Talk:Barn swallow

About the Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference

"In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, an open and hotly debated question is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, for both African and European swallows, and whether they can carry coconuts or not."

In the film, this isn't really "open and hotly debated". It's just more of a trivial thing. Also, the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is only asked to King Arthur by the bridgekeeper of the bridge of death as the third question that was asked to him, and when Arthur asked the keeper whether this was a European of African swallow he was talking about, the bridgekeeper did not know. The question of whether they carry coconuts or not is discussed in the beginning of the film, and the velocity of an unladen swallow is not discussed in this part, but how the swallow maintains it is. No proposition for the velocity is ever mentioned in the movie. Just how much they flap their wings to do so. These are all details, but if you're putting details, you might as well make them accurate. Slartibartfast1992 20:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Wot? A swallow carryin' a coconut? {PowerGamer6 (talk) 07:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)}

Monty Python also had the swallow ridiculously heavy at 5 ounces (142 g). More in-depth processing of the subject here. --Anshelm '77 (talk) 14:06, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of November 19, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Decently well-written, but there are some persistent issues to be dealt with. Throughout, but especially in the lead, Breeding and In culture, there are too-small paragraphs. Having single-sentence paragraphs is poor grammar, and makes it very hard to read in an article of this length.

2. Factually accurate?: Some of the references - 12-14, 22, 23 -are inappropriately formatted; simple urls are not enough information for proper verification. Author, publication date, retrieval info (i.e. any of the core info of the web template at WP:CIT) are all desirable. Something is also off with ref number 18.

3. Broad in coverage?: I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything on what preys on swallows.

4. Neutral point of view?: Fair representation of all significant views.

5. Article stability? No edit wars, etc.

6. Images?: Accounted for with license tags and fair-use rationales where necessary. I would suggest removing the gallery, as it takes up undue space and there are no images in Breeding otherwise.

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far.— VanTucky ^Talk 00:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Notes

For readability, please place any comments or questions pertaining to the hold below rather than within the body of the review. Thank you!

I've definitely sorted images and predators, and tried to address the first two points -also fixed taxobox LC. Jimfbleak (talk) 09:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

After some more copyediting, and your previous edits, I think it's GA-class. I'll pass it shortly. VanTucky ^Talk 01:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

PR notes

Well on the way to FA status. More nitpicks than anything else though will look at prose later.

• Needs all measurements with imperial equivalents. Done

• To make the prose run better, I'd have the subspecies followed by "described by X in 18xx" with an inline ref rather than how it stands currently. Done

• Although over most of this swallow's range the subspecies are not contentious, - try removing it as I think this clause is superfluous. Done

I'll find some other stuff but very promising. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

PS: I flipped a clause to reduce commas - this can be done in some other places. Have you read Tony1's prose guide - link on my userpage and very worthwhile. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• Would be good to have a reliable source for etymology of rustica. Shyamal (talk) 13:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Anglophone European name

See my recent edit of the page. In those parts of Europe where English is spoken as the native language, this bird is never called the 'barn swallow' - that's the American English name for it. It is simply the swallow. There's no 'often' about it. 86.155.207.81 (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

However, the recent proposed standardization of English names for birds worldwide (Gill, Frank, and Wright, Minturn (2006), Birds of the World: Recommended English Names Princeton: Princeton, ISBN 978-0691128276) does away with the "The _____" approach (indeed, this was one of the big obstacles to the standardization effort). Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Cape Province?

Our article on Cape Province, though Wikipedia can't be trusted, says that is was broken up in 1994. Perhaps saying "...the area encompassed by the former Cape Province of South Africa" or simply "...the former Cape Province of South Africa" would be better than what this article has now, "...the Cape Province of South Africa". Or maybe I'm wrong. Benjamin ^{Scrīptum est - Fecī} 01:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Well the source cited for that fact was published in 1989, so it was the correct term then. I don't know what to replace it with. Graham87 04:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Range area

I'm somewhat sceptical of some of the 10 million km² ranges assigned by BirdLife International (Barn Swallow's entry here), as it appears to be their maximum for any species. The sole exception I've found so far is the Barn Owl, with 44 million km², though admittedly I haven't gone through all of the 9,821 extant species recognized by said organisation. Note that 10 million km² is about the size of Europe and less than 7 % of the world's land area; in other words a rather small range for a cosmopolitan species. Of my own books, only Raptors of the World (Ferguson-Lees et al. 2001) includes range area figures, with 60–70 million km² for the Black Kite, 54 million km² for the Peregrine Falcon and 30 million km² for the Northern Goshawk – all species that BirdLife International attributes with range areas no greater than 10 million km². Referring to alterante sources may therefore be advisable. --Anshelm '77 (talk) 14:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, just by looking at the article's distribution map you can see that its breeding range alone accounts for perhaps 80 % of Eurasia and North America's land area, with some more in northern Africa and South America, putting the grand total perhaps somewhere in the 50–60 million km² region. --Anshelm '77 (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

BirdLife International has since upgraded the figure to 51.7 million km² (34.8 % of the world's land area), which I have included in the article (feel free to add the reference if necessary; it's already 1st on the reference list). --Anshelm '77 (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

National bird of Estonia

I see this page is featured now and it doesn't even have a picture of an Estonian 500 kroon banknote that features a barn swallow. I think it should be added to the article. Good job gettng this article to featured status though! H2ppyme (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Swallow or Martin?

I'm not entirely comfortable with one of the statements in the lead section: "in Northern Europe it is the only common species called a "swallow" rather than a "martin"".

Actually, there are others. In Swedish, for example:

• Barn Swallow = Ladusvala ("Barn Swallow")
• House Martin = Hussvala ("House Swallow")
• Sand Martin = Backsvala ("Brink Swallow")

LarRan (talk) 19:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, the meaning is clearly "in Northern Europe it is the only common species called a "swallow" rather than a "martin" in English", only that sounds slightly laboured. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

can a swallow live on seed if been raised by human? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.40.240.44 (talk) 15:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

No jimfbleak (talk) 18:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Barn Swallow common name

I tried to add information about the common name, which I believe is of historical interest, even though it is not perhaps the most crucial thing about the barn swallow. The information I provided was removed with the comment "rm good faith but unsourced/parochial/irrelevant". It certainly isn't parochial. Common names of birds is a field of inquiry that has generated many books and articles, so I am hardly alone in considering it interesting, so I don't know that I'd say it is irrelevant. As for unsourced - well, I provided one source from 1789, and the OED Online (ie OED 2nd ed 1989 for this entry) has its earliest citation from 1851.

So, what am I not getting? Is it that the information isn't quoted from some other singular source in total? ie does it constitute original research?WikiLambo (talk) 05:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Barn Swallow is a featured article, and as such everything should have a reference.

1. What's a calque -unexplained and unlinked?
2. Need a fully referenced source to support The earliest reference to the name comes from Gilbert White...
3. The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogther in chimnies, but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters. In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-swallow. It occurs to me that this might be a quote from White, if so that's not clear, needs an accurate rendition without typos, and a ref including page number (note that there is an existing ref for the book in the next section). If it's not a quote it's pointless, if it is a quote only has a point if can be confirmed as earliest ref.
4. White calls it chimney swallow, not barn swallow, so hardly first example of the latter. jimfbleak (talk) 06:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

jimfbleak (talk) 06:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply jimfbleak. I am not a seasoned Wikipedian and so perhaps it was my fault for not using a sandbox. I was in the process of editing again when you deleted my additions and there was an edit conflict.

1. Calque can be linked to the Wiki on it.
2. Yes it is a quotation from White and I was going to add the reference for the quotation from White, page numbers and all. In that quote he uses barn-swallow, not as a native English word, but as a translation of the Swedish. However, as the Wiki for The Natural History of Selborne says "first published in 1789. It has been continuously in print since then, with nearly 300 editions up to ... 2007" so his usage there would have been frequently read. It has since become the popular common name and chimney swallow is now obsolete (or perhaps also regional)
3. altogther is indeed a typo, mea culpa. However, chimnies is not, it is a valid 18th plural form and is so in the original text.
4. There can never be a source that states "the earliest reference" to any word. The OED, and historical lexicographers in general, are aware that antedatings are, in almost all cases, possible for any word. The best we can say is "the earliest reference so far adduced" - though this is cumbersome, and "the earliest reference" for all intents and purposes means the same thing, at least to lexicographers. But, perhaps it would be better to say "The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1851, though an earlier example of the collocation is to be found in Gilbert White's ...." etc.

However, I fear that perhaps all of this still does not match up the standards required by featured articles. Is that right?WikiLambo (talk) 07:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Picture

I have that picture from Thailand taken recently. From my field guide it looked to be a Barn Swallow (my guide agreed). However, it is considerably greyer than the images here. Is this a different species, subspecies? I don't suspect that it is a juvenile - there were quite a few like this. JJ Harrison (talk) 11:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I suppose you have already checked against Hirundo tahitica. (see this) Nice pictures. Shyamal (talk) 15:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose it must be a juvenile of one or the other. JJ Harrison (talk) 00:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

I have a problem with this section in the article: "This genus of blue-backed swallows is sometimes called the "barn swallows."[2][3] The Oxford English Dictionary dates the English common name "barn swallow" to 1851, though an earlier instance of the collocation in an English-language context is in Gilbert White's popular book The Natural History of Selborne, originally published in 1789: The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimnies [sic], but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters... In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-swallow.[12] This suggests that the English name may be a calque on the Swedish term."

"Barn swallow" is a relatively modern name for this bird, as shown in the section quoted above. The much older name for this bird, although not its internationally recognised one, is simply "swallow". "Swallow" is derived from an Old English word, swealwe (ref Shorter OED Vol 2). The "barn swallow" was called simply the "swallow" in the UK from the mid 5th century AD onwards, and it still is. Nobody calls it the "barn swallow" here in the UK: it was and still is the only swallow known in the region and so a qualifier such as "barn" was and is unnecessary.

As the English language spread across the world and naturalists recorded other swallows, qualifiers became necessary. But you cannot write away the fact that the "barn swallow" is the original "swallow". It is the swallow after which the original Swallowtail butterfly is named. Why have a lengthy section about the calque to the Swedish term, and ignore the original etymology of the word "swallow", and have no explanation about how this swallow, Hirundo rustica, gave its name to all other swallows described in science? 86.133.212.121 (talk) 13:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)