User talk:Sabine's Sunbird

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• Archive No 1: October 2004- March 2006

• Archive No 2: March 2006- Feb 2007

• Archive No 3 Feb 2007- Jan 2008

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] WP:Mammal

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

Archives  |  Tip Line 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 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)

[edit] Image talk:Wrentit.jpg

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] Corvus

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 Importance Top High Mid Low None Total Quality FA 2 11 16 17 5 51 GA 6 15 6 27 B 17 52 81 79 2 231 Start 19 156 518 1568 149 2410 Stub 6 53 517 2820 6202 9598 List 19 9 9 63 100 Assessed 44 297 1156 4499 6421 12417 Unassessed 1 1 Total 44 297 1156 4499 6422 12418
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)

[edit] 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)