• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Editing Help:Guideline for Bird Articles - BirdForum Opus

Page Status

That's 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

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


if there is some information but not in all sections


If all sections are filled, 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).

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

Xxencoroides pusilla

Includes Lesser Black-bellied Gnatcatch-Wren

Identification

Here you can describe the bird, pointing out the ID-features, etc.

You can also compare it with similar species. If you mention a similar species, include a link to its page. If there is any meat to such a comparison, put it under a subheading which is written as:

====Similar Species====

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 say that the species is monotypic) and make notes about taxonomy in general. If some authorities split or lump the species mention it here. Our articles are based on a consensus system, using the Howard and Moore list, the Clements list and the IOC list. If two (or more) of the lists recognize a species we follow. For the families and orders we follow Clements. If only one of the three splits, we mention it (Includes: ...) here, but we don't have an article for the split. To check out, which list accept what species we use Avibase.

For the common English name we use the same approach. 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.

====Subspecies====

Here you can list subspecies

Habitat

In what habitat is the bird found, also the height for mountain species.

Behaviour

Notes about breeding, feeding, migration. These can be divided by subtitles. Subtitles should be coded as in the following example:

====Breeding====
====Diet====
====Vocalisation====

Description of song or call etc Audio Clips (e.g. Bird Song)
This bird mimics other species sounds.

Lamington National Park, Australia, July 2009
Recorded © by Andrew Whitehouse

This creates an embedded audio player with a link to listen to the file in an external music player.

In Culture

Interesting cultural information. See Common Raven for an example.

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 <sup>[[#References|1]]</sup> which looks like this1.

Guidelines for references:

  1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2017. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2017, with updates to August 2017. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
  2. Gill F & Wright M. 2008. Birds of the World: Recommended English Names. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, USA. 2006. ISBN 9780691128276 Update (2008) downloaded from http://worldbirdnames.org/names.html.
  3. Sinclair I & Ryan P. 2003. Birds of Africa south of the Sahara. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0620207299


{{ref}} (This is a template leading to a page with most commonly used reference sources)

External Links & Media

Linking to the Gallery

{{GSearch|"Xxencoroides pusilla" {{!}} "Xxencoroides pusillus" {{!}} "Common Spottybird" {{!}} "Brown Spottybird"}}

This link creates a gallery search. It should be already there for all species.

This is the coding for a Video Search of the Gallery: {{VSearch|"Xxencoroides pusilla" {{!}} "Xxencoroides pusillus" {{!}} "Common Spottybird" {{!}} "Brown Spottybird"}}

Other external links

  • Some articles have links to other sites, for example the Oriental Bird Images, the Australian Bird Image Database or others. These were used if there is no (or only poor) pictures of this species in our gallery. These sites no longer exist, so the links should be deleted.
  • Other useful links are to threads which deal with the species or with its identification.

Categories

At the end you will find the categories for the article. Every bird should be in the Category:Birds and in the Category with his 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 this: [[Category:Birds]]

Back
Top