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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 23:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Eurasian Nuthatch

[edit]

Eurasian Nuthatch (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Nominator(s): Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:57, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Eurasian Nuthatch is the most widespread of its family, breeding from Great Britain to Japan. It is an inveterate hoarder of seeds and nuts, and the female is a dab hand at customising the entrance to the nest cavity by plastering it to get the hole to the right size Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:57, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Inveterate" is a word I'd like to use more than I do.

  • "particularly caterpillar and beetles" should be "caterpillar and beetle" or "caterpillars and beetles", surely?
doh... fixed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does the superspecies have a name?
Not that I know Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does the Ancient Greek term translate to?
"nuthatch", clarified Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There are 21 or 22 subspecies" Or 23, maybe. Perhaps "There are over 20 subspecies, but the precise number is disputed. These taxa can be..."
done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "usually with a loud, sharp dwip usually repeated twice" Repetition
Varied Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "distinctive S. e. arctica is said to be distinctly different" Repetition
Varied Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the maximum known age is 12 years 11 months" Where was this one?
The UK apparently, fixed with new ref Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "eating man-made food" Not gender neutral- synthetic? Artificial?
I don't like those, human-made Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Hoarding is a long-term strategy, stored food items only being consumed when fresh food was hard to find, sometimes up to three months after caching." Tense shift (see following sentences, too)
fixed both Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Beech mast crops vary widely from year to year. Where beech is important, adult survival rates are largely unaffected by the availability of mast, but juvenile autumn survival is locally reduced in poor years by starvation or emigration.[20] Similar results were found where common hazel was the prevalent tree species.[26]" I don't know what this means
Rephrased for greater clarity (?) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A Swedish study showed that 6.2% of the Nuthatch nests in their study area were raided by predators. The perpetrators were not identified, but the main single predator of tit nests in the same study was the Great Spotted Woodpecker." Reference?
Oops, I'd split the sentence off from its ref, fixed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Common Starlings will take over nuthatch nest holes" Are you referring to the Nuthatch or nuthatches generally? Same later in the paragraph
Fixed both
  • "A Belgian study indicated that the problem appears not to be severe enough to require culling of the parakeets." I don't like "require". How about "Ornithologists conducting a 2010 Belgian study suggested that the problem was not so severe as to warrant culling of the parakeets."
Fixed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Six species of mites of the genus Ptilonyssus have been found in the Eurasian Nuthatch's nasal cavities, and one was first formally identified in this bird.[37] Intestinal worms include the nematodes Tridentocapillaria parusi and Pterothominx longifilla." Worth listing the mites? Worth redlinking the nematodes? Nothing wrong with redlinks!
Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "have between 10,000–100,000 breeding pairs." How about "have between 10,000 and 100,000 breeding pairs." or "have 10,000–100,000 breeding pairs."?
"and" Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The nuthatch is common throughout" Again- Nuthatch?
Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's a "cone crop"?
clarified Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a strong article. I'm musing a little about the subspecies information; I'm wondering if a slightly more detailed table would be needed... J Milburn (talk) 17:49, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble is, "slightly" isn't really an option. I made the conscious decision to deal only with the ssp groups to avoid a very long table (which nobody is going to read), listing the minor differences between the 20+ forms and obscuring the three groups. It seems too much information to me. I could easily do it if it is an issue, but it wouldn't be my choice Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for your review and comments I thought I wouldn't get away without red links Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another way to do the subspecies would be to have a list article; List of Eurasian Nuthatch subspecies. That way, you could keep the minimal data in this article, but then include other information (date, describing author, range and minor physical differences) in the other one; the list could be split based on subspecies group, with a lead giving basic information about the species as a whole and greater information about the taxonomy. A few hours (and a lot of fiddling with tables...) and you could have a FLC. J Milburn (talk) 10:03, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, leave that with me Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support, as long as nothing else comes up (and on the condition the source and image checks come back OK). J Milburn (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for review and support Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Thanks for image review, full stop removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:03, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Hamiltonstone Looks pretty good. I did find these:

  • "a family of similar-looking birds with short tails and wings, a compact body and a longish pointed bill." The article needs to choose singular or plural and stick to it (although wings plural is OK, since each bird has two :-)). Eg "a family of similar-looking birds with short tails and wings, compact bodies and longish pointed bills." or "a family of similar-looking birds that have a short tail and wings, a compact body and a longish pointed bill." I think the latter sounds odd, so would go with the former. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "has been considered conspecific with all of these in the past". Does this mean, rather: "has in the past been considered conspecific with all of these"? In other words, are we talking about the evolutionary past (the former wording), or in past research papers (the latter, which I am guessing is what was intended)? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • One of the images has this caption: "Feeding at bird table in winter." I'm not sure it should have the full stop, but it also is missing a word i think. Other captions do not use this abbreviated style. I think it should probably read "Feeding at a bird table in winter" or "A Eurasian Nuthatch feeding at a bird table in winter." hamiltonstone (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great images, including the lovely video clip. Any chance of an audio recording of the species?

Ultimately, i wonder whether WP will maintain articles about birds at FA without recordings of their calls, or articles about artists without images of their works, but such future multimedia issues aside, I'm a support.hamiltonstone (talk) 13:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for support, I've added an EL link to a wide range of recordings at xeno-canto Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Aa77zz

[edit]

Lead

Two sentences have phrases linked by "and" where I feel the ideas are barely close enough - but you may disagree:

  • "Food items are found on tree trunks and large branches, and the nuthatch can forage when descending trees head first, as well as when climbing."
Split Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Its main predator is the Eurasian Sparrowhawk, and it may be infected with a variety of internal and external parasites."
Removed parasites, not needed in lead Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Description

  • "In the eastern form S. e. asiaticus some males have buff underparts..." Should there be commas around "S. e. asiaticus"?
Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Insoutheast Europe and southwest Asia, the Western and Eastern Rock Nuthatches are larger ..." This sentence is very long. Suggest splitting.
Split Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Breeding

  • "The incubation period in Siberia is slightly shorter than in Europe at 18–22 days." Longer?
I can't even see where this came from, removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Feeding

  • Beechmast or Beech mast?
consistently two words now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Predators and parasites

  • "and grey wolf" I find it hard to believe that the predation by the grey wolf is significant.
Me too, it's not impossible that a nuthatch might be caught on the ground, but now removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A similar outcome of adult survival and juvenile losses in years of low nut production were also found where common hazel was the prevalent tree species.[27]" This reads slightly oddly to me - "were also found" refers to a study that is not mentioned in the previous sentence.
Rephrased to be more similar to the beech bit Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Status

  • It makes no sense to quote the breeding area and potential suitable habitat to 6 significant figures - 2 would be adequate. I was able to download the cited source, Menon et al, from the university repository here. I have no specialist knowledge in this area but I'm very suspicious of the methodology used and the significance of the 87% value. Other authors haven't cited this work. Thomson Reuters Web of Science only list one citation - and that is a self-citation. Google scholar gives two citations. Have you a better source for the breeding area, preferably one that roughly agrees with the map used in the article?
Found an impeccable source for breeding range, rephrased as which is a large proportion of the potential suitable habitat,[43]. I think this is self-evident, but I can remove that altogether if you don't like it Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

References

  • ref 14 Enokssson, Bodil. Why is the first name included here?
stupidity, removed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref 37 Strubbe et al. I hope the authors were more careful with the content than they were with the spelling in the title.
Me too, I can't really change their spelling though Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ref 41 Why isn't the pdf linked to the title?
Fixed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cited texts Matthysen The Nuthatches. Should the publication date be 1998? The isbn 9780856611018 leads to a 1998 edition on Worldcat. Is the 2010 edition a reprint? One can view the 1998 edition on Amazon This seems a solid source that I'm surprised you don't cite more often.

  • Year fixed, I think I put the Kindle edition date. There is, as you would expect, a good deal of overlap between Mattysen, Harrap & Quinn and HBWAlive. I have Harrap and a subscription to HBWAlive, so Mattysen, which I can only partially access through Google books, was mainly filling in the gaps Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The year still needs to be changed in the References. Aa77zz (talk) 07:20, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise looks good. Aa77zz (talk) 15:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm at present in Corsica and when I read "although it is absent from the islands, other than Sicily,..." I looked up the Corsican Nuthatch - only to find that it is considered a separate species. Aa77zz (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Never been there, weather must be better than here. Yes, Corsican Nuthatch is quite different. I'll do the rest of your queries tomorrow, watching Athletico Madrid v Chelsea at present Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for review and comments, all done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - meets the criteria. In reviewing these articles I'm gradually learning a little about birds. Aa77zz (talk) 07:20, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for support, I've fixed the dates now too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:52, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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