Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#External links

Should the page for List of endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands be deleted as I have already included it in the page I just created - List of birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands? Mitsingh (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Better to merge to the older page to retain the older page's history, by adding in the non-endemic species, and rename to the more inclusive name. - MPF (talk) 20:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::If List of endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were converted to a redirect to List of birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which has the information which used to be in the endemic birds list, I think that would work easily enough. The history of the old page will still exist at the redirect. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:40, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::The endemic species portion of your article should have the reference cited to the book, not Researchgate. AryKun (talk) 22:38, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::::One more small change: per MOS:TIES "This list also uses British English throughout" should be changed to "This list also uses Indian English throughout". Given that the spellings of UK and Indian English hardly differ, I doubt it will make much if any additional differences, but there could be odd ones? - MPF (talk) 08:59, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Most differences fall under COMMONALITY. The usual difference is displaying large numbers in crore, but that seems unlikely to apply to this list, so I don't think there's anything to specifically look out for. CMD (talk) 10:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::So should the other page (List of endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands) be deleted? Mitsingh (talk) 10:49, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I think MPF has the best idea, merging and then renaming. CMD (talk) 10:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Why can't we delete the endemic species page and keep this one as the endemic list is already inside the new article? Mitsingh (talk) 15:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Per MPF it would preserve the 20 year history of the existing list. CMD (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::: Agree with MPF and CMD. Keeping the history is important for proper attribution. The new material should be added to the older article and the title changed (page moved). Consensus should also be sought for changing the scope and a page move, but I think this discussion would suffice.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:53, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I have moved the material to List of endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Now we have to move the page and delete the new one. Mitsingh (talk) 12:13, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::I disagree that these should be combined. Why not make the endemic list something like List of endemic birds of Borneo, where there is a discussion about how those endemics evolved, where they're found (ie. most restricted to the highlands), what threats they face (since many are endangered), etc. None of this will take place in a general list of the islands' 410 species they've now been dumped into. MeegsC (talk) 13:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::That's a good idea. I'll change it back for now. Mitsingh (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:Hi,

:I have updated List of endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This article now covers much more than the original article did.

:Does this article still qualify as a list? Mitsingh (talk) 12:37, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

There is a current discussion regarding categorisation of fossil animals going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology#Categorization proposal. Any opinions/voices are welcome. Lavalizard101 (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

:*Australian painted-snipe has no footnotes besides the IUCN reference and needs a complete overhaul

:*Black-fronted dotterel needs its distribution and habitat/behviour and ecology sections rehauled to include footnotes

:*Varied sitella needs its description section rehauled to include footnotes

:*Australian tern has only a single-sentence unsourced "Range" section - this needs to be filled out and renamed to "Distribution and habitat" per project standards

:**The description of Australian tern includes comparisons with mainly European and North American species; not particularly helpful! Comparison with other Australian species would be good - MPF (talk) 00:33, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:*Brown falcon only has a handful of scattered footnotes and also needs its headers renamed per project standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:: I like the use of index pages like that and think they should be used more often when vernacular names and taxonomy don't mesh well. The Andaman masked owl was also part of the more broadly defined species of barn owl. In HBW it was listed as "T. a. deroepstorffi (A. O. Hume, 1875) – Andaman Barn-owl – S Andaman Is." ([https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/historic/hbw/blbrnowl/1.0/introduction subscription needed]). I'm not sure of the timing, but I think it was split off, before the major three way split, so perhaps the list should have four species of barn owl. In addition, the Ashy-faced Owl and its subspecies were treated as barn owl subspecies at some point.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:27, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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