User:Fresh oolong/sandbox

Article choice

 * Pecking order

Content

 * The content of the article seems appropriate for the subject. I feel this amount of information and the way it is presented clearly describes the pecking order of chickens and its use in english.
 * There is some information that needs to be cited. This information describes how the top dominate chicken passes it position of power down to it offspring. However, this information is not cited or clearly written.

Tone

 * The tone is mostly factual with little persuasion in one direction or another.
 * however, there is the one section on dominance and power being passed down that seems to push an idea but has no citation to prove the position.

Talk page

 * For the talk page this article is rated Start-Class which shows that it still needs some work.
 * This article is part of WikiProject Birds.
 * there is some information in the talk page but very limited. This makes me think there has not been too much activity on this page yet.

Flock (birds)

 * I am interested to organize this article along with add more information about mixed flocks to show some species that will flock together
 * I feel that the shape of a flock can be explained in more detail with sources as to why they have the shapes during flight.

Social behavior

 * The article could be expanded dramatically with the examples of different animal social behaviours
 * or a new article could be created named Animal social behaviours

Animal track

 * I would be interested to examine the different styles of tracks animals leave behind and why.
 * do animals change their behaviour to change the tracks they leave behind

Reverse migration (birds)

 * expand and organize this article
 * add more information and sources

insect migration

 * examine as another possibility

Feedback
I would avoid adding to the Flock(birds) page and the Social Behaviour page as these topics may be too general and it would be difficult to make a substantial and unique contribution. The other topics about migration sound good, but I have some concerns about the Animal Track page. If you are talking about tracks as in footprints, I don't think you'll be able to find articles to add to this, but if you are talking about animals avoiding being tracked by predators you may have more luck, but be sure to check if you can find articles to support this topic and that it is not already on Wikipedia.

Bibliography for Reverse Migration (birds)
Reverse migration as a cause of vagrancy

Factors influencing the movement biology of migrant songbirds confronted with an ecological barrier

Northeastward reverse migration of birds over Nova Scotia, Canada, in autumn

Bimodal orientation and the occurrence of temporary reverse bird migration during autumn in south Scandinavia

Is reverse migration a common feature of nocturnal bird migration? - An analysis of radar data from Israel

Edits to Reverse Migration (birds)
Reverse migration also call reverse misorientation is a phenomenon in bird migration where a bird will fly in the opposite direction during the migration time of what is species typical.

If a bird sets off in the opposite direction, shown by the orange arrow, it will end up in Western Europe instead of South East Asia. This is a mechanism that leads to birds such as Pallas's warbler turning up thousands of kilometres from where they should be. Keith Vinicombe suggested that birds from east of Lake Baikal in Siberia (circled) could not occur in western Europe because the migration routes were too north-south. Most of these lost young birds perish in unsuitable wintering grounds, but there is some evidence that a few survive, and either re-orient in successive winters, or even return to the same area.

Reverse migration is genetic or learned behaviour?
Although some large birds such as swans learn migration routes from their parents, in most small species, such as passerines, the route is genetically programmed, and young birds can innately navigate to their wintering area. Sometimes this programming goes wrong, and the young bird, in its first autumn, migrates on a route 180° from the correct route. This is shown in the diagram, where the typical migration route is shown in red but a reverse migration has occurred as seen in orange in the image.

So with some species such as swans that the migration route is learned reverse migration could occur from learning improper route from other birds.

As migration is most often genetically programmed before birth into most birds there can be rare variations and defects that change the migration programming. These variations will account for some of the reverse migrations cases but would not account for most of these reverse migrations. After these birds have changed their migration path and are surviving they will breed and reproduce some offspring with their new migration route. These offspring have not learned this new migration route for them it is genetic, and they will continue on this one and may pass it along to their offspring.

Tracking radar
A single individual is tracked using a manually operated tracking radar to understand the targets exact position and trajectory to predict where it will be. As the bird flaps their wings the echo can be recorded and compared to patterns to understand flight patterns or challenges. These were primarily used to monitor specific individuals during nocturnal migration through the night.

Radiotelemetry
This is a technique used to track animals. A miniature transmitter is attached to the subject animal and this transmitter emits a very high frequency (30-300 MHz) which can be picked up with one or more receivers. For studying the moment behaviour of birds in a migration hotspot south west of Sweden called Falsterbo near Falsterbo bird observatory three receivers were used to triangulate and track the birds.

Ringing
Ringing birds is when a light weight metal band is attach to the foot to not impair movement but stay on the bird with a identification number. This identification number can provide people catching and these birds with information such as how old they are and where they have been by examining data bases. At the Falsterbo bird observatory these birds are caught with a mist net and measured and banded.

Reverse migration is opposite direction or random directions?
Reverse migration is a widespread around the world and occurs for species migrating during the night and also during the day. This irregular migration direction is most often aproximatly opposite to what is species typical not a random direction. This phenomenon occurs not only with species finding a tropical area during the winter months but also temperate zone migrants, short irruptive food migrants, short distance migrant, and long distance migrants. An article in British Birds by James Gilroy and Alexander Lees suggests that misorientation primarily occurs approximately opposite direction but can occur in random directions. This random directions could be partly due to genetic variations or abnormalities. These birds that addopt and continue to migrate in this atypical direction have been called Pseduo-vagrancy migrators. Pseudo-vagrancy is the possibility that a bird will migrate in a different area or direction from the normal migration route. These birds migrating in a different then normal may mate and breed with other changing the gene programming of others of their species creating this new migration route for their offspring. Some species have been found to be more likely then others for having the pseudo-vagrancy migration changes. Yellow-breasted Bunting is considered a lower chance of pseudo-vagrancy behaviours as compared to the Yellow-browed Warbler for having higher chance of pseudo-vagrancy behaviours

Solitary reverse migration during the night
It was found that solitary birds migrating during the night are more likely to reverse migrate West when East is the regular migratory path. This West to East reverse migration was seen observed more often than a reverse migration to the North rather than the normal South migration. To only examine single species this study examined birds solitarily migrating during the night so that they do not group-migrate and influence other species to follow or follow other species.

Reverse migration due to inadequate fat stores
Reverse migration is more likely to occur with bird species that have low fat storage compared to higher fat storage. Using radio tracking thrush songbirds migrating southwards were tracked to examine when and why some during a stopover along the northern coast of Mexico some would not continue south but fly inland northerly. These songbirds that changed their normal seasonal southerly migration were almost all found to be lean and low on fat stores. This inland northerly path may show that the normal stopover location did not have adequate resources to increase fat stores of these birds, because they were unable to gain enough fat stores these reverse migrating songbirds moved inland northerly in search of more food.

The reverse migration behaviour has also been seen in shorebirds red knots who fly in the reverse to typical migration direction. These red knot birds that demonstrated travel 200km reverse migration behaviour have been documented over the last 10 years and is a common occurrence. In this study there was not significant difference in body mass fat stores or sex for these reverse migrating birds. It was seen that the birds that made the reverse migration had significantly lower hematocrit which is the percentage of red blood cells. It has been examined before that birds increase their hematocrit before consuming large amounts for fat stores in order to have energy for their long migration flight. This would explain why these birds were choosing to travel in reverse 200km for high quality soft shell prey to supply fat and increase their hematocrit blood levels before attempting the long migration flight.

Peer review by user Gdvol
First off, I'm glad to see that you have expanded the references section from 2 sources to 8, it makes the article seem more informative and legitimate. Possibly expand on some topics like the solitary migration habits, what happens in birds that have low fat storage vs birds that have high fat storage. Is it possible that both low fat and high fat storage birds can migrate improperly? Maybe provide some examples or ideas on how to reduce the reverse migration pattern occurring in birds. Do some articles specifically state examples, is it possible to expand on a specific bird and talk more about the mechanism of migration and reverse migration in them? Overall, this is a great start and it will make a good addition to the article.

Peer Review by eng121
Overall this is a great choice and I have gained a lot of information! I would suggest perhaps a more broad introduction of reverse migration rather than just diving into an example as I am a bit confused in following the example right away. There are a couple of sentences as well that are confusing and I would suggest rewording, "could not occur in western Europe because the migration routes were too north-south." to "could not survive/live in".

"Although "reverse migration" per se certainly does occur, and has been documented well in numerous instances, it does not account for the occurrence in Europe in autumn of Asian vagrants that winter in East Africa, for instance, or the rarity of many southern European species in the UK that winter in West Africa." is also a very long sentence and becomes hard to follow, splitting it into two sentences would be helpful for easy reading!

"This West to East reverse migration was seen observed more often than a reverse migration to the North rather than the normal South migration", Here I am confused by the use of "seen observed more" I would suggest reading it over and using only one of the words to make it clear!

Overall, I am impressed with your references and see a great start to a article! Flushing out of the subheadings you have created already and some general editing would be all I suggest, and perhaps giving more examples of Patterns (if there are more!) for completeness. The tone is neutral and informative! Great job so far!