User talk:Big iron/archive 1
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Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149
Hi, I assume you are Canadian from your topics; it's nice to have a North American writing some bird articles, so far they have been biased to Europe or Oz (the latter courtesy of Tannin). There are some public domain images on the USFWS website http://images.fws.gov/default.cfm?CFID=1813329&CFTOKEN=63774106, but nothing suitable for Ring-necked or Redhead.
I've been to Canada a couple of times, Southern Ontario (esp Pelee) in 1999, and Nova Scotia last Oct, jimfbleak 19:21 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
One thing I forgot to mention is that there is a policy that fauna names, if more than one word, have a lower case redirect to them. Thus Ring-necked Duck has a redirect from ring-necked duck. I've fixed that one and the two teals. jimfbleak 05:49 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Sorry, I jumped the gun a bit with the Wood Duck image. If you want to change them around or dump mine, that's fine with me.
On the general image point, an uploaded image replaces another with the same name without giving a warning, so I tend to put a number on the end of the name to make it less likely that this will happen by mistake. Probably a bit over the top, since people are unlikely to be queueing to upload duck pics. jimfbleak 05:46 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Hi Big Iron. Nice work on the ducks. You seem to have taken to this Wikipedia thing like .. er ... a duck to water. :) Tannin
It's just Goldeneye on this side of the pond, and Common Goldeneye in North Am. Wildfowl by Madge and Burn, which I take as my bible on swans geese and ducks lists it as Common Goldeneye, with Goldeneye as the only listed alternative. European isn't even accurate, so I wouldn't bother including that (I hope it wasn't me put it on the disamb page). jimfbleak 12:24 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Excuse me butting in here, Big iron, I saw your note on Jimfbleak's talk page. The classification of the egrets is all over the place like a dog's breakfast. So far as I can tell, the number of different "official" ways to assign the various egrets to particular genera is equal to the number of authorities consulted plus one! Jim and I discussed this briefly somewhere a while back (probably on our talk pages, or maybe the egret talk page), but I don't know that we got any further than scratching out heads. From the point of view of search-engine friendliness, we should try, somewhere in the text of each species account, to mention all the names - so that if you hit Google looking for a Great Egret (Great White, American, whatever) under Ardea alba or Egretta alba or Casmerodius albus, you still find it. Which doen't help with your question about rationalising them, of course .... Tannin
- In Europe, it's Egretta, in N.Am, except Peterson (ie National Geographic and Sibley), it's Ardea, in Oz and New Zealand it's Ardea. Since it breeds in all three areas, there needs to be a rational main name. I can live with Ardea, so I suggest we go with that. I should say however that the similarly widespread Cattle Egret is Bubulcus everywhere except Oz, so I'd prefer that as the main version for that species. Jim
- BTW, Your Night Heron made Main Page today.
On the taxonomy issue, I don't know how closely you have been following the various discussions on this. At the order/family level, our effective working scheme, unless you strongly disagree, is that at List of birds, although the passerines are not fully sorted yet. There is another scheme at Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy.
Species list come from various sources, and don't always agree on scientific names at the genus/species level, although Great White Egret, with three to chose from, is a particularly bad case. I would say that if a decision is purely North American, eg whether to have Yellow-rumped Warbler as one species or two, just decide yourself.
For the species which have a wider range, I imagine that we will have to discuss them as they arise to ensure a consistent approach. A similar problem could theoretically arise with a species pair; for example European Little Egret and Snowy Egret must be in the same genus, whatever it is.
Hi, I've added an image to Least Sandpiper, but it's so poor almost anything else would be an improvement. Jim
I'm sorry you are having to create so many links for you new articles. When I started, I put in links for common European and NAm birds (didn't know enough about S hemisphere to do Australian/NZ birds), but by the time I got to the waders, I'd given up hope on anyone doing any NAm, so I mainly linked European species. jimfbleak 08:53, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)
Just a query about the diet of Black Guillemot. Are you sure about the insect and plant bits? I've never seen them do anything but dive for food, and there are few insects in the sea. Liked Caspian Tern, Jim
- That's fine - I should have known, you are more careful than me - i'm the one who put a whale as a marsupial! Jim
An anon user has added a bit to Grouse about ants. It's clearly intended to be a link to his specialist topic, since most of his/her contributions are in that field. I think this is pure speculation, because grouse don't occur in southern England where this Donisthorpe guy researched.
My inclination is to remove this bit, but I thought I'd check with you, since for all I know NAm grouse might munch ants like sweets (sorry, candy). I only got involved with NAm grouse, none of which I've ever seen, because I stumbled across a stub for Heath Hen, which then required Greater Prairie-Chicken to make sense.
BTW, I might do Glaucous Gull and Iceland Gull next, which overlap our continents. Jim
Only just saw your last message. I actually went out birding yesterday - saw the fourth Pectoral Sandpiper this month - it's been a bumper tear for this species in the UK. BCCorr seems to have systematically removed all the spurious references to Donisthorpe from other articles too, so it's up to you whether the ants go back in. As far as the UK grouse are concerned, I know they eat insects, which presumably include ants, but I've not checked in BWP yet. Jim
I put a public domain picture on Dark-eyed Junco, but if you have a decent photo, please dump it. One of my favourite NAm birds - I've even seen one in the UK. Jim
I've added some species to List of North American birds. They are basically edited copies from British birds, so I'd be grateful if you could check and delete anything I've incorrectly listed. This page is a bit of a mess at the moment, part listed by bird type, and part by scientific family. I don't have any preference, but it should be one or the other. I don't mind sorting it, but as the resident NAm birdperson, it's your decision which system you would prefer. Jim
First off, thanks for the Dark-eyed Junco article! I like that little bird.
Re: edits to Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada (US). There is a general question : should Wikipedia articles about animals be specific down to the species, or just cover genus? Either way, edited links should point to likely articles.. Your edits imply that, for birds, the specific species deserves an article (i.e., dark-eyed juncos versus other kind of juncos). How about trees & mammals? Does a white pine deserve its own article? I don´t think so (at least perhaps not yet). So, we might have an inconsistency between specificity of links to articles between birds and other living things.
I´m not a birder, so I really don´t know what the right thing for birds is... I just wanted to point out a possible inconsistency. What do you think? -- hike395 11:32, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Re Burrowing Owl, that's fine by me. I like owls, and that one in particular is something of a favourite, being both diurnal and approachable. I've been doing mainly Old World species recently, but I'm planning to do a few more terns soon. Since many of these occur on both sides of the pond, let me know if I'm treading on your toes. Jim
just for info, I've done five more terns, but I've had enough for now, so I'm going to do some Old World passerines that shouldn't impinge on Canadian species. Jim
Hi. I'm working on the remainin non-passerine British birds. Most of the outstanding species are either seabirds or have a primary or significant North American population. Let me know if there are any that you would rather I left, otherwise I'll crack on with them as the opportunity arises. Jim.
- following on from the above, I wrote Mourning Dove today, and in the process realised that I don't have much info available on this familiar bird. Would you be kind enough to take a look and check if there are serious erros or omissions? Thanks, Jim.
- Many thanks for the help with Mourning Dove. I've finished rampaging through NAm species for the time being, and I'm now doing some passerines. I'm going to start with some Old World warblers, larks and the like, so we shouldn't be treading on each others toes, Jim
re Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. Interestingly, I wrote Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush this am, which is obviously a similar case. In terms of redirects, it doesn't really matter what we put (I used Rufous-tailed rock-thrush and Rock Thrush for that one, but Rufous-tailed Rock-thrush could also be a possibility), so the the question is really what style is used for article names.
- The names used are, by default, those from HBW, from where I got the species list. However, I've changed some of the names where it suits me, especially if it seems likely that someone would search for a more familiar name.
- I'm not very keen on HBW hypenated styles like American Golden-Plover, and I would personally prefer American Golden Plover, which is what people would look for. However, since species names are capitalised in Wikipedia, the normal convention for the hyphenated group bit would be to capitalise both words, if the hyphen is in.
- My preference would be to dump the hyphen and have Gray-crowned Rosy Finch rather than Gray-crowned Rosy-finch as the article title, and then the redirect is obvious.
- What ever you decide, I'm sure it will be appropriate, I've read enough of your articles to know that
Sorry about the list, it's to help me clarify my own thoughts. Jim
All the remaining passerine British birds are primarily North American vagrants, so I've wandered back to your side of the pond. I'll steer clear of vireos and for now, and I'll keep you informed so we aren't chasing the same hare. Let me know if there is any other relevant species you want me to avoid (preferably not Cliff Swallow)! Jim
- all that's left to do in passerine British birds are the New World warblers, so I'll do the species that have occurred in the UK next. Merry Christmas Jim
Would you mind having a look at Myrtle Warbler. I've written this and Audubon's Warbler as separate articles, with a redirect from Yellow-rumped Warbler. If you're not happy with that treatment, please do whatever you think is appropriate. Jim
Belated New Year greetings. I've finished British birds now, so I'm unlikely to be treading on your toes for a while. I'm going to have another look at some old bird articles to see if they need tweaking, and write up some favourite species, like Mosque Swallow, but I'll steer clear of NAm passerines for the time being. Jim
Hi - do you think the pic below is a first or second winter Glaucous Gull? It looks to be a bulky pale gull with a thick dark-tipped pink bill and pink legs. I can't see any black in the wings or tail, and the bill is wrong for Iceland Gull, but looks perfect for an immature Glaucous. I've seen definite Glaucous Gulls looking just like this in the UK in winter, but I just wanted to chack that I,ve not overlooked a NAm gull before I put it in the article. Jim
Good, thanks, I'll put it in. Now what about the next one, photographed on Laysan Island? It looks like Franklin's Gull to me, but I'm way out of my range with this, only ever seen two Franklin's. Jim
image:Gulllaysan85.jpg
I'm sure you're right, it is a Laughing Gull. Its wings are much longer than the tail, the hind neck is dusky, not clean white, the bill looks heavy, and the white patch in front of the wings seems to be a feature too. Thanks for the help, Jim
Big iron, you and Jim amaze me with your productivity. Pretty soon there won't be any American or European birds left to do! But the reason I dropped by is to say that I just saw your Rock Wren illustration and ... damnit! ... I'm jealous. That is as beautiful a little bird as one could hope to see. Tannin
Hi there. I uploaded this image of an Orange-crowned Warbler from the USFWS, but then noticed you had a placeholder filename in the table already. Do you plan to upload your own image, or is the one I uploaded fine to add? Hadal 17:51, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Oh, it's the least I could do. Keep up the great work! :) Hadal 18:07, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There are a few bird images at this site. I'll add an image to Scrub Jay next, and then leave NAm alone again. Jim
I just nominated Image:PaintedBunting23.jpg for Wikipedia:Featured_pictures. I love that bird, and your photo! Bevo 01:55, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hi, could you take a look at the flight picture I have added to Red-tailed Hawk, please? I am 99% sure of my identification but I never saw the bird's upper parts to confirm the red rump, so I am seeking a second opinion on principle. Thanks very much. seglea 09:00, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Big Iron, Adrian and I are unhappy with the changes User:UtherSRG is making to taxobox images, and I wanted to consult more widely before taking any action. If you read the bit on his talk page first, and then mine, it will give you the idea, thanks Jim
- ( Stupid seagull. :) I'll remove it. My bad. I figured it was gubmint, so it was PD. Thanks. jengod 21:36, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)
BigIron: I notice that you've been putting a number of pages associated with the Canadian Action Party on the vfd site. While I won't make any claims as to the literary merit of most of these articles, my feeling is that this might be the wrong answer to the problem.
I would argue that the act of running for federal office in Canada is sufficient enough to make someone eligible for inclusion on Wikipedia. Most of the CAP articles are in need of a cleanup, but not (I think) deletion.
(Incidentally, I edited the Magnus Thompson page a while ago, though I apparently forgot to take down the cleanup notice. Thompson ran in both 2000 and 2004; as such, his page is useful as a link between the two separate results [albeit that the riding results for 2000 haven't been added yet].) CJCurrie 00:05, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)