User talk:Jimfbleak

Hi Jim, did you know about this website: http://www.yankeegardener.com/birds/. Cordyph 07:58 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi jim. I cant see why you had any trouble with grouping together an arrow and a picture. Here's what I tried. I went to europe and right clicked on the picture, then selected copy. I went into word and selected paste, thrn drerw an arrow, rotated it, selected the arrow and the picture and grouped them together. It worked like a charm!

Oh I just thought of something. What version of Word are you using? If it's later than office97 the default formatting for pictures is in line with text rather than wrap around. If that's the case then you need to change it. I'm working from memory here i think you need to right click on the map, select format picture or format object { I forget which}, pick wrapping, then set it to square, {or anything as long as not in line}. Hopefully that should sort it out but if it doesn't then:

Word can't as far as I am aware paste a transparent selection, so you would need to paste just the arrows into an image editor, use the lassoo tool to select just the arrows then paste them as a transparent selection onto the map. { that's what it's called in Paint Shop Pro anyway, you may need to experiment)
A quick 'n dirty hack that's got me out of jam before is to position everything in word as you want it, taking care that the overall size looks good then hit the "print screen" button on the keyboard. This copies the entire contents of the monitor to the clipboard. Paste this into an image editor and crop.

I hope this helps, Theresa knott 22:43, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

They are Cereopsis (Cape Barren Goose), Emperor Goose and Swan Goose. I'll keep watch for any article appearing then add in my pic.
Adrian Pingstone 20:58, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Jim, I just moved thick-knee to stone-curlew for reasons entirely aesthetic and trivial. (I always think "thick-knee" sounds much too mundane for such beautiful and enigmatic birds.) If you don't approve, please revert - as I say, it was a purely aesthetic move, and perhaps a little self-indulgent of me. I'll add a photo too. Cheers -- Tannin 01:50, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Unhh .... I think I've just realised why they were at thick-knee in the first place. I'll leave it for now, but if my guess is right, I'll have to move it back. Tannin 02:00, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I got on today intending to do something about Grouse and I noticed that Bcorr had already removed the whole update, ants and all. Big Iron 20:53 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jim. Excuse my tardiness, please, I've been flat out like a lizard drinking these last few weeks, trying to clear up outstanding matters so as to be able to get away for my long service leave. Provided I can get a few last details organised, I'm off in about 18 hours - 36 hours worst-case. Where to? I have no idea! North. Apart from that, I'll go wherever the fancy takes me at the time. Some desert, some tropical rainforest, maybe some nesting topical seabirds if I get the time. No rules: just me, a small but reliable car, a tent, a credit card, my scope and camera, and lots and lots of new bird species. I hope to see Letter-winged Kites, but they are very remote and you have to be lucky. (A right place, right time thing.) But there are ~700 other Australian species I have yet to see or photograph, so no matter: I'm bound to see something special. Maybe I'll get to log on to the web now and then on the road (I'll have a laptop and modem with me), maybe I won't. If not, see you in November!

Best,

Tony

Hi Jim, I wonder if you could help me with this. I made a nice pic of what I was told was an Oriental White-eye, but when I started looking for that I ended up in the all but endless rows of Zosterops species... I put the pic on my Dutch user page. Could you by any chance tell me which one it is? nl:Gebruiker:Jcwf.

Hi there Jim, thanks for the kind welcome. User:Big Jim Fae Scotland:The Other Jim

Hi Jim. I was over in Typical owl and I hit a bit of an anomaly. I was doing Burrowing Owl and, when I put in the redirect, I found that it collided with Athene. Somewhat arbitrarily, I put Athene (owl) in place of Burrowing owl for the link to the genus in Typical owl and Burrowing Owl which is consistent with Little Owl. Big Iron 11:38, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jim, do you know when or if Tannin will return to Wikipedia? I haven't seen him (resp. his contributions) for a long time. I hope, he did not leave Wikipedia forever - or did he? Do you know anything about this? -- Baldhur 19:11, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. In the meantime I found his message to you, above on this talk page. He closed with "see you in November", so there is still hope, I guess. I would miss him as well, as it was a real pleasure to work with him on some mammal articles. -- Baldhur 19:23, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why did you delete Dan Reeves? I'd rather you had turned it into a stub, like:

Thanks for correcting the Wheatears - I did look up the other species once, but long ago and I must have misremembered. I'll try to write more about them some time, I have a great stack of research papers on them. seglea 06:52, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Just a heads up.. a couple of the pages you wikified this afternoon Holywell and Clwydian Mountains were copyright violations. I've done the necessary. Pete 17:25, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jim, nice to be back. I doubt that I'll have time to contribute much text for a little while, but I'm trying to add taxobox pictures to all the orders and families that don't have pictures yet and do have Australian representatives that was kind enough to keep still for my camera. In my 8 weeks on the road, I took a phenomenal number of pictures, in the usual mix: many of the common species for the various habitats I went to, a few delightful rarities, and some surprising omissions - how is it possible to drive over 13,000 kilometres through inland Australia and not see a Buderigar, and only glimpse Cockatiels at a great distance? On the other hand, you could spend months, possibly years, looking for a Red Goshawk or a Blue-faced Parrot-finch .... all of which just goes to show that birding is birding: sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't.

PS: I have no hope of writing up species accounts for all the Australians! With around 800 of them, I'd be an old, old man before I finished them! Cheers Tannin 03:21, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Jim, do you know anything about sitellas? We only have one species here, but if you want to knock out one of your famous boilerplate family entries, I have pictures for it. (Just a thought) Tannin

I'm doing some Passerines at the moment. Don't worry about stepping on my toes; there's still plenty of birds left to do in our neck of the woods. Good to see that Tannin is back. Big Iron 10:31, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Oh! I had no idea that there were only two of them! There used to be about 6 clearly distinguishable species in Australia, but they were revised a while back and, the differences proving to be clinal, all lumped into one. That's the race formerly known as the Black-capped Sittella, from Western Victoria. I should have a nice little White-headed Sittella from near Darwin too on my hard drive somewhere. - T

They used to be full species, but not for, oh, maybe 10 years or so. You can tell them apart at a glance, but they they intergrade freely and none of the current texts split them anymore. But I'll list the subspecies anyway (as races, not full species), as (the way I look at it) they are different enough to be worth ticking individually. There is at least one extra defunct race that turned out to be based on birds collected from a hybrid zone. Wonderful little birds, by the way: I love the way they work a tree over for insects and other goodies, not caring in the slightest which way up, down, or sideways they happen to be, and calling softly to one another. Damn hard to photograph though, they never sit still! -- T

Hey! No need for the snarky comment when you edited unceded territory--the only reason I didn't mention a country is because I didn't know for sure that the term was only in use in the United States and/or Canada. Not all Americans are Amerocentric, and when and if we are, please don't assume it's malicious. Sometimes we're just dumb. Jeez. jengod 01:11, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No problem. I understand the problem re -centricity, and have committed the sin myself. Here's to Anglo-American evenhandedness. :) jengod 07:09, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This will let you know that in deleting Peggy Fleming you created 11 broken links which certainly would have given you the information you claimed to be missing. The "What links here" feature is very useful. ☮ Eclecticology 21:35, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)

Oliver Ames High School

Just noticed this entry in the deletion log: 12:30, 3 Dec 2003 Jimfbleak deleted "Oliver Ames High School" (non encyclopedic content was: 'Public high school located in Easton, Massachusetts.'). Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/schools. It appears that it's not generally agreed to be the case that high school entries are unencyclopedic and qualify for immediate deletion, so VfD is probably the route to use if you think that deletion is merited. Jamesday 08:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

singular or plural case for animal groups

Hi Jim, may I ask you to give your opinion about this issue? -- Baldhur 14:18, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Perhaps we should copy some of the specifications on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. Especially the sections Criteria for inclusion and Names and titles should be valid for all animals. Or is there a major disagreement between bird experts and others about these guidelines? -- Baldhur 16:29, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

North American Bird List

Hi Jim, thanks for the kind words. I have finished for the day and might not get back to it until Tuesday, so we should be out of each other's way for a while. I haven't finished the passeriformes yet, but will. Later I'm going to come back and mark accidental, introduced, and extinct species. And THEN I will be done. If you haven't noticed, I am using the ABA definition of North America, (NA N of the Rio Grand, plus some islands, 970+ birds) rather than the AOU definition (Above plus Mexico and Central America, 2000+ birds) David Stapleton 00:24, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

I added a couple of points to Mourning Dove. It was probably "gilding the lily". Big Iron 10:37 Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Not sure why you redirected "Bombay Dreams" to Andrew Lloyd Webber. I think it deserved an own entry.

thanks for the tip, i'm starting to edit it wait a second, and please, see if the english is good.

You can edit/wikify it now, please. Later i'll put some other things. There is very short information about this islands. And even about Portugal! And as a proud portuguese I'll put some information about this treasure islands. Maybe I'll draw a new map. :\ thanks, Pedro from Portugal

Fils de la liberté

I am cleaning up the Timeline of Quebec history. Eventually, this article will describe the organization of the Société des fils de la liberté, which is the equivalent of the Sons of liberty but for Quebec. -- Mathieugp 07:34, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I am wondering a bit about redirects for entries like Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. I hate to rock the boat, but would Gray-crowned Rosy-finch work better? So the redirect would be Gray-crowned rosy-finch. Or is that NAm bias creeping in? Big Iron 11:53 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Pictures

Jim, I have added some photos, taken to-day, to Great White Egret, Snowy Egret and Double-crested Cormorant. Could you have a quick look and double check my IDs, please? I am reasonably confident, but you can't be too careful.... Thanks. seglea 06:15, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

--- You've seen the news about the New-Zealand Storm Petrel I hope! http://www.wrybill-tours.com/idproblems/stormpet3.htm anmd other sites. You're the one to do the initial entry. Wetman 07:34, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Myrtle Warbler looks good. Best wishes for the new year. Big Iron 21:00 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hello jimflbeak

thanks for your tips on capitalization. Is this sort of thing documented anywhere? How do I find out how to do a redirect from the lowercase version? I have a little more info on serins and I'll do my usual incremental wikification of it over the next few weeks.

Best

robinh Robinh 21:01, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Bird names

Please don't open up old wounds by being Cocky in edit summaries - it is not a policy to use capitalization of bird names. It is simply a naming convention for the titles of the actual articles - it is not something that should be enforced where it is not welcome (such as a link in a general article). When and where it is appropriate to use the downstyle in the inline text, then it should be used that way. K? --mav

Turtle doves

In the general pigeon/dove page Columbidae, Turtle Dove is listed as Streptopelia risoria (which I would call the ringneck dove or the ring dove), but if you link to that page, you get to Streptopelia turtur (which isn't in the list under Columbidae at all). Have these two species been merged, do you know? I can't find any evidence that they have from Google. If not, the thing wants sorting out, and I'll do it (and while I'm about it, get rid of the dreadful bible dictionary page under turtle-dove, which should be amalgamated into Turtle Dove anyway).

I've just stamped on some rather weak stuff under pigeon intelligence, and any day now I am going to get round to the seriously awful animal intelligence and animal minds. Just let me write this lecture course on animal cognition first... seglea 00:21, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Jim, thanks for your reply on Turtle Dove etc. I didn't mean to be rude about your separating the bible dictionary material, only about the quality of the material. I have now reabsorbed it into the main article, but as you suggested, I've edited it right down. I have put in a couple of the actual quotes, though, because they are interesting as ancient reports of migration. I've also added a couple of other cultural references. In addition I have created pages on the Ring Dove, which turns out to be deeply obscure genetically (maybe the DNA guys will sort it out for us some time) and the African Collared Dove, which is part of the general confusion.

Dear me, what a dreadful lot of pigeon/dove species there are.

Oh, and I've done a massive essay on animal cognition now.

seglea 12:13, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Swan Goose pic added

Jim, Clever you! I didn't know I had an unused Swan Goose pic! Now added.
Best Wishes, Adrian.
Adrian Pingstone 13:30, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Cape Barren Goose added, thanks for letting me know it was there. I'm off to Slimbridge to photograph the winter scene on the next sunny weekend, can't wait! Cheers, Adrian

Adrian Pingstone 09:49, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think that translucent tips of primaries is a good sign too. I don't think that this could be a Thayer's Gull. Big Iron 17:00, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if that could be a first winter Laughing Gull. I think that they can be found there. Geographically, it's a bit of a stretch for me too. Big Iron 10:30, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I know bee-eaters ain't passerines, Jim. They are members of the kingfisher family. I've known that for years. Everyone knows that. They are clearly unsuitable for this article. In short, I have no idea what I was thinking of at the time. Perhaps I should drink more. Tannin 10:21, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stilts, and taxonomic authorities

Jim, thanks for clarifying the stilt position. I don't have HBW readily available - what does it do with the additional 2 stilt species? Does it have them as subspecies of one of the others? It might be helpful to add that info to the page.

I have been discussing with Tannin the inadequacies of ITIS and wonder whether it would be useful to have a page that was a List of taxonomic references sources with an indication of their areas of reliability, likely biases, etc. Tricky to stop it becoming POV, but it would be a useful resource. What do you think?

Incidentally, I have just put in a page on the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which has what ended up as a huge long list of common species on the end of it. It was impressive how many of them already have pages, but there are one or two dead links if you feel like sharpening your pen on them...

seglea 18:05, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Jim. I've just waded in with my usual hobnailed boots and buggerised about with Passeridae, sparrow and Estrildid finch. Feel free to tinker, revert, whatever. Also, I've added a few species accounts lately - I don't really have the time but I'm using it as an excuse to put off urgent work. (sigh) Cheers -- Tannin