Talk:Wader

Untitled
North American synonym shorebird. Scolopacidae is the typical waders.jimfbleak 06:25 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Boreal bias
A minor point for many, maybe, but I have changed 'wintering' in the article to 'spending the non-breeding season', which is more accurate and neutral, albeit more clunky. It would be nice to have a more concise term if someone can coin one. Many migratory waders spend the non-breeding season (and usually the greater part of the year) in the southern hemisphere where, of course, it is summer. An austral bias would be to say that the birds 'winter' in the northern hemisphere where they breed. Maias 00:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Since only a tiny number of species (two?) breed in the south and migrate to the northern hemisphere, surely the normal usage (ie spending the northern winter south of the equator) is clear and unambiguous? jimfbleak 06:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Jim. I think the point is one of perspective and ambiguity rather than the proportion of species that breed in which hemisphere. For people in the southern hemisphere, migratory birds that spend the summer there are 'summering', not 'wintering'.  There is no problem with birds that 'winter' within the NH (such as various species of geese from Iceland or Greenland moving to Britain, nor with part of the population of the NZ-breeding Double-banded Plover 'wintering' in SE Australia); the problem concerns interhemispheric movements.  As someone involved in research on migratory waders in the SH, when they migrate northwards around March and April each year I see them as going to 'winter' (and breed) in the NH. Thus using 'winter' as a verb is, in such a context, ambiguous, and substituting an unambiguous phrase such as 'spending the non-breeding season' (or 'going to breed') is preferable.  There is some discussion of this issue here --Maias 11:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but as you say, it's a bit clunky jimfbleak 13:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)HI

Restrictive definitions
I'm somewhat confused by the restrictive definition of Wader here. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that a wader is any bird which gets its feet wet. The Oxford English dictionary seems to agree - "Wader: ... those long-legged birds (as the heron, plover, snipe, etc.) which wade in shallow water". Clearly somebody has felt the need to refer to this ambiguity in the article itself. Would it not make more sense to rename the present article "Shorebird", reserving "Wader" for a new, more general article, including herons, bitterns etc.? Such an article might take as its starting point the obsolete order of Grallae (Grallatores).Darorcilmir (talk)


 * I agree that this article needs to be renamed to shorebirds. At the very least, "wading bird" should not redirect here. Many pages for the herons, spoonbills, etc. refer to them as such, but when you try to visit the page for the term, you are brought to this order that is completely separate. I'm not sure if a new "wader" article should be made however, as there is the regional differences and the fact that herons, storks, ibises, and the various other "wading birds" do not fall into a common order or family, and as such it's more of a colloquial term that doesn't apply to a certain group. Limacidae (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2020 (UTC)