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GA Review

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Reviewer: Keilana (talk · contribs) 20:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Casliber, I'm working on the review and will post it as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience! Keilana|Parlez ici 20:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am also happy about the promotion. Thank you Keilana for putting in so much time in dealing with this nomination. Your effort is much appreciated.,
  • With regard to timing, I would prefer you not to promote it until April 29th. This is to do with timing for the WikiCup in which both Casliber and I are taking part. We both have sufficient points amassed before the deadline of 28th April to continue to the next round. The points from Western Jackdaw being promoted would be more useful in the following round when competition will become stiffer. (Casliber can respond to this if he disagrees with my suggestion.) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Errrr...I think it's a bit late now. I don't think there'll be a drama with either you or me getting thru this or next round either. Next bird collaboration is pelican. Also all of these have 2x multipliers due to being on >20 wikipedias. Also FAC has a Rate Limiting Step incorporated into it, so the sooner it goes in there, the sooner it comes out the other end... :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion 1a

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Just a note, I have a lot of very minor suggestions to make, none of which is super critical. Please don't be intimidated by the number of suggestions! And please feel free to inform me if they're stupid, because that happens sometimes. Also, I organized the copyedit suggestions by section and mostly in order within the section to make your life easier.

Lead

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  • The sentence beginning "It was originally described as Corvus monedula by Linnaeus..." is clunky.
  • "'jack', denoting 'small'" is weird wording, maybe change to "'jack', meaning 'small'".
  • "distinctive white irises to its eyes" - you can remove "to its eyes", and a wikilink to "iris" would be nice.
  • "both rural and urban settings as well as in open woodland and coastal cliffs" is awkward.
  • In "it is an omnivorous and opportunistic feeder, and eats", change "and eats" to "eating"
  • "the young fledge" - change to "the young then fledge" for continuity

Taxonomy

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  • "in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae" - no comma needed
  • "He gave it the name Corvus monedula..." - this sentence is clunky
  • "A study of corvid phylogeny undertaken in 2007, compared" - no comma needed

Subspecies

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  • Tack on "of the Western Jackdaw" or "of Corvus monedula" to the end of "There are four recognised subspecies."
  • Wikilink "intergrade"
  • Change "with the transition zone" to "in a transition zone"
  • Add a comma before "and northern and eastern Denmark" for clarity.
  • Remove the comma between "north-eastern Europe, and north and central Asia"
  • "It is distinguished by its paler nape and sides of the neck creating a contrasting black crown, and lighter grey part collar." - this sentence is awkward.
  • "It was formerly found in Tunisia." - this is choppy.

Etymology

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  • In the first sentence, change "appears" to "appeared".
  • Do you ever define the word "daw", or does it just refer to C. monedula?
    • The 'daw' bit is discussed in sentence 4. "Attested" means that it was recorded as meaning "jackdaw" in the 15th century but not before. The old English word was not recorded meaning jackdaw (hence unattested), but its related words in similar languages from that period do. Problem is, I can't think of a way of spelling out what attested/unattested means without adding a lot of words. Might have a think about it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Add quotation marks around "daws" and a comma after "formerly" in the sentence "Formerly Western Jackdaws were simply called daws."
  • Change "the" to "their" in "Claims that the metallic..."
  • "of the jack part of the common name" is awkward
  • What does "attested" mean in an etymological context like this?
  • "is conjectured by the Oxford English Dictionary to be derived from an unattested Old English dawe" is awkward
  • put "the" between "citing" and "cognates"

Sorry that this is just the first part; I'm transcribing proofreading marks from a hard copy so it takes a little while. I'll post more when I get up tomorrow morning. Keilana|Parlez ici 05:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • There should be an "and" or "or" between tahe and tachele, Dahle and Dohle, and Dache and Dacha.
  • Put quotes around "chough" (in the phrase "Modern English chough")
  • Maybe add "to refer to the Western Jackdaw" after "Chaucer sometimes used this word" for clarity purposes. Not sure about how necessary that is.
  • Wikilink "pyrrhocorax".
  • Is it totally necessary to say "particularly" in the phrase "formerly particularly common in Cornwall"? I find that it makes the sentence awkward.
  • Add "the" before "Cornish Chough"
  • Should it be "English dialectal names" or "names in English dialects" instead of "English dialect names"?
  • Change "England" in "north England dialect" to "English". Also pluralize "dialect" and change "has" to "have".
  • Put "word" in between "the midlands form of this" and "was" for clarity and flow.
  • In "Other dialect or obsolete names", change "dialect" to "dialectal".
  • Put parentheses around "for their nesting propensities" and "from their frequenting coasts" for clarity
  • Change "from their frequenting coasts" to something like "from their frequent presence on the coast" - it's awkward as it stands.

Description

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  • Do you know the subspecies of the juvenile pictured?
  • It might be nice to specify that the measurement given is length (though that might be common sense).
  • Change "and the underparts slate-grey" to "and the underparts are slate-grey"
  • Change "which is about 75% of the length of the head" to "which makes up about 75% of the length of the head"
  • "25% of the lower mandible are covered by rictal bristles" - "are" should be "is"
  • "whitening at around a year of age" - change "a" to "one" for clarity
  • Maybe change "the sexes are alike" to "the sexes appear alike"?
  • Change "although" to "though"
  • Change "faint greenish sheen, with brown feather bases" to "faint greenish sheen and brown feather bases visible"
  • Stick a semicolon after "visible"
  • The phrase "the darkness or shading of the nape between light and dark grey" is awkward.
  • The sentence "Populations in central Asia have slightly larger wings and spermologus has a slightly heavier bill" is clunky.
  • Add "climates" after "opposite".
  • Change "with juveniles" to "in juveniles".
  • Change "also worn plumage in" to "during" (too wordy).
  • "Its silhouette in flight with a pigeon or chough" is a little awkward.
  • Is "separable" in "Flying Western Jackdaws are separable from other corvids" the best word choice? Would something like "distinguishable" or "differentiable" be more appropriate?
  • Change "uniformly grey underwings and by their black beaks and legs" to "uniformly grey underwings and their black beaks and legs"
  • Add a comma between "behaviour" and "and calls to the Daurian Jackdaw"

Voice

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  • Is the first call you mention the primary call? If so, you should specify that.
  • Put "or" in between "kiaw" and "kyow".
  • Put a comma after "before settling for the night"

Distribution and Habitat

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  • The first sentence is clunky. At the very least, you should add "and" between "Scandinavia" and "eastwards".
  • Add "alone" after "Europe" at the end of the first paragraph.
  • The whole 2nd paragraph is really choppy.
  • Add "the" before "north Caspian".
  • Change the period after "Pakistan" to a comma, change "They" to "and", add "where they were" after "Lebanon", and remove "there" before "in 1962".
  • Add a comma after "In Syria"
  • The phrase "presumably ship-assisted" is a little awkward.
  • Should "pasture and cultivated land" be considered separately?
  • Is it necessary to say both "villages and towns"?
  • Add a comma after "buildings".
  • Does it not spend the Asian winter in parks, or is that a phenomenon specific to Europe?
  • Saying "persecution" is pretty loaded, and also has a lot of human-specific connotations. Is there a better word?
  • Is it necessary to have the last sentence about the UK population? If yes, maybe it could be moved to the bit about the European population.

Behaviour

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  • Remove "and" before "In Tobias Smollett's".
  • Do you need to specify that Mr. Bramble is the one doing the character assassination?
  • Remove the commas around "Midas Shadow".
  • Saying "small to large flocks" is not helpful, maybe just say "flocks of variable size"?
  • Remove "the" before "birds congregate at dusk for communal roosting".
  • Put a comma before "Sweden" and remove "in".
  • Change the "and" before "mated pairs" to "with" and change "settle" to "settling".
  • Remove the comma after "Hooded Crows".
  • Put a comma after "Vanellus vanellus" and change the "or" to "and".
  • Remove "for food" before "in northwestern England" - talking about "foraging" implies "for food".
  • Change "birds in larger numbers" to "larger groups".
  • Add a comma after "Occasionally".
  • Remove the comma after "In his book"
  • Add a comma after "hierarchical group structure".
  • Remove "that" before "pair-bonded birds" and change "share" to "sharing" for parallelism.
  • Add "their" before "individual status".
  • Add a comma after "Upon pairing".
  • Change "a" after "Lorenz noted" to "one" for clarity.
  • Change "of" before "social behaviour" to "in".

More coming soon, just don't want edit conflicts or anything. Keilana|Parlez ici 16:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Social displays

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Feeding

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  • What is a rubbish tip? (Sorry, I'm an American...)
  • Add "from" before "a few metres onto the cow pat".
  • Remove the commas around "with increased binocular vision".
  • Change "these being" (in the phrase "these being more developed in this species") to something like "because they are". It's awkward as is.
  • I have rewritten this sentence. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Change "upon" before "small invertebrates" to "on".
  • Add "that are" before "found above ground".
  • The sentence "The Jackdaw will also eat small rodents and the eggs and chicks of birds as well as carrion such as roadkill." is really awkward.
  • Change "seeds of weeds" to "weed seeds" or just "seeds".
  • Add "that" before "they contained".
  • Add "that" before "Jackdaws forage there".
  • Remove "stealing food from each other" after "kleptoparasitism" - the wikilink is enough.
  • Maybe add "on the other hand" before "the Saker Falcon" as a better transition?
  • Tempting to, but the two references are unrelated, so I am cautious about adding a contrastive "OTOH" there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Change the commas around "where the initiative for transfer lies with the donor" to emdashes.
  • Change the "and" between "sex" and "kinship" to "or".
  • Maybe put a "however" before "the active giving of food in birds" for transition purposes?
  • Why is that bit about chimpanzees in there? Some more context would be nice.
  • Change "although" before "it has been found to be detached from nutrition" to "though".
  • Wikilink "mutualism".
  • Add "also" before "been proposed that the sharing" and change "the" before "sharing" to "food" for added specificity.
  • Done to here. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you add a little bit of explanation for "exclusion tasks"?
  • This last paragraph in the section does not seem to be backed up by the abstract of the article referenced. I would happily remove the paragraph entirely. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:57, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Basically it was a lab test exploring the ability of a non-caching corvid (jackdaw) and comparing it to a caching one (raven) that had done well with this experiment....and it turns out the jackdaws are not as skilled as the ravens in finding food by exclusion. I am tempted to leave this out as it is a fairly circumscribed experiment. In essence, there is a test with food and two receptacles and the bird has to find the food. In hte first one there is a straight and bent tube, and the idea is that if the bird can't see the food in the straight tube it should calculate it's in the bent one... but the jackdaws still do alot of direct inspection. They also did the experiment with food under one of two cups - one transparent and one opaque. Given the results aren't conclusive, I'm thinking the sentence can be deleted. NB: The fact is mentioned in the text but is more of a background note really. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:35, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Breeding

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  • Is "divorce" an ornithological term? If not, is there one that means the same thing? Currently it's a little too much personification for my taste.
  • Could you merge the first two sentences? There's a bit of redundancy there.
  • Add "being" before "ousted from nests".
  • Add a comma after "find a nest site".
  • Remove "from" before "predators during most of the year".
  • Add "also" before "use church steeples for nesting".
  • Change "by" to "when" before "a mated pair".
  • Change "improving" to "improves"
  • Remove "a" in "attain a great size"
  • The last part of the paragraph (beginning with "the Jackdaw has been recorded outcompeting...") is choppy.
  • Take out the comma after "Dryocopus martius".
  • Add "also" after "breeding colonies may".
  • Change the "and" before "magpie" to "or".
  • Add "a" before "smooth, glossy pale blue"
  • Change "averaging" after "subspecies monedula" to "average" and add "those of" before "subspecies soemmerringii" and "subspecies spermologus".
  • Remove the comma after "in size" for all 3 measurements.
  • Change "yielded" before "clutch sizes" to "observed".
  • Remove "this means that" before "parental investment in the brood".
  • Remove the comma before "in Spain and Israel".
  • The sentence "The European pine marten (Martes martes) raids nests in Sweden, but is less successful in nests in colonies." is awkward.

Parasites and diseases

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  • Wikilink "cloacae".
  • Change "and" after "cloacae" to "so"
  • The phrase "led the Department of Health to recommend that milk from bottles which had been pecked open should be thrown away and steps should be taken to prevent birds attacking bottles in the future" is awkward.
  • Change "which was causing mortalities" to "that caused mortalities".
  • Change "a sick bird which subsequently died" to "one bird".
  • Wikilink "crow polyomavirus"?
  • Change "this" before "with salmonella" to "the virus".
  • Add "also" after "segmented filamentous bacteria have".
  • These suggestions also attended to except the last one. I thought adding "also" to the sentence was not an improvement. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural depictions and folklore

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  • The first sentence is awkward.
  • Why did you put (Amores 2,6,34) in the article content? Should that be in a footnote/citation instead?
  • The sentence beginning "In Aesop's Fables" is awkward.
  • The part of the paragraph beginning with "Pliny notes how" is choppy.
  • Add "after" before "having been banished".
  • The paragraph beginning "The Jackdaw's nesting in church steeples" is choppy.
  • Add "because the" before "Devil" and change the later "because of" to "due to".
  • Change "features on" to "is featured on" and "the Ukrainian town of Halych's" to "Halych, Ukraine's"
  • Add "being" before "derived from the East Slavic word".
  • Add "work' before "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting".
  • Having more information about the pangram at the end of the section would be nice.
    • Ok, this section was quite hard to tie together originally, but have rejigged a bit to align similar themes and make less choppy. "Halych, Ukraine" sounds funny to me and a bit too American, so I think as written sounds more prosey and natural. Others may differ and if bullied presented with alot of folks wanting it the other way I'll change it :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pest control

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  • Are there more details available about Jackdaws being seen as pests? This section is a bit thin.

That's all I have for copyediting; I'll post the stuff relating to the other criteria in a bit. Keilana|Parlez ici 19:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this section is too short as well. To some extent I think that the brief details given could mislead people into thinking it is fine to shoot Jackdaws. I think that it is illegal to kill or take jackdaws from he wild in the UK. Perhaps, there is a balance and jackdaws have a place in the ecosystem. Do jackdaws do anything useful for humans in tidying up carrion. Snowman (talk) 10:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyediting

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  • I have been working with Casliber on preparing this article for its GA nomination. I have dealt with the above suggestions except for the last three under Etymology which are not really my "forte". My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "Attest" as certify the validity of, but who is or isn't doing the certifying in this case is unclear. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:59, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks! I'm going to post more in just a bit - need to transcribe my messy notes. :) Keilana|Parlez ici 14:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion 1b

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Everything with the MoS looks fine to me. Keilana|Parlez ici 20:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion 2

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  • Is there a citation for "about 75% of the length of the head"?
    • It is actually the cite at teh end of the sentence after. I doubled up but the other thing I often do is leave a commented out note stataing how many of the preceding sentences the cite covers (which means fewer footnotes all over the page) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does the Cramp citation at the end of the paragraph about geographic variation cover the information in the whole paragraph?
  • Maybe move the cite about Warsaw parks to the end of the sentence where you talk about the population in Warsaw.
    • I added two commented out bits after each ref (visible when you click "edit") - do you think that is easier on the eyes than inlines after each sentence? If not then I can add the refs to them as well.
  • Do you have a cite for "Like Magpies, they are known to pick up shiny objects such as jewellery to hoard in nests."
  • Does the Cramp citation cover all the information about agonistic displays?

OK, I just wanted to make sure everything was covered. Keilana|Parlez ici 12:48, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise I don't see problems with the citations. Keilana|Parlez ici 20:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria 3-5

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No problems here.

Criterion 6

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I think I addressed these above. Keilana|Parlez ici 20:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]