Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Birds and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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How can the Sydney Bin Chicken, a national cultural icon and connoisseur of bin juice, be ranked as "Low Importance"? I would encourage ornithologists to please update themselves with this 'Planet Earth' episode. Bin Chicken SC would not be at all impressed and I fear that you may end up with a legal fight on your hands, if his eminent status is not duly noted. 14.200.91.233 (talk) 01:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I have just found Requesting an assessment page. 14.200.91.233 (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It may be more important for Wikiproject Australia (feel free to heighten its importance there). But among birds overall, probably not so much. The sacred ibis of the same genus is probably more historically famous worldwide, but it is also rated as low. FunkMonk (talk) 01:12, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Bin Chicken is rated as the second most popular bird in Australia, a continent of 7,686,884 square km and the 6th largest nation on Earth. There's only 7 continents, which means it's *at least* the 14th most important bird. There are multiple online videos about it with *millions* of views each. Can you show me any such videos about Thoth or the 'Sacred Ibis', with that kind of popularity? Note Bin Chickens were commonly called the Sacred Ibis here too, until differentiated (from 1970s-1990s), so you may be misattributing some of the BC's fame there. Thoth also struggles for relevance, unlike the Bin Chicken, which is also a very important bird to Indigenous Australians - the oldest continuous culture in the world, over 60,000 years and still strong. Thoth and the Egyptian Empire was a flash in the pan. 14.200.91.233 (talk) 13:58, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In ~1830, Gabriele de Sanctis produced an ornamental alphabet where each letter was illustrated with a lavishly detailed bird. Names were provided... but the labels are in extremely ornate calligraphy, and the spelling is a little arbitrary (and in Italian).

And just to make things harder, he didn't stick as closely to the notion of 'a letter is represented by a bird whose name begins with that letter' as he should have - for instance, 'X' is the Airone Bianco.

I found reasonably-high-quality scans of three pages of three letters each and uploaded them to Commons - file:Avian Alphabet by Gabriele de Sanctis - ABC.jpg, file:Avian Alphabet by Gabriele de Sanctis - NOP.jpg, and file:Avian Alphabet by Gabriele de Sanctis - XYZ.jpg - with conclusive ID's of 6 of the birds, a pretty close guess for a 7th, and no idea for the the other two. The images look (to my inexpert eye) pretty well done; can anyone have a go at identifying them? DS (talk) 15:18, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ziollo is apparently a nuthatch based on Italian word search but the illustration is somewhat inaccurate. A nice find though. Shyamal (talk) 15:28, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is the first one perhaps a king vulture? FunkMonk (talk) 16:06, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Rei degli avolroj" could well be the "avvoltoio reale", yes. Thank you, I'll add that to the caption. DS (talk) 16:19, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, oops, "bozzardo" is not as conclusively 'buzzard' as I thought. Any better guesses? (and, to be honest, a closer ID on 'Ottarda' and 'Pellicano' would be useful too) DS (talk) 16:29, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, would probably also be good to add categories and spell out the English names in parenthesis or such. As for pelican and buzzard, I think it would be impossible to identify to exact species for those. They seem pretty generic. FunkMonk (talk) 18:19, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

'Ottarda' is a bustard all right, most likely the Great bustard it:Otis tarda as the most famous of the family and because of the similarity between the Italian and binomial names. It used to be shot for the pot.

The English article lacks an anecdote which I heard many years ago, and for which I have no source. A foreign visitor to an English country house was an appalling shot. To get him away from the rest of the party for a day, his host confided in him that a Great bustard had been seen nearby, and would he like to hunt it on his own? In the evening, the visitor thanked his host profusely for the gift. The year was 1832... Narky Blert (talk) 12:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to this source, "the bozzardo lives in bushes, hedges and rushes. There are two species, one loves poultry [presumably small birds rather than chickens], the other fish". On the other hand, this source (p. 566) distinguishes bozzardo from Falco calzata (= Buteo vulgaris, presumably Buteo buteo from the specific epithet vulgaris, 'common') but says that both are valuable to man as predators on mice. Your guess is as good as mine. Narky Blert (talk) 12:34, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The first thing I noticed was the last image has five or six birds perching amongst the calligraphic foliage. The two cheerful looking snakes are reminiscent of the serpents of a Caduceus. — cygnis insignis 16:28, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Buffon refers to the "yacou" as a "turkey from Cayenne" [1] - does that accord with the guan identification? The guans are Spix 1825, so I suppose it would work chronologically... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:45, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Eh - I'm not confident enough to add other labels and categories myself, but I won't revert you if you do it. DS (talk) 00:39, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yacou may be the Crested guan. An English translation of Buffon equates it to Penelope cristata (link), which is a synonym of P. purpurascens (link). Buffon had been translated into Italian, and that version too calls the bird 'yacou' (link).

I liked the comment about its edibility, not something you see in many field guides nowadays. Narky Blert (talk) 11:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In this[2] DNA paper. Should we follow and merge? FunkMonk (talk) 02:06, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not until IOC does so - it's the taxonomy used for bird articles (species, genera, etc., though not usually for "List of birds of..." articles). But a sentence could be added to the Mascarenotus article, "Recent evidence indicates that..." with the full citation. Craigthebirder (talk) 01:54, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do they cover higher level taxa too? FunkMonk (talk) 01:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Only up to family. Loopy30 (talk) 02:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Peacock tail. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. HighFlyingFish (talk) 01:33, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ornithology includes a link to point count, which is a redirect to a DAB page. All the entries on the DAB page are hopelessly irrelevant. IMO a good solution might be a brief inline explanation of the term in the article. Does anyone feel up to the task? Narky Blert (talk) 11:15, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is some content at Avian ecology field methods too. Shyamal (talk) 12:00, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Shyamal: TYVMI, perfect! I resolved the dab-needed tag using your link, and also added it to the DAB page. Narky Blert (talk) 12:40, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am not able to add my name to the list. How is it done? Qwerty number1 (talk) 07:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Go here, add your name in alphabetical order, scroll to the bottom, click "Publish changes". Mathglot (talk) 07:17, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Qwerty number1 (talk) 15:37, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]