Talk:Parrot

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[edit] To do list

It is looking like this will be the next collaboration of the month, so here is a to do list to work on this article.

  • Poke Dysmorodrepanis regarding the taxonomy and systematics.
  • Add sections per other high-end taxonomic group structure. Diet and intellegence exist; we need breeding, social behaviour, migration and movement, distribution and morphology.
  • We need to summarise some of the 'and human' sections, particularly feral parrots and pet parrots which have their own daughter articles. Feral parrots should discuss feral parrots in general, not be an exaustive list of different populations (that can happen on its own page).
  • Economic importance, of the pet trade, as a tourism reslource and as agricultural pests. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabine's Sunbird (talk • contribs) 05:29, August 27, 2007 (UTC)
  • Numerous citations are bare URLs, these need to be changed (or better citations found).
  • Images, can I suggest that we scour Flickr and the commons for good shots of parrots in the wild? So many parrot photos (particularly on True parrots) are of cage birds, but wild birds are much preferable for discussing the whole order. A good representation of as many types of parrot as possible would be good, including some from South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. The article will eventually be long enough that we can avoid a gallery too (with the temptation it provides for everyone with a pet budgie to add a 'me also' photo to it (look at gull for what I mean).

Anything else? Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Anonymous pops in* Wow, the later comment about grammar is right, but the article is far more detailed than it was a year ago, when I added the culture, conservation... like about a page of stuff. I figure we should address parrots in two sections, as stated above, wild state and parrots and humans. But I don't know if it's a good idea to simply summarize until there's enough information in a section so that it can stand alone as a healthy article. One thing you didn't mention is physiology, that would be a really useful addition as well, there's been some recent work on gustation and metabolism that's really cool. Then behavior can be be a subset of physiology, related in context to survival. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.219.84 (talk) 00:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
We tend to cover anything important regarding physiology in morphology, as there usually is only a few things that are unique to a family/order. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
    • reply** I've just got done with reading a couple technical books on parrot behavior and physiology--would it be out of wikipedia's scope to talk about general trends in flock size, beak size, diet and patch foraging, that kind of thing? Or is that right on the mark? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.183.64.6 (talk) 01:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] feral populations

Is this bit suggesting that the US feral populations were the first in the world? If not, the second sentence is redundant. Jimfbleak 10:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] intelligence section

Could this section benefit from some discussion of Alex? ThuranX 03:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Basic writing

I don't usually take it upon myself to edit Wikipedia, but the language in this article is very...ungood. It does not sound professional in the least and it is riddled with basic English grammar problems (particularly with commas). It is written at a high school level. Hopefully a serious editor can take a look at this page. I love parrots and it's a shame to see their article in this kind of shape. 144.92.39.93 22:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

    • anon user comment** It needs cohesion, too. I think it's most important to get important information in, then edit language. The article has come a very long way in the past year when it was primarily phylogeny. For example, the story about the hyacinth macaw importer is a little out of place and the culture section reads like it's a bulleted list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.183.64.6 (talk) 00:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oldest parrot?

Recent news stories ([1] and others) tell about a 55 mya parrot fossil from Denmark, Mopsitta tanta. How does this find affect the section Origins and evolution here?--Noe (talk) 20:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] contested statements removed

  • The term "true parrot" is not used by the majority of bird keepers, biologists and lay people and is a source of confusion {{Fact|date=September 2007}}.
  • Others lump all Psittaciformes into one giant family. {{Fact|date=December 2006}}
  • The chicks are altricial, usually hatched naked (although some have down). {{Fact|date=September 2007}} The female remains with the chicks for 1 to 2 weeks, again fed by the male, until the chicks are larger and have gained some feathering, and no longer require constant brooding. {{Fact|date=September 2007}} The chicks tend to huddle together to keep warm. {{Fact|date=September 2007}}
  • In 2004, Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper carried the story of a female macaw supposedly born in 1899, and subsequently a pet of Winston Churchill during World War II; the aged parrot, called Charlie, was reputed to curse the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.{{Fact|date=June 2007}} Subsequent research strongly suggested that the parrot had never belonged to Winston Churchill,<ref>{{cite news | title =Churchill's parrot gets the bird | publisher =BBC News | date =[[2004-01-20]] | url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3414323.stm | accessdate = 2007-09-09 }}</ref> although Charlie's great age was not in question.

Please do not return this information to the article without a citation. The last one has a ref saying the ownership of Charlie by Churchill is questionable but says nothing about the rest of the story and I did not see any signifigance in the that information alone to keep it in the article.--BirgitteSB 14:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)