Help:Guideline for Bird Articles

This is how an article about a bird species should look. If you want to see how something is coded, click on the edit tab.

On the top you may find

This article is incomplete. This article is missing one or more sections. You can help the BirdForum Opus by expanding it.

This means that there is information missing for one or more parts of the article.

If you add some information to all sections you can then remove the incomplete.

Then follows the name. The first line in bold is for alternative names, the second for the scientific name (with a link to the genus page), the third for possible splits, which are not yet recognized by all lists (see taxonomy section for details). Between the alternative names and the scientific name the picture is placed (if there is one available). Pictures are placed on the right side and are 550 pixels wide.

Alternative name: Black-bellied Gnatcatch-Wren; Ecuperuvian Gnatcatch-Wren

[[Image:FILENAME.jpg|thumb|550px|right|(SEX, AGE, SUBSPECIES)<br />Photo by PERSON WHO TOOK IT<br />LOCATION AND COUNTRY, MONTH, YEAR]]

;[[:Category:Xxencoroides|Xxencoroides]] pusilla

Includes Lesser Black-bellied Gnatcatch-Wren

Identification

Here you can describe the bird, pointing out the ID-features and maybe compare it with similar species. If you mention a similar species, put a link to it: Links.

Distribution

Here you can give the distribution of the bird. If you mention countries or continents, put also a link to them. Try to be as exact as possible (eg. Mountains of Sumatra and Java instead of Indonesia)

Taxonomy

Here you can list subspecies (or that the species is monotypic) and make notes about taxonomy in general. If some authorities split or lump the species mention it here.

Opus policy is to have one page per species. Our list of species is based on the latest update of Clements^[1]; However, if the latest editions of the Howard and Moore^[2] and IOC^[3] lists agree on a split (or a lump) then we follow that consensus. If only one of the two splits, we mention it (Includes: ...) here, but we don't have an article for the split. To check which list accepts which species we use the spreadsheets available on the Clements and IOC web pages and/or the web-based database Avibase.

For the common English name (page title for each species) we use the same approach; we use the name in the latest Clements update unless the latest versions of Howard & Moore and IOC agree on a different name. If in doubt (and some cases are complicated), start a discussion thread for the species to seek advice.

If you want to give information about the genus of the bird then do so on the genus page.

Habitat

The habitat the bird is found in. Include typical elevation for montane species.

Behaviour

Notes about breeding, feeding, migration. These can be divided by subtitles, but do not have to be. Subtitles should be coded like that: ====Breeding====. One subtitle can be:

Vocalisation

Notes about calls, songs etc

Code for uploading sound files: <flashmp3> Test(song).mp3</flashmp3><br /> ''[[Media:Test(song).mp3|Listen in an external program]]''

References

Here you can give references of the books or websites you use for creating the article. Start every reference with a # and you will get a numbered list. If you want to give footnotes you can do so with ^{[[#References|[1]]]} which looks like this^[1].

Guidelines for references:

1. Clements, JF. 2010. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2010. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/Clements%206.5.xls/view
2. Dickinson, EC, ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd ed., with updates to October 2008 (Corrigenda 8). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691117010
3. Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2010. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.7). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
4. Sibley, CG and BL Monroe. 1996. Birds of the World, on diskette, Windows version 2.0. Charles G. Sibley, Santa Rosa, CA, USA.
5. Sinclair, I and P Ryan. 2003. Birds of Africa South of the Sahara. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691118154

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Guideline for Bird Articles. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Guideline_for_Bird_Articles

External Links

{{GSearch|Xxencoroides+pusilla}}
This link creates a gallery search. It should be already there for all species.
{{Video|http://www.birdforum.tv/members/action/viewvideo/1200/Gnatchatchwren_singing_away/|Videofreak}}
This link leads to Birdforum TV. It's only included if there is a video.
More external links:
Some articles have links to other sites, for example the Oriental Bird Images, the Australian Bird Image Database or others. These links are used only if there is no (or only poor) picture of this species in our gallery. If there are many pictures, these links should be deleted. Other useful links are to threads which deal with the species or with its identification.

At the end you will find the categories for the article. Every bird should be in the Category:Birds and in the Category with its genus. More categories are:

• Missing Images
• Bird Songs (if there is a song)
• Maps (if there is a map)
• Videos (if there is a video)

All categories are coded like that: [[Category:Birds]]