May I present you with BirdFiles?

I have only found one entry for Blue Tit melody with searching for the Genus name only , that is correct.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/b/bluetit/index.asp

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/161/

There is Great Tit as well which is Parus major, but the other entry I have found as Parus caeruleus has Blue tit pics.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/g/greattit/index.asp

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/178/

Strangely birdsofbritain calls the Blue Tit Parus caeruleus

http://www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/bird-guide/blue-tit.asp

It seems that site has used a very old name!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Tit

"This species was first described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 as Parus caeruleus.[2] Most authorities retain Cyanistes as a subgenus of Parus, but the British Ornithologists' Union treats Cyanistes as a distinct genus. This is supported by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis which suggests that Cyanistes in not only distinct, but not close to other titmice (Gill et al., 2005)."

Here's what I have: http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/adv_search.php?searcher[common]=tit&searcher[birdorder]=&searcher[family]=&searcher[genus]=&searcher[species]=&Search=Search

That's what I have is Parus caeruleus and Cyanistes caeruleus, both with Blue Tit as a common name.

We have several with different genus names entered and I'm trying to determine what is correct....and if they are the same bird. I'm pretty confident in the vegetable world, but am having to check things backwards and forwards on this new venture.

Cyanistes caeruleus is correct for Blue Tit

Look at the Wiki article I posted with explanation under the link..

Wow, what a wonderful surprise. Thanks for the lovely Christmas gift, Dave!

As for names, I find it very useful in PlantFiles to have a variety of common names included for the various entries. If I want to be absolutely certain of the one "correct" name for a plant, I go to the Genus species designation.

Thus, for the much-discussed "robins" that occur here and in Europe, it makes perfect sense to me to have one entered as "Robin, American Robin" and the other as "Robin, European Robin."

It seldom occurs to me that the one in my back yard isn't just "Robin," and I do use "European Robin" when talking about the one I don't see here. It's just a location thing. I think it's a lot more important to try for correctness in the scientific name.

"Thus, for the much-discussed "robins" that occur here and in Europe, it makes perfect sense to me to have one entered as "Robin, American Robin" and the other as "Robin, European Robin."

Good thinking critter! That way everyone can be happy!

My mistaken entry is no longer there, thanks.

Wallaby, I think that was the same thing Terry was suggesting, including all (reasonable, LOL) common names.

The "LOL" above is because there are some names we know in my family that are certainly not in reasonable common use... My grandmother never used the word "squirrel" for the pests who dug up her yard; she called them "Those Miserable Things." And we use my nephew's term for pelicans when we're at the shore -- "Beach Turkeys!"

The important thing with common names is to make it easy to search for the entries, I think.

Re: the robin dilemna. Why don't we just call it the Canadian Robin? ^_^

yup...species: "snow bird"

You know it threegardeners ^_^

Hi critter, unless I missed something I don't think Terry did mean that.

There is still one I mentioned above which needs to be altered.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=5930317

My apologies, but I have added the same image twice to the Great Blue Heron: http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/61/

I entered 10 images in all, but the 7th and 8th that I entered are identical. Could someone please delete the duplicate,

Kennedy

Hi, This one needs a hyphen

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/217/

Should be Violet-green Swallow

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Violet-green_Swallow.html

Thank You!

This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 10:03 PM

Ah, I had missed that. I figured the same thing would work for the robins as Terry had suggested for "Starling, Common Starling, European Starling."

And it will serve the same purpose, and I've made the change ;o)

But let me humbly appeal to everyone to keep in mind as we build this database that the primary reason to include common names is to help readers successfully locate a particular bird when they don't know the scientific name. Chances are good if someone is looking for "robin", they only know one or the other, and have no idea they should look for "American Robin" or "European Robin".

And if they search for just "robin", it doesn't matter if you have just "robin" or "American robin" and "European robin" in the common name fields. They get the same results either way ;o)

The second reason for common names (beyond leading someone to the matching entry(ies) is to help the reader to distinguish between entries, assuming they do not know the scientific binomial.

So in this example, whether we have two entries entitled "American Robin" and "European Robin" or "Robin, American Robin" and "Robin, European Robin" they will serve the same purpose.

Short-eared Owl
http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/144/

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Short-eared_Owl.html

Sharp-tailed Grouse

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/38/ (title wrong)

Some of the names that are in the files already are coming up like this:

Scott’s Oriole

Yesterday, I was able to see more listings of birds. Now, on my computer, I see the page starts with Little egret and ends with Golden eagle. How do I get to the other pages? I don't see a listing for Page1, Page 2, etc.

leeflea if you click on any of the photos it will take you to the BF pictures forum where you will see the familiar page 1 etc. Don't forget to add it to your favourites!

Sue

Thanks Sue. On my way there now. I've been adding the ones that are present now but since I've no dig. cam., that's all I can do. Lee

Sue, I did as you instructed but still didn't see the page 1, 2, etc. Lee

OK try this

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/birdfilespics/all/

Sue, yes, thank you. It worked perfectly. Lee

pelletory, mine comes out fine--those odd symbols are often browser-related issues (Firefox will occasionally do that to me ;o)

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/adv_search.php?searcher[common]=oriole&searcher[birdorder]=&searcher[family]=&searcher[genus]=&searcher[species]=&Search=Search

Terry, I linked on to the site that kniphofia provided but am unable to add if the birds are present in my area. I get a 'post reply' box instead. Lee

Lee.....That one was only the pictures, the link Terry gave last is the search page; try entering the bird name there.

Here is the main page of BirdFiles: http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/

Here is the link to that green bar to search for a particular bird: http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/adv_search.php?Search=Click+here+to+search+for+birds

Type in the common name (all or part of the name) that you're searching for. When you locate the bird you're looking for, click on the link to that entry and one of the options you will see is to add your ZIP code.

I've been working on putting all the birds names in working backwards alphabetically from the Cornell site. I'm only up to Scaled Quail,it gives you a new appreciation for how many North American birds there are,lol.

That's great! I'm loving the pictures and the regional (ZIP) reports...now to get Dave to internationalize those so everyone can report the birds in their backyards and neighborhoods ;o)

Thanks for the addition Terry. If you asked anyone to name a Robin as 'European Robin' here they would laugh.

Regarding the usage of Common names, I wouldn't have a clue to the scientific names of birds unless I look them up. Birds are usually called by their common names, differently to plants where there is much confusion with Common names, and scientific names are more the norm for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erithacus

The bird is called European Robin here.

Did you know that Wiki articles can be written by anyone knip?

Read this article,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_robin

"The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), or, in Anglophone Europe, simply Robin,"

Tell it to the bird authorities and millions who wouldn't have a clue what a European Robin is.

Ditto here. I don't think I've ever head anyone refer to our robin as the American robin. As I mentioned above, I suspect those regional adjectives have come about expressly to distinguish between the two species.

Lots of birders are world-wide and make those kind of distinctions. This will be easier than the common names of plants, I'm sure.

terry, do you want to know about all these names that are wrong as far as capitals and hyphens?

Red-breasted Nuthatch
Northern Saw-whet Owl (here's that 4 word one wallaby)

This message was edited Dec 27, 2008 11:08 AM

This message was edited Dec 27, 2008 12:15 PM

We need the Order: Falconiformes and perhaps another Common name adding to the Kestrel, Common Kestrel, Falco tinnunculus please.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/birdfiles/go/172/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Kestrel

done.

Okay I made it to the L's. I'm calling it a day. :-)