Talk:Brant (goose)

Link
The link that I am adding is to the free-access website of the Internet Bird Collection (IBC)at http://www.hbw.com/ibc/. The IBC is specialized in videos of birds (with almost 15,000 videos of more than 3,500 species), which are posted by collaborators who do so generously free of charge. Following the same criteria as many other links for photos and videos that already exist in Wikipedia, it is a way to complement and enrich the information that is given about birds. I hope that there will not be any problem in adding the aforementioned link.Amberta 07:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge?
Should Black Brant be merged here? It is only one subspecies in a cline. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you provide evidence of that? SP-KP (talk) 19:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not there is a cline, there are at least three subspecies. We could either merge Black brant as described above or create two additional pages so that the three subspecies each have their own page.

Personally I think it is interesting and preferable to see information regarding the three subspecies (as well as the fourth grey-bellied form which may or may not be a subspecies) on the same page; the second option would be over-doing it. jw (talk) 13:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I vote for the merge. jw (talk) 13:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * some time ago, you suggested merging Black brant here ... What is your take today? -- jw (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC) jw (talk) 08:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)]

Etymology
I've removed this:
 * The spelling "Brant" is the original one, with "Brent" being a later folk-etymological idea that it was derived from a classical Greek waterbird name brenthos. It is in fact onomatopoeic, derived from the guttural call note of the species. For the origin of the scientific name bernicla, see Barnacle Goose.

which is unreferenced. AHD s.v. brant gives "Variant of brent(-goose), possibly from Middle English brende, brindled". jnestorius(talk) 20:42, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Fulvous Whistling Duck which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Crustacean?
Right now this page seems to imply that this goose was previously believed to be a crustacean-- that seems unlikely. Jimfbleak, I think that was your edit? Is the phrasing there unclear? Heliopolisfirebirdii (talk) 05:05, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Heliopolisfirebirdii, there are multiple sources for that myth, which can can be dated back to at least the 12th century, including the Oxford English Dictionary and Birds Britannica which I have before me. Gerald of Wales claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber, and since these birds were absent from Britain in summer, this had some credibility. William Turner accepted it, and John Gerard claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells. Although there were always doubters, such as Frederick II, the legend persisted until the end of the 18th century. In County Kerry, until relatively recently, Catholics could eat this bird on a Friday because it counted as fish. These comments are based on Birds Britannica, pp. 78–80, but there are many other sources; see also goose barnacle. Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  06:00, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's really interesting. Thanks for your edit. Do you think that should have its own section now? Heliopolisfirebirdii (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Heliopolisfirebirdii, I'm not sure whether it's a bit of a distraction from the bird itself. Perhaps leave it for a few days to see if anyone watching picks up this thread? I'll have more time then to add sources then, if we go ahead Jimfbleak - talk to me?  05:50, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me Heliopolisfirebirdii (talk) 19:17, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Jimfbleak I think we should go ahead and move it down. Do you have more sources you wanted to add? Heliopolisfirebirdii (talk) 00:59, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No, go ahead, thanks Jimfbleak (talk) 13:44, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 18 November 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved—there are arguments for and against, but ultimately no consensus to move the page  (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:22, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Brant (goose) → Brent goose – No reason to disambiguate in the title when the British common name can be used without disambiguation. (The IOC uses "Brant goose", but this seems to be another case where they have invented a name that nobody actually uses, and so neither should we) It is referred to as either Brant (North America) or Brent goose (UK) as far as I can tell. Somatochlora (talk) 21:26, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose - The statement that the name “Brant” is invented and nobody uses it defies its use in most Bird references published in the US — Audubon, Sisley, Petersen, etc. Mike Cline (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you've misunderstood. The potential names for this page are:
 * Brant - not an option due to disambiguation
 * Brant goose - a name invented by the IOC that does not get significant use to my knowledge
 * Brant (goose) - fine, but using brackets to disambiguate is discouraged where possible in Wikipedia
 * Brent goose - a commonly used name, with no disambiguation required. I think I this name is pretty clearly best under Wikipedia standards. Somatochlora (talk) 23:54, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Oppose - we use brackets in plenty of other bird names without issue — including at least one featured article: Ruff (bird). I think it's fine leaving it at Brant (goose). MeegsC (talk) 16:10, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure I understand how this an argument for opposing, rather than just an expression of indifference. No, the brackets aren't a big deal, but we have a perfectly good alternative here. What's wrong with "Brent goose"? This is the same reason why we have Loon, not Diver (bird).

Somatochlora (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think we have Loon rather than Diver (bird) because somebody created Loon first (Aug 2002 vs Feb 2003). MeegsC (talk) 16:37, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Support - Having recently edited this article, I struggled to find it at first due to the poor naming convention. From a European perspective, the naming is not helpful to the reader. Smirkybec (talk) 16:24, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Just out of curiosity, what did you type into the search box? Because "brent goose" took me right to the article! MeegsC (talk) 14:51, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * To clarify it was when I was attempting to link to the article from articles about Irish Special Protection Areas and Ramsar sites. In those I was referring to the bird by the variants of the scientific name relating to the "light bellied" descriptor so when that didn't appear as a suggested article when I went to create a link in Visual Editor, so I had to think a few more steps to get it to link to this page. I think the current naming convention coupled with the messy treatment of those variant names made that sort of linking and editing needlessly clumsy. Smirkybec (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , it definitely sounds like we should add those distinctive subspecies as redirects: Black-bellied, Pale-bellied, Black, etc. I'll do that now. MeegsC (talk) 15:06, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Huh. Well most of those already existed: most of the common names have already redirected for years, as did Branta hrota and Branta nigricans and Branta bernicla nigricans. I added redirects for Light-bellied brent goose, Atlantic brant, Pacific brant, Branta bernicla hrota and Branta bernicla bernicla just in case somebody else tries to find them that way. MeegsC (talk) 16:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would have been Branta bernicla hrota as that is the name that the National Parks and Wildlife Service of Ireland refer to them as consistently e.g. here. Smirkybec (talk) 16:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, actually. We should add something to the WP:BIRD page saying that distinctive subspecies — i.e. those distinctive enough to be given names — should always have those names created as redirects to the main article. I'll bet that's happened with more than just subspecies of brant/brent! MeegsC (talk) 16:41, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I agree with MeegsC and I'll also add the argument of article stability. The article has been Brant (goose) for a sufficient time for the article to be stable. This argument has been used when I changed some article pages to the "e" spelling in grey from "gray". (see gray catbird)....pvmoutside... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pvmoutside (talk • contribs) 8:35, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose - this article should be left as Brant (goose). We have a long-standing and relatively stable situation at present. Calling it Brent goose does not in my opinion reduce the need for disambiguation and clarifications. I would note the following:


 * 1) The current stable situation in Wikipedia includes many many articles mentioning brant [and not brant goose] which might have to be re-written, which means extra workload.
 * 2) A google search carried out today, using various +- combinations shows approximately equal numbers of brant and brent goose/geese; it is true that brant goose gets limited traction. Also note that worldwide population numbers for this species split evenly (give or take a few tens of thousands) between Brent goose and Brant.
 * 3) Brent goose already redirects to this page; if we rename it we would then need a Brant (goose) redirect to the Brent goose page, and to rewrite existing disambiguation page(s).
 * 4) I believe Audubon actually used the term Brant goose.
 * 5) If you really want to disambiguate, why not rename to Branta bernicla? ... and have two redirects, one from Brant (goose) and one from Brent goose ...  jw (talk) 12:27, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

In addition, as you are reading this, please spare time to give your opinions on the Black brant (see Merge? section above) which I strongly believe should become a simple redirect to Brant (goose) [but beware, avoid losing the references] jw (talk) 12:19, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I think you are misunderstanding a bit. I am referring to the guidelines here: Disambiguation "Natural disambiguation that is unambiguous, commonly used, and clear is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation".
 * 1. There is no reason to change references in other articles.
 * 2. Yes, these stats show, all else equal, it doesn't really matter whether this article is at "Brant" or "Brent goose". I don't believe all else is equal though, as "Brant" requires parentheses.
 * 3. Yes, this is easy to change
 * 5. The species is not often referred to by the latin name relative to the common names, so this would be less ideal.

merging Black Brant into this article
The page Black brant (B.b.nigricans) contains only minimal information, some which is useful on this page where there is already a lot more information concerning the Black brant. In addition the other subspecies (Light-bellied B.b.hrota, dark-belliedB.b.bernicla) and one variety (Grey-bellied), which are of equal importance worldwide, are fully described here, and do not have pages of their own. None of the watchers or visitors to the Black brant page have given any feedback (positive or negative) to my proposal of a year ago (Jul 2019). -- jw (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I am going to be bold and proceed with the following steps. jw(talk) 13:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * redirect from Black brant to Brant goose -- done -- jw (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * merge some of the text into Brant goose -- done -- jw (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * merge some of the references into Brant goose -- done -- jw (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * remove text and references from Black brant, leaving only the redirect -- TBD-- jw(talk) 13:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Black Brant rocket // disambiguation
The too of this page should point to Brant disambiguation, not just to Black Brant rocket 77.204.106.160 (talk) 17:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC)