Talk:American Coot

American Coot was nominated as a the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated .

American Coot was nominated as a the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated .

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The first paragraph describes the coot as a large waterbird. Is this accurate? If it's the same creature that's often called a mud hen, the ones we have in California are rather small – smaller than gulls and mallards, for instance. Cognita 03:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can / should this page be merged with the other Coot article? Paulburnett (talk) 17:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the Coot article is about all the coots, several species worldwide, this page is just for the American species jimfbleak (talk) 06:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem with the sentence: "The way in which their heads bob when they walk or swim has earned them the name 'marsh hen' or 'mud hen'." It makes no sense. How would the bobbing manner lead to a name like marsh or mud? The way in which their heads bob, to me, should give a name like "bobbing hen" or something like that. Marsh or mud just seems to refer to the place they're commonly found. What do others think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.123.37 (talk) 18:54, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Map American_Coot-map-localisation-fr.svg is inaccurate and lacks detail. In Boston, MA coots do not breed, but are winter migrants as is correctly shown by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology map at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/american_coot/lifehistory/ac.

This is my first attempt to edit Wikipedia. The Cornell Lab site is copyrighted and so the map is off limits. I do not know how better data could be incorporated into a new map. Peggy hopper (talk) 00:57, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have just made a few organizational and content edits under the "Ecology" section of this article. I will be working with and adding to this article the rest of the semester as I learn more about animal behavior and coots! This is my first time with Wikipedia. Please let me know if there are any errors or organizational issues that need to be addressed.

Some notes about the article: The Wikipedia entry on the American Coot focuses mainly on the physical characteristics of the adult coot, their range in habitat, and their behavior. In the behavior section, they talk about how coots fly, their hunting technique, and their aggression. At the very end of the article, there is discussion on the American Coot fossil record. I think that the “Ecology” section, which focuses on behavior is extremely disorganized—all the different behaviors are mixed together under a single heading. My suggestion would be to create subsections under “Ecology” with labels like breeding, aggression, predator-prey interactions, etc. The article could also discuss more about the bearing and caring of young. Our textbook cites a study that determined that American Coot chicks have “ornaments” that charm parents to feed them more. I would include that study and insert more pictures on the subject. Katheefwah (talk) 19:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am reviewing Wikipedia articles for my behavioral ecology class. This used to be a very short article, with most of the Coots’ behavioral traits condensed under one heading of “Ecology,” but now it has been nicely expanded by Katheefwah. The article gave very brief accounts of breeding, nesting, and eating habits. However, I was interested to learn from the Wikipedia article that these birds practiced conspecific brood parasitism, meaning females sometimes laid eggs in their neighbors’ nests, even if they had nests of their own! In my textbook, (and as Katheefwah mentioned) it said that the American Coot was the only species of the Rail family that has been studied for parental feeding preferences. Experiments were done where the brightly ornamented Coot chicks had their bright orange feathers trimmed so that they were darker in color. When all the chicks were trimmed, their parents showed no preference, but when only half the chicks in a brood were trimmed, the parents showed a clear preference for feeding chicks that were more ornamented. This is an interesting result that could be added to the Wikipedia article. Also, the article, while doing a great job of posting pictures of adult American Coots, failed to put up any pictures of coot chicks. This is interesting since the coot chicks are notable for their flaming orange and red plumes. Ihyuan (talk) 22:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I moved a bunch of headers around today, merging "Range" with the "Ecology" section. I tried my best to clean up the "Behavior" section, but it still looks massive and intimidating. Does anyone have any ideas on how to divide/tighten it up while still maintaining the general organization? WolfyFTW (talk) 21:46, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Robert! The article looks much more organized now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katheefwah (talk • contribs) 23:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. In regards to organization, I've broken up the "Behavior" section into smaller sections of Nest, Egg-laying and clutch size, etc. I also combined some shorter paragraphs into nicer blocks of text. It's overall very well done with a lot of interesting information. I noticed lots of inconsistencies in the capitalization of "coot" so I changed them all to "Coot." I also made some minor grammatical edits. Feel free to continue reorganizing or reformatting the sections. The newly-created headers/sections were just my own personal opinions so you're welcome to edit them as you see fit. Njoymusic2 (talk) 03:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, all. This article definitely appears to have a lot of content! I am impressed by the details and variety of behaviors listed. To summarize my contributions, I cleaned up the reference section that had multiple references which referred to the same articles. That shrunk the reference section down a bit. I also added some hyperlinks here and there and changed some confusing wording(though there weren't many cases of this. I also reactivated the table of contents section in response to WolfyFTW's comments about dividing up the article. Now, it should be easier for users to navigate to the preferred section of the article. Good work! GenesBrainsBehaviorNeuroscienceKL (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Kevin! The article looks much more organized now. I was trying to figure out how to bring the ToC up...thanks for doing that!

This review is

Talk:American Coot/GA1

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Tianyi Cai (Tianyi Cai|talk · contribs) 23:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Sorry for the wait. Here is my review.

• As MeegsC said, this article can enjoy a longer intro, summarizing the main points of the entry.
• Also, a taxonomy section is needed to discuss the particular family and any close relatives American coots may have.
• Thirdly, add a conservation and status section where the current situation of the species and any threat it is facing should be discussed.
• Moreover,The article needs more articles. I see a couple of pictures on Flickr.com.

Description

• Are the second and third paragraphs referred to the citations [2][3][4] as well? If not, please clarify the precise citations. If yes, then cite the related reference at the end of each paragraph.
• About the content, is there any difference between adult male and female appearances? What about juveniles?
• I added some Wikilinking to the "food and feeding" section. Make sure to link any obscure or special term to a Wiki page if available. This applies to every section in the entry.
• You can also add lifespan information here.

Behavior

• When is the breeding season?
• Most part is unsourced in "Nest". Need more citations.
• Overall very informative. Well-written!
• Is it known what are some of the species that parasitize the American coot?
• In "brood parasitism", it says that three bird species have evolved chick recognition. What are the other two species besides the American coot?

Predation

• Check the grammar here (singular and plural verbs).

Fossil record

• I think the information here can be placed in the taxonomy section that is usually at the very beginning of the article, because it talks about phylogeny of the species.

Footnotes

• This section should be named "References".

Hi. Glad to see another bird article headed for review! Just a few overall comments from MeegsC (talk · contribs):

• The lead needs to be much longer. It should be a summary of the article. See Wikipedia's Manual of Style for more information.
• There should be a section on conservation. What's its status? Any threats, such as habitat destruction? Population increasing or decreasing?
• Given the size of the article, there's no reason to squeeze text between pictures and taxobox. Move the pictures.
• Get rid of all contractions (e.g. "it's" rather than "it is"). They shouldn't appear in formal writing, per
  WP:MOS
  .
• Every paragraph should be referenced. There are a fair few that aren't.
• Check the validity of that range map against some external sources. American Coots overwinter on much of the east coast, (certainly as far north as NJ) and potentially elsewhere as well

I'll let Tianyi post a more complete review before commenting further; this should help get you started! MeegsC (talk) 14:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tips MeegsC! I made the edits you suggested. I took a look a second look at the range map and the Handbook of the Birds of the World corroborated what is currently displayed on the page. I'll see if I can find some more primary source articles detailing the range map. Do you have any suggestions as to what else could go in the lead? I added a little about the unique behavior of Coots but am unsure where to go from there. Thanks again for the time you've spent looking over my article! Katheefwah (talk) 21:49, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lily for the tips! They were really insightful. I tried my best to make the edits you suggested. Let me know if there is anything else that needs to be improved or added. I really appreciate the time you've been taking to review my article! Katheefwah (talk) 21:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments from MeegsC

Hi Katheefwah — glad to see you've followed up on the suggestions. Sorry I didn't respond sooner; I forgot to watchlist the page. A couple of additional comments:

• The lead should include things like a brief description of the bird, a comment about its status (i.e. least concern), what it eats, where it lives, the basics of its breeding (i.e. where does it build its nest, how many chicks, how long in the nest, etc.), whether it's a pest species, etc.
• There are bare urls in the reference section. These should be converted to standard citations. Try the
  wp:cite
  page for more info. Or just use the citation assistant at the top of the edit box!
• Other than in the taxonomy section, don't use the scientific name to refer to the bird.
• Those new photos need some real captions. "Fulica americana3" won't do.
• This is a far better range map. Not sure why the HBW map is so wrong; perhaps they used the wrong color - green instead of blue!
• There are still many paragraphs with no terminal citation.
• Are there two or three subspecies? One sentence says one thing, and the very next sentence seems to contradict this — with no explanation as to the discrepancy.
• There's a reference to "Jehl" in the taxonomy section, with no details at all in the references. Is this a book? A journal article? It needs expanding!
• Actually, the whole references section could use a good going over. There's also a unexpanded reference to "Olson", and some of the others are missing bits (i.e. publisher location in HBW -- where del Hoyo is also credited as the writer rather than the publisher, publishers for a couple of the urls, there's a "1996b" for an author that doesn't have a 1996a, etc.). And all book references should have page numbers.

MeegsC (talk) 03:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New comment

The article seems to have stalled: there have been only a few edits since MeegsC made a bunch on December 13, and it's been three weeks since there's been any activity at all on this page. Given the lack of progress and the issues outstanding, it may be time to close the review. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Failing per the above. Wizardman 23:49, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Finishing GA recommendations

I intend to help push this article up to GA. I made a few edits yesterday, particularly by filling in the blanks in the references section and adding to the intro. If any of the original reviewers are still monitoring the page I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks! Gabriel.hassler (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gabriel: Just back from Mexico; will take a look in the next day or two. MeegsC (talk) 21:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I have fixed all of the problems discussed in the first GA review process with the exception of changing the species distribution map. I an unfamiliar with inserting these maps into wikipedia and am currently trying to figure it out. Any help would be appreciated. Gabeh12345 (talk) 03:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This review is

Talk:American Coot/GA2

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 19:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I propose to take on this review. Here are a few preliminary observations before I study the article in greater detail. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First inspection

• In general the article appears well written with sensible section headings and plenty of inline citations.
• The lead includes several references. This should not be necessary as the lead should be a summary of the material appearing in the body of the article and that is where the references should be.
• The lead should not contain information not included elsewhere. For example, the coot's legs and feet are mentioned in the lead but not in the description.
• The description section is too short. It does not even mention the colour of the plumage!
• The captions of the images need attention so that "American Coot" is used consistently. Alternatively, as the article is about this bird, the captions could omit mention of the "American Coot" and describe the image eg. "Taking off from the water" or "Adult on nest"
• More later. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I will continue reviewing this when somebody responds to my original comments. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This review has been under way for more than two weeks with no action being taken to resolve any of the points raised above I am therefore failing it. It can be renominated when appropriate improvements have been made.

GA Criteria

• 1a The article is in general well written
• 1b The article does not conform with the MOS guidelines particularly with regard to the lead section.
• 2a&b The article is well referenced and has inline citations for all contentious statements.
• 2c There is no original research as far as I can see.
• 3a&b The coverage is insufficiently broad in that it does not adequately describe the bird.
• 4 The article is neutral
• 5 No edit warring.
• 6 The images are in the public domain or have appropriate licenses.
• 7 The images are relevant to the topic but the captions need attention.
• Overall assessment - Fail. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:58, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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