of your involvement with WikiProject Birds and, if you have not already done so, please consider commenting at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Visual gallery of toucans. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 06:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hot new field

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_01019 cheers ! Shyamal (talk) 07:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Toucan

• Thank you very much for the helpful information. I look forward to collaborating on the Toucan article.

Best regards,--Wikitrevor (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Falconidae

Thank you for editing my tag. Kind Regards SriMesh | talk 02:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds October newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue VII (October 2008)
Welcome to the seventh issue of the Birds WikiProject newsletter. Ties to our project are growing: Avibase, one of the internet's largest generators of database-driven country checklists, now directs its users to Wikipedia's pages for more information on individual species.	Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Willie Wagtail (August 4) List of birds of Ontario (August 8) Greater Crested Tern (August 12) Puerto Rican Amazon (August 14) White-breasted Nuthatch (August 25) Red-necked Grebe (September 2) Welcome to our newest members Diucón (talk · contribs) Grantus4504 (talk · contribs) LNG123 (talk · contribs) oneelephantpickle (talk · contribs) Richard001 (talk · contribs) Article statistics Bird articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 19 61 152 234 FL 1 6 23 30 FM 616 616 GA 6 10 34 149 199 B 10 37 66 229 342 C 12 100 253 1,055 4 1,424 Start 5 114 832 6,175 3 7,129 Stub 16 1,310 7,969 1 9,296 List 10 75 734 107 1 927 Category 4 3,866 3,870 Disambig 2 195 197 File 1 305 306 Portal 57 57 Project 58 58 Redirect 1 14 98 222 2,016 2,351 Template 1 276 277 Other 6 6 Assessed 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 9 27,319 Unassessed 10 10 Total 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 19 27,329 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 98,541 Ω = 5.29
What is a bird of prey? Collaboration efforts Bird of prey, this month's collaboration article, is an overview of the many species of diurnal and nocturnal raptors. Please help us boost the quality and content of this important article—which is currently a mere start! In a related note, be sure to vote for November's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 October. As always, we could use a few new nominations...
Project news A listing of bird-related articles destined for the next Wikipedia DVD is available here.[6] Unfortunately, a few of the identifed articles are currently stubs (Apodiformes, Columbiformes and Cuculiformes), and others have banners indicating various problems. We should try to get as many as possible updated and upgraded before the October 20 cutoff—the date by which we need to identify "safe" versions for inclusion. The bot that runs the project's cleanup list has unfortunately developed some problems since its last run (in August), but there are still plenty of corrections to make on the existing list! We're still on course to reach our (informal) target of 100 good / featured articles or lists by the end of the year, with only 12 more to go. Antbird is currently at FAC (where reviews would be helpful). Do you have an article nearing completion that needs some copyediting, reference searches or writing assistance? Let the project know!
Bird news A new species of white-eye is described in October's issue of Ibis. The bird, dubbed Vanikoro White-eye (Zosterops gibbsi) by its describers, is endemic to the Vanikolo Islands, which are part of the Solomon Islands. The Wikipedia editor who creates a new article on this species (containing at least some basic information) will be named in next month's newsletter. An abstract of the Ibis article is available here.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

--Thanks-- Thank you so much for the article, because I'm sure it will really help! I'm going to try and start editing and adding more to the penguin article now, and if you have any suggestions please, let me know. You seem to have a lot of experience on wikipedia!Thanks again for the interest.--LNG123 (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Antbird

Well done, super article; now, can you do four more by the year's end? (: jimfbleak (talk) 18:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Great job! MeegsC | Talk 19:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Pacific Robin

On 25 October, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Pacific Robin, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thank you for your contributions! - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 04:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Goldenface

On 25 October, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Goldenface, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 11:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Sperm Whale

I see that you attempted to save Sperm Whale from delisting as a Featured Article a few months ago. I and others have addressed most of the issues, and expanded the article as well, and so I think it should at least be worth of GA status at this point. Do you think it is worth nominating for GA at this point? Are there any significant issues you thinkk I've missed? Thanks for your feedback. Rlendog (talk) 02:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Monteiro's Storm-petrel

On 28 October, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Monteiro's Storm-petrel, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 08:11, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Update for Ring-tailed Lemur FAC

When you get a moment, would you please review your comments on the Ring-tailed Lemur FAC to see if I have properly addressed your concerns? Thanks! - Visionholder (talk) 18:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. The article was promoted to FA status tonight. Thank you for your feedback! - Visionholder (talk) 05:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK for paradise-flycatcher

On 4 November, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Paradise-flycatcher, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 19:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Sorry about that. BorgQueen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) left a note for someone to do the DYK credits, so I began with your page. After saving, I realised you'd been credited for the article above by Hassocks, so I presumed the credits were already being taken care of. Apologies for the confusion. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds November newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line File:Pitta-like Ground-roller.jpg The Birds WikiProject Newsletter Issue VIII (November 2008)
It'll mean a sprint to the finish line to reach our informal goal of 100 FA/GA articles by year's end; we're currently 11 articles shy of that total. A list of possible candidates—articles already containing significant amounts of information, which only need a bit more work to nudge them into contention—can be found here, if you'd like to help.	One of the many antbirds... Articles of note New featured articles and lists: Antbird (October 19) New good articles: Indigo Bunting (October 30) Welcome to our newest members Bogbumper (talk · contribs) Vuerqex (talk · contribs) WikiLambo (talk · contribs) Article statistics Bird articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 19 61 152 234 FL 1 6 23 30 FM 616 616 GA 6 10 34 149 199 B 10 37 66 229 342 C 12 100 253 1,055 4 1,424 Start 5 114 832 6,175 3 7,129 Stub 16 1,310 7,969 1 9,296 List 10 75 734 107 1 927 Category 4 3,866 3,870 Disambig 2 195 197 File 1 305 306 Portal 57 57 Project 58 58 Redirect 1 14 98 222 2,016 2,351 Template 1 276 277 Other 6 6 Assessed 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 9 27,319 Unassessed 10 10 Total 37 320 2,735 16,716 7,502 19 27,329 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 98,541 Ω = 5.29
Penguin could use some help... Collaboration efforts This month's collaboration article is Penguin—an iconic and well-known family that is the project's third most popular "read" (after Bird and Chicken). With more than 80,000 readers a month, this article deserves to be one of our first-class entries. Though it's in reasonable shape at the moment, it needs the expansion of a few key sections, and could use considerable referencing as well as some copyediting. Can you help? In a related note, be sure to vote for December's collaboration, which will be chosen on 30 November. As always, we could use a few new nominations—Birdwatching is the only contender at the moment.
Project news Over the last month, we've obtained many new photos from the photosharing website Flickr. Some photos on Flickr are already suitably licensed for use on Wikipedia. However, it's also possible to ask uploaders to change the license of those photo(s) which are unsuitably licensed (by far the majority), and a good proportion of them have been willing to release images when asked. This is particularly useful for articles that currently have no images. There are still thousands of bird articles needing photos and few people involved in this process. Contact Richard001 (talk · contribs) or Snowmanradio (talk · contribs) for more information about how you can help. We have a newly-generated cleanup list to work on. According to its latest stats, we now have more than 13,750 articles in the project, with 760 (5.5%) tagged as needing corrections or improvements of some kind.
Newletter challenge Maias (talk · contribs) took up last month's challenge, and started our article about the newly-described species Vanikoro White-eye. This month, we're looking for someone to create an article on the Northern Rockhopper Penguin, Eudyptes moseleyi, which has been split by many of the world's authorites; this will remove a redlink from our Penguin article as well. The editor who starts this article and gets it to at least a reasonable stub class will be mentioned in next month's newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

This has been an automated delivery by TinucherianBot (talk) 07:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Golden White-eye

On 18 November, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Golden White-eye, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 23:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Cooper's Hawk

Greetings. I was informed by my student that they will no longer be editing the article Cooper's Hawk as part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008 Unfortunately, I have lost several contributors as a result of Scholastic Attrition. I do thank you for your efforts and willingness to adopt. Hopefully, this will not discourage you from becoming involved with other such projects. - Respectfully. --JimmyButler (talk) 14:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Prinia

This looks a lot like a Tailorbird !Shyamal (talk) 16:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Yellow-bellied Prinia or Common Tailorbird?

DYK for Bar-winged Prinia

On 29 November, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bar-winged Prinia, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 06:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Primate at FAC

Hello! As a previous reviewer of Primate at FAC it would be great if you could have another look at the article. The FAC has been restarted, and any comments would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Central African Red Colobus

Did you really have this picture of an imageless-article-having primate species the whole time and not upload it here? I was surprised to see your name on it at Flickr. Richard001 (talk) 07:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh goodness, that's the very one they were talking about on the Talk:Central African Red Colobus... I should have paid closer attention to that. Wish they had have left a note on Flickr. Richard001 (talk) 07:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That's cool, but please modify the Flickr page to the extent that you can. Richard001 (talk) 07:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Image:Logrunner.jpg

Hi again. I have come across this image - it's at Commons, moved from here, but it has no source and oddly is licensed under GNU. I don't think this is the right license - it'll probably be public domain. But it has no indication of where to look for the source; I'm wondering if there was ever anything more than this at the Wikipedia image, which has been deleted. Are you able to have a look for me? Richard001 (talk) 01:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it was you? A pity it wasn't transferred with the CommonsHelper, which stores the name of the uploader at WP. Did you include source info, though? Surely you must know the source if you know that it's too old for copyright. Richard001 (talk) 01:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

That would have probably been my first guess, if I had made one. I have added this to the picture. Richard001 (talk) 02:17, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Images of antbirds

You have probably already seen the antbird uploads on the BirdTalk page, but in case you have not, yesterday I uploaded images of Long-tailed Antbird. Chestnut-backed Antbird. White-plumed Antbird. Black-faced Antbird. Hairy-crested Antbird. The images are of varying quality. Snowman (talk) 10:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

DYK entry issue

Hello! Your submission of Black-faced Antbird at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Nsk92 (talk) 03:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

DYK for Black-faced Antbird

On 20 December, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Black-faced Antbird, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 05:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

unitarian greetings

• a fine Xmas message for all of us to be mindful of.... hehehe. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Flagged Revs

Hi,

I noticed you voted oppose in the flag revs straw pole and would like to ask if you would mind adding User:Promethean/No to your user or talk page to make your position clear to people who visit your page :) - Thanks to Neurolysis for the template   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 06:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Golden White-eye GA review

Hi, thanks for the message and fixes to most of the points I raised. See details at Talk:Golden White-eye/GA1. --Philcha (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Epic rant, "positively Biblical" as Jeremy Clarkson might say!

If I might offer a small correction, "Just how dumb are our readers reviewers?" Unfortunately we can work out Wikipedia:Cite#Including_page_numbers's implied answer. For once MOS is not to blame - hold the front page :-) --Philcha (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Big bird edits and HANZAB as the bible for them

Hey there, long time no talk, how's the Phd going? You must be a good way into it by now... I haven't really been active on wikipedia for over a year now and just wanted to ask you a few things regarding the sorts of siginificant contributions you have made to many bird articles here - I'm taking some leave from the next week and will finally have the chance to do some major work on Huia (hopefully). It struck me a few months back that when I did a lot of work on bird articles on wikipedia back in mid '07 that I wasn't really following any guidelines as to how to do the research.. Here's an outline of how I did it below, I'm just curious to see if you do it in a similar way.. I asked Casliber the same question and the text below is a passage which I posted on his talk page a week or so ago:(he tells me that he uses a very similar technique for his contributions)

The edits I like to make most are the ones which I did on "Huia" - adding lots of new, well referenced material to expand an article substantially. However, I'm not quite sure how to go about the research bit.. It seems like a lot of editors have got some kind of system going..Here is how I did it back in '07; I simply went to the uni library and wellington central library and and got out all the books about the Huia I could find - in additon to magazine articles and books about it which i own. Next I read through all the information i had gathered and underlined the relavant stuff with pencil - then I categorised it according to what the info. was about - the categories I had were ( to give you an idea)

1. Description . 2. distribution and habitat 3. Behaviour - etc

I numbered the paragraphs according to what type of info. they covered. Then I went through and collated all the info. for each number/category of information and composed my writing straight onto wikipedia.

I didn't really know how to go about doing the research and may have sort of been "reinventing the wheel" a bit (so to speak). how do seasoned editors like yourself do it? and do you track down more hard to reach info. from scientific journal articles by ordering them in somehow? and finally, is there somewhere on wikipedia with hints as to how to do original research to write an article?

Also, how do you use HANZAB in conjunction with other sources? I ask this because, looking at the entry for Whitehead, the material it provides seems to be so utterly comprehensive and well referenced that it feels like you don't really need to use a lot of other sources. But then again, relying too much on one source and referencing it like 50 times doesn't feel right to me - nor does it seem to be the "done" thing. It seems like the easiest thing to do would be just to pull info. straight from the HANZAB entries and use the references they have given, rather than hunting down those references to get the same info. I haven't done this though because it would feel a bit like cheating.. What methods do you use? I guess I could just use some general guidance..

Hope your summer is going well, Cheers, Kotare (talk) 19:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. If I understand it correctly, that is how you write family type articles, how then do you write species type articles? and you say you use google scholar to hunt down journal articles but what about the ones that aren't online - I'm curious, do you frequently go and track down the actual journal articles in the vic library or even order them in from somewhere else? How's the PhD going though? I asked about it to lead into my main query on my last post on your talk page but I am genuinely interested.Kotare (talk) 01:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Internet Archive

Presume you have seen this http://www.archive.org/details/universityofkans195103univ Shyamal (talk) 03:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Common Guillemot

Thanks Sabine's Sunbird. I've been meaning to get this up to GA and hopefully FA for a while now. But things had been getting in the way. If you have a list of Murre articles that would be great. I have some on a separate site [7] but I'm always on the look-out for more. Just received the Ainley et al. Common Murre Birds of North America article yesterday. Grantus4504 (talk) 12:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)