The cjvlang site originally went up in mid-July 2000. The Bird Names subsite began around October of that year. Pelecanidae and Accipitrinae were amongst the earliest pages to be completed. Despite a number of interruptions, work progressed steadily over the next two and a half years and the content was essentially complete by June 2003. Some time later, however, I found a large number of errors. These have been gradually rectified, although it is possible that some still remain.
During 2004 I incorporated a great deal of information from sources such as Howard & Moore 2003 in order to make the glossary more complete. Links were also added to photos on the Internet.
In 2005, the site was converted to Unicode.
In 2006 I added Southeast Asian birds (Mainland Southeast Asia only).
Little was done in 2007/2008, mainly as I was in Mongolia and away from my books.
From late 2008 I began a major overhaul. This is aimed at making data easier to manipulate and style, removing some of the contortions resulting from the dependence on multiple, sometimes incompatible sources, adding Mongolian names, and ultimately creating country lists rather than the current regional list in order to do justice to languages like Vietnamese and Mongolian, which only have species names for their own territories.
These update logs begin on 21 December 2003 (starting at the bottom).
19 April 2009 (Beijing)
- On this day, the new site at Sibagu went "live". The first section of the site is Chim Viet Nam, a country list for Vietnam with the Chinese, Chinese (Taiwan), and Japanese names as previously, and Thai (unglossed) and French (unglossed) thrown in for good measure. The focus is on presenting a list of bird names that is useful within the Vietnamese context, not a large, diffuse multi-lingual list for East Asia. Search is now on every page, so once Google has indexed the site, it will be easier to find things. Eventually it is envisaged that the entire bird names glossary will move to the new site. Incidentally, sibagu is Mongolian for 'bird' (modern Mongolian shuvuu or shovoo, depending on your phonetics), but it will be a while before I manage to put the Mongolian names up.
12 April 2009 (Beijing)
- In the past couple of days I've made quite a few corrections large and small. Some are enough to make me shake my head in wonder. Elementary errors that have been there for years! Information that was deleted I know not when. Species that have disappeared or were never put in.... Now that I'm entering names from the Thai checklist, I'm being forced to look more closely at my sources, resulting in the addition of new species and various other changes. While it's all for the better, I still can't understand how it got so bad...
31 March 2009 (Beijing)
- At long last, an update. Converted the site to Howard and Moore 2003. While Sibley and Monroe appears to have been accepted in many places (e.g., Japan and Thailand) as the "new standard", it possesses the disadvantage of no prospective updates (classification and species frozen in the 1990s) and no indication of subspecies. As more changes are accepted in the light of new studies, Sibley and Monroe definitely won't be the last word in avian classification. Therefore, in order to move forward on a firmer footing, I've decided to take one step back.
- Each genus has now been given its own heading. This is a great boon to navigation and site management. Anchors are now placed exactly where they are supposed to be, not at the location of the preceding species. This means 1. more accurate navigation and 2. no more missing anchors!
- Updated to the latest Taiwanese birdlist (late 2008). Sadly, the days of the Taiwanese naming system are clearly numbered. The unmistakable trend is towards the adoption of Mainland names, even where this disrupts the regularity of the original Taiwanese naming system (e.g. coucals).
- Added a few missing Southeast Asian species and Mongolian species.
- Mongolian names have been temporarily removed. It's clear that adding Mongolian will require a lot more than a few slapdash additions. Moreover, it is simply too unwieldy to add Mongolian to the current format. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can add them in a more disciplined manner.
23 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Almost on the eve of the Mongolian New Year (Tsagaan Sar, 25 Feb), I've finished adding Tooltips. Despite rough edges, the job is essentially complete -- which is a good thing as I won't have access to my bird books while I move house. I'm very happy with the use of Tooltips to explain in the most convenient way possible, in situ, issues of species splits and different treatments by different authorities. I can now move information around without losing it or having to reestablish links, etc.
- The subsite is now mostly converted to XHTML, all pages are pretty much valid in terms of code, and markup is largely tagged for information content, with styling expressed through cascading style sheets (CSS). This will make a lot of things in future much easier.
22 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Continued adding Tooltips. Involved quite a bit of updating of information, in particular the sorting out of names for Turdus naumanni / Turdus eunomus (Turdinae).
21 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Continued adding Tooltips. Continued converting pages to XHTML.
- Finally deleted Apus affinis, resolving years of confused naming. Was finally able to clean this up after deciding to take Howard and Moore 2003 and Zheng Guangmei's 2005 list of Chinese birds as my two standards.
20 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Amplified and rewrote parts of the page discussing 'systematisation'.
- Continued adding Tooltips. Continued converting pages to XHTML.
19 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Changed the word 'regularisation' to 'systematisation' wherever it occurs. 'Systematisation' seems to convey the intended meaning better.
- Updated the Guide to the Glossary.
18 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Continued the slow but steady process of converting to "Tooltips". A few pages I missed earlier are being converted to XHTML.
13 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Converted a few more notes to "Tooltips". By forcing me to check each source carefully, this often brings out errors resulting from the previous piecemeal updating process.
10 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Converted a few more notes to "Tooltips".
- Added information on Japanese etymology to Gavidae.
8 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Started converting "notes" in the species tables to "Tooltips". More succinct, easier to access, easier to understand.
7 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Finished adding names from Cheng's worldwide list of bird species. Splits at Paridae have now been better documented. (Some had previously been hastily added, without indicating the source).
- Rectified major and long-standing naming error at Burhinidae. Fixed major distribution errors at Sulidae, Phaethontidae and Hydrobatinae (Mainland/Taiwan distribution, etc). Updated information on Ciconia ciconia/boyciana.
- Pages are also gradually being converted from HTML to XHTML.
- Added colour scheme distinguishing birds found in China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and Mongolia. More functional than aesthetic! Perhaps a little fine-tuning is in order...
6 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Added names from Cheng's worldwide list of bird species to more families. There is not too much more to go.
- Finally disentangled conflicting authorities enough to delete two taxa from the Chinese bird list: Pitta brachyura and Ploceus benghalensis.
- Have started adding links to individual Avibase taxons -- only just beginning.
5 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Continued to add names from Cheng's worldwide list of bird species.
4 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Added names from Cheng's worldwide list of bird species to more families, notably the Fringillinae.
- Fixed code of popups at how Japanese write bird names in Chinese characters. These popups have been a mess for years!
- Added a Japanese alternative name for Tetrastes bonasia.
3 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Continued to add names from Cheng's worldwide list of bird species. Quite heavy going as often this involves looking at all the sources. There are inevitably errors, which will have to be rectified later. Because of my home and work situation, it's hard to find either the time or the place to check every sources as thoroughly as I would like to.
- Fixed code for the section on how Japanese write bird names in Chinese characters. Made a few changes.
- Added Monglian names to shrikes and starlings. English glosses yet to come.
1 February 2009 (Beijing)
- Finished putting Taiwanese names into their own column.
- Added Mongolian names of Phasianidae. These are divided into "old names" (previously established names for Mongolian birds) and "new names" (names from a new official bird list of 2007). The table is now too wide to be seen on an ordinary computer screen without scrolling sideways.
29 January 2009 (Beijing)
- Started moving Taiwanese bird names back to their own column. This is in the interest of better handling (whole columns are easier to manipulate than split cells), although the problem of presentation (too many columns on the web page) remains. This will be resolved in due course.
- Resumed the process of inserting names from Cheng's world list of birds, thus making clear the source of each individual species name. Slow, tedious, and at times still inconclusive.
- Retagged a few pages that were missed.
28 January 2009 (Beijing)
- Completed retagging the lists. This has beeen under way for almost three weeks. Names are now marked for category (e.g., "pinyin") rather than style ("colour brown"). The only visible difference at the moment is the conversion of all Latin names to italics, done by style sheet, not by HTML markup, and the capitalisation of English names, also achieved by style sheet. (This is less than satisfactory as not all browsers will yield the same results, and is no substitute for capitalisation of each name by hand. It is, however, a quick way to rectify the mistaken decision, made years ago, to use lower case initial letters for English-language names.)
10 January 2009 (Beijing)
- Fixed a problem wherein IE was rendering some pages completely blank. The root of the problem was the page title. Certain Vietnamese characters at the end of the title (such as ẹ) caused the entire page to turn up blank. (The title is what appears at the very top of your browser). This problem does not occur in Firefox or Safari.
8 January 2009 (Beijing)
- United Accipitrinae, Tringinae, and Anatidae into a smaller number of pages. The job is now complete. Each family has now been compressed into a maximum of three web pages, with a maximum page size of 80kb, thus removing the last legacy of the early site, in which the CJV names were in the form of small graphics, creating a lot of code. However, I expect to have to deal with some residual issues from this exercise, including bad coding.
7 January 2009 (Beijing)
- United Muscicapinae, Fringillinae, and Emberizinae, Larinae, and Corvinae into smaller number of pages.
5 January 2009 (Beijing)
- United Columbidae, Rallidae, Ardeidae, and Turdinae into one page each.
2 January 2009 (Beijing)
- United Phasianidae into two pages. United Strigidae, Nectariniidae, and Sturninae into one page each.
1 January 2009 (Beijing)
- United Sylviinae and Motacillinae into smaller number of pages.
30 December 2008 (Beijing)
- United Garrulacinae into one page.
- Fixed miscellaneous errors.
29 December 2008 (Beijing)
- United Pycnonotidae into one page.
28 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Updated Acrocephalinae, Sylviinae, Psittacidae, Halcyonidae, Bucerotidae, Upupidae, Trogonidae, Coraciidae, and Apodidae to include the Cheng 2002 worldwide list of birds. Added a few links to photos.
- Added notice to pages that have been converted.
- Created a whole lot more work for myself by deciding to amalgamate some of the pages that I had much earlier split up into bite-sized pieces. Started with Picidae, Acrocephalinae, and Cuculidae.
25 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Eliminated the Atlas of Birds of China as a source. All pre-Cheng 2000 bird names have been relegated to the "Other names" column. The result is a much cleaner table.
23 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Added a few images of books at the sources page. Unfortunately in-the-pipeline edits went up, too, wreaking havoc with the system of linking to sources (reference numbers have been changed). This will be rectified with the next major edit, hopefully before the end of the year.
18 December 2008 (Beijing)
- After looking at the site on a different computer, decided to get rid of that screaming shade of orange-pink that looks so good on my laptop.
17 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Sources of Passerine names have also been converted from small-script cryptic names like "ChengW", "ZGMCh", etc., into numbers that link directly to the source in the Sources page.
- Columns have now been converted to largely equal width.
- Fixed a few omissions, errors, added one Japanese species name (Stercorarius maccormicki).
16 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Sources of names have been converted from small-script cryptic names like "ChengW", "ZGMCh", etc., into numbers that link directly to the source in the Sources page, starting with the Non-passerines. However, there is a lot of work to be done updating the entire site so that the source of every single name is perfectly clear. The main problem is that many pages still only list sources where they vary from ZGM.
- Fixed unbelievable mistake (Sources page): The Pocket Checklist of the Birds of Singapore should have been The Pocket Checklist of the Birds of the Republic of Singapore. Don't know how I could have got that wrong with the book right in front of me!
15 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Added some comments to main sources at the Sources page.
14 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Added character 䳭 at Flycatchers.
13 December 2008 (Beijing)
- Added some Phylloscopus and Parus species.
12 December 2008 (Beijing)
Living in Ulaanbaatar meant that I didn't have my bird books with me, so no updates. I also wanted to spend a little time to try and learn Mongolian (abortive). At any rate, since I'm back in Beijing and have access to my books again, I can now resume improvements to the glossary.
- Put Taiwanese names into same column as mainland names. Slightly changed colour scheme; Taiwanese names are set apart within the column. Deleted Alopochen egyptiaca and Tadorna cristata as per the Checklist of Chinese birds (4). Google ad moved to a location below the title (although regrettably there is very little relevant advertising for visitors). A few other minor corrections.
25 June 2007 (Ulaanbaatar)
24 June 2007 (Ulaanbaatar)
- Added Cheng Tso-Hsin's world list names for Pandioninae, Accipitrinae, Eurostopidae, Falconidae, Phasianidae, Nectariniidae, and Dendrocygnidae.
29 March 2007 (Beijing)
- Fixed pinyin for 冠 (not but ) at various places.
- Cleaned up some messy code.
27 March 2007 (Beijing)
- Added Chinese names from Cheng Tso-Hsin's world list for members of the Anatidae.
26 March 2007 (Beijing)
- Added Chinese names from Cheng Tso-Hsin's world list for members of the Cinclidae and Columbidae.
23 March 2007 (Beijing)
25 February 2007 (Beijing & Queensland)
- Since 10 January I have had hardware and software problems. Despite this there have been updates to the site during that period of time. The most important is the addition of Cheng Tso-Hsin's world-wide bird names (see home page and list of sources for more details), which has just got under way. There have also been fixes to faulty code, some twigging of text and names (with quite a lot of additional material in the Alcinae), and some cosmetic changes.
9 January 2007 (Beijing)
- Woodpeckers: Added links to photos and a number of Japanese species names where missing.
8 January 2007 (Beijing)
- A few minor changes and additions.
5 January 2007 (Beijing)
- Added Chinese characters to Japanese name of Garrulax chinensis at Laughing Thrushes (大官鳥 for the curious). My thanks to Michael Nichols of www.Rakusan.net. for alerting me to the correct characters. The Rakusan site is well worth a visit, not least for its 100 marvellous bird paintings by Japanese painter, woodblock print artist, and printer Rakusan Tsuchiya (1896 - 1976).
- Added links to a few images of Southeast Asian birds.
28 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Continued adding links to photos of birds.
27 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Continued adding links to photos of birds.
26 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Started linking newly-added S E Asian bird species to photos on the Internet (mainly Oriental Bird Images).
14 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Added a few names from the Internet (mainly doves). Have partly referred to a Japanese page giving bird species names in Chinese. (This particular page is quite useful, but does contain quite a few flaws -- incomplete coverage, restricted to Taiwanese names, etc).
11 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Added mainland Southeast Asian names to the Sylviinae, Alaudidae, Nectariniidae, Estrildinae, and Fringillinae. The list is now largely complete, just a few species in Robson that I can't confirm.
- Fixed a few mistakes in Nectariniidae.
8 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Fixed some residual problems with the page header.
- Added mainland Southeast Asian names to the Garrulacinae.
7 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Slightly changed the page header. It is now less messy than before.
6 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Had to fix up quite a lot of badly formatted pages.
- Added mainland Southeast Asian names for Motacillinae and Ploceinae.
5 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Added heading to all pages: "Birds of East Asia & Mainland Southeast Asia - Glossary of Species Names in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese", except those which have not yet been updated.
- The reason for the change is that I have recently discovered a very high bounce rate from the index page. That is, most people are exiting without going into the site. I suspect (granted, on rather slim grounds) that the keywords "bird names" are misleading people into thinking that this is a place to find a name for their pet bird. Hopefully, the new heading is clearer and will attract only ornithologists and birders. I'm making haste with this because I want the change to be reflected in Google ASAP.
4 September 2006 (Beijing)
- Added mainland Southeast Asian species for Pycnonotidae, Zosteropidae, and Acrocephalinae. Only about one-quarter left to go.
31 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Added mainland Southeast Asian names for Sturnidae, Sittidae, Paridae, and Hirundinidae.
- Added a few names from Lim.
- Somewhat rewrote the note on Acridotheres (Sturnidae). No matter how many times I look at it, it is confusing!
29 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Added mainland Southeast Asian species for Muscicapidae.
28 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Added mainland Southeast Asian birds to Cuculidae, Psittacidae, Apodidae, Hemiprocnidae, Strigidae, Batrachostomidae, Eurostopodidae, Columbidae, Scolopacinae, Burhinidae, Charadriinae, Glareolidae, Accipitrinae, Falconidae, Threskiornithidae, Ciconiidae, Pittidae, Eurylaimidae, Irenidae, and Corvidae. Involved fixing navigation. Now over half finished.
- In the process, created new pages and navigation for Glareolidae, Dromadinae, and Glareolinae.
- Fixed up errors in Hemiprocnidae (due to species split).
- In the pittas, rearranged Pitta brachyura, P. nympha, and P. moluccensis, by completely splitting the three species. (Previous arrangement placed P. brachyura and P. moluccensis together).
- Added a couple of important references to Sources.
- Fixed up quite a lot of messy code.
21 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Added Southeast Asian birds to Trogonidae, Coraciidae, Halcyonidae, and Meropidae.
18 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Pretty much finished adding names from the Chinese cites site.
- Added Southeast Asian members of the Bucerotidae.
17 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Added Mainland Southeast Asian bird names to Picidae and Megalaimidae.
16 August 2006 (Beijing)
- Have started adding birds from Mainland Southeast Asia (outside of Vietnam) to the list, starting with Phasianidae, Dendrocygnidae, Anatidae, and Indicatoridae.
28 July 2006 (Beijing)
- Added email contact address to every page (hopefully).
27 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added more alternative names from the Chinese cites site.
26 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added more alternative names from the Chinese cites site.
22 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added more alternative names from the Chinese cites site.
19 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added some more names from the Chinese cites site.
16 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added more alternative names from the Chinese cites site.
15 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Added many more alternative names from the Chinese cites site. Also added alternative names of skylarks, which I had failed to do properly before.
14 June 2006 (Beijing)
- Started adding alternative names from the Chinese cites site.
17 December 2005 (Beijing)
- Added names from the Chinese translation of Eyewitness Handbooks - Birds of the World (Dorling Kindersley 1993). Mostly Taiwanese-based names.
2 December 2005 (Beijing)
- Added to cultural note on the bustards (Otididae).
12 November 2005 (Beijing)
- Reinstated FreeFind search (Search Page).
10 November 2005 (Beijing)
- For some completely inexplicable reason, the Japanese name for the frigate bird, , was written クンカンドリ . This has now been fixed.
8 November 2005 (Beijing)
- Added photo link and fixed up one layout error.
7 November 2005 (Beijing)
- Uploaded a few pages that do not appear to have been uploaded properly on 16 September.
6 November 2005 (Beijing)
18 October 2005 (Beijing)
- Corrected photo link at broadbills.
6 October 2005 (Beijing)
- Added a multilingual heading to another page that lacked it (Rallidae 2).
18 September 2005 (Beijing)
- Changed references to Birds of Hong Kong and South China from (HK) to (Viney).
- A few other minor changes.
17 September 2005 (Beijing)
- Corrected a few miscellaneous errors from yesterday's update.
- Rectified a sequence error in Polyplectron.
16 September 2005 (Beijing)
- Reverted Vịt mắt trắng to Vịt mặt trắng (see Anatidae), but left a note stating that Vịt mắt trắng would be better.
- Added some alternative Vietnamese names at Anatidae, Pelecanidae, Ardeidae, Turdinae, etc.
- A little tidying up of 'Return to Top' arrows (
). The 'About this table' Toolbit sign has been spruced up slightly with tiny arrows and moved in some cases. The 'About this table' notice itself has been placed on the Index Page as well. - Fixed one small error.
15 September 2005 (Beijing)
- Flushed out the last unconverted graphics and changed them to Unicode. Only those that cannot be represented in Unicode still remain in graphic form.
- Added a Cultural Note to Psittacidae.
- Added English common name 'Chinese hill warbler' to Rhopophilus pekinensis. Corrected a couple of transliteration erors on the same page (will they never stop coming?).
14 September 2005 (Beijing)
- Added a proverb to Corvinae.
- Fixed an error in the Chinese language index.
- Replaced a remaining graphic that had been left in by accident.
12 September 2005 (Macau)
- Corrected a few minor errors.
- Added a Tooltip for another character not supported by many browsers (Anas quequedula / Anas formosa).
10 September 2005 (Macau)
- Added more links to Anatidae.
- Added 'Scientific & English, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese' column super-heading to the rest of the subsite.
- Corrected one or two small errors (including what appears to be a mistaken Vietnamese name for the Ferruginous duck/pochard Aythya nyroca).
9 September 2005 (Macau)
- Added a few photo links (Anatidae).
- Added a 'superheading' to many of the species lists (dividing them into Scientific & English, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese).
7 September 2005 (Macau)
- After many flip-flops, I have finally decided on a change of policy concerning the use of the green background to show occurrence of species in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam.
- The green background is now used only at official species names. No background is used for 'Other names'. This will make it easier to identify in exactly how many of the four territories a species occurs.
- Mainland China and Taiwan are now treated as separate zones in terms of occurrence of species. Thus a bird endemic to Taiwan will now be coloured green only in the Taiwan column; the Mainland column will be white. Previously, the Mainland list was a kind of 'master list' for all of China, including Taiwan, and the Taiwanese names were a secondary list to the right. The basis for this change is purely terminological. Taiwan has its own bird names, which a person going to Taiwan can be expected to encounter. Similarly, the Mainland has its own common names which hold sway in the PRC. Showing clearly the distribution of species between Taiwan and the Mainland is useful information. Moreover, the previous approach tangled the three Chinese-language columns together in a confused way. It is cleaner, and less confusing, to keep them separate. The third column ('Other Chinese'), still shows alternative names as found in both China and Taiwan. (It would be ideal if the Chinese-language, Japanese-language, and Vietnamese-language columns could be bundled together into three distinct 'language zones' but I have not yet found a good way of doing this.)
- In addition: A few alternative Chinese scientific names which were previously missed have been moved to the main column (beneath the bar). A Tooltip has been added to a couple of characters to summon up a graphic of the simplified character where not available in Unicode. One or two Japanese names have been added (from the Internet). A couple of minor errors have been corrected. One menu error has been fixed.
5 September 2005 (Macau)
- Replaced the explanation above each table with a Tooltip that brings the explanation up if the mouse is hovered over the text. The idea is to remove clutter.
- Added a Cultural Note to the Scolopacinae.
3 September 2005 (Macau)
- Added a little mascot at the top in place of the old navigation buttons. (Marylou Guo processed the image for me). Navigation at the bottom has also been changed.
- Added a centralised search page (using Google), linked to from every page.
- Fixed up a few errors (including the restoration of my email address, deleted by Dreamweaver in June).
- Fixed up incorrect links at Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese site maps.
- Added some photo links (mainly at Flycatchers) and cultural notes (regarding haiku season words).
31 August 2005 (Macau)
- Fixed up a couple of small errors (mainly links and fonts).
29 August 2005 (Macau)
- Fixed up quite a few Javascript menu errors, a result of incomplete testing when the Milonic menu was implemented last year. Some anchors were also deleted by Dreamweaver in June.
- Changed the Javascript 'Index' menu so that a choice can be made between going to 'Passerines' and 'Non-Passerines' in the five indexes/site maps.
- Changed style of links to a cleaner look.
- Added author and publication details to graphics of books used as sources.
- Cleaned up The Use of Kanji to Write Japanese Bird Names for residual errors.
26 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Revamped the menu on multiple-page families/subfamilies. The menu is now arranged by page number. Previously the menu adopted a 'seamless' approach which disregarded page divisions. In actual use I have found this inconvenient. (With the splitting up into individual pages, the division into tribes at some families has turned out to be rather awkward, however.)
- Added arrows
to allow rotation among pages within a family. - Replaced a couple of remaining graphics in Woodpeckers.
- Linked to this page from the Index page.
- Slightly touched up prose in Sources.
25 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Corrected a few errors. Added a few links to photos. Added Certhia quantianensis.
23 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Rectified a couple of errors (caused by unintentional deletion of graphics in June -- see 26 June). I suspect there are more deletions I have not yet picked up. Also fixed up a few glosses relating to hồng.
22 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Added multi-lingual titles to pages that didn't have them.
- Added Tooltips for two more characters (the old character for shrike and for nuthatch in Simplified Chinese).
- Fixed up a couple of menu problems.
- Slightly rewrote the General Names section for Accipitrinae.
- Fixed up a few layout errors, etc.
21 August 2005 (Beijing)
- The Notes have all been converted to Unicode. A few further Tooltips added. That just about wraps it up, except for cleaning up.
20 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Uploaded the new Site Maps for Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, and Vietnamese. Also updated the Javascript menus.
- Corrected some errors and added some Chinese bird names.
- Converted the Sources page to Unicode.
- Added Tooltips (thanks to Walter Zorn) to show graphics of recent Unicode characters not supported on many computers (the Unicode will show up as a square or question mark). Also, where I have been forced to use a non-simplified character because Unicode is missing the simplified version, I have used Tooltips to summon up a graphic of the correct simplified form.
19 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Corrected a few errors.
17 August 2005 (Beijing)
- Corrected some errors.
16 August 2005 (Beijing)
- All major files are now fully converted to Unicode and uploaded, with the exception of Sources and Introductory Notes. The site is now transparent to search engines and browsers that are Unicode-enabled. Just a few characters could not be covered, mostly rarer characters that are not in the Unicode set.
15 August 2005 (Beijing)
Started uploading the fully converted Unicode files -- virtually all graphics have been changed to Unicode. There have also been other changes:
- Vietnamese names have been capitalised.
- Japanese names have been all converted to katakana (previously some non-official names were given in hiragana, but this policy was difficult to implement consistently).
- Chinese official names from sources other than the Zheng Guangmei 'World List' (namely, the Atlas of Birds of China, MacKinnon & Phillipps, and Birds of Hong Kong and South China) have been moved to the official names column, separated from the main ZGM entry by a bar.
- Vietnamese names from Nguyen, Le Phillipps have similarly been moved to the official names column, separated from the Vo & Nguyen entry by a bar.
- Some new information (such as use of birds in Mandarin Squares) and corrections have been added.
18 July 2005 (Macau)
- The cleaning up is now complete. Chinese and Japanese romanisations have all been converted to Unicode (with appropriate diacritics instead of numbers for tones) .
- Some sections at the bottoms of pages that were inexplicably omitted when I uploaded have been restored. (Eg., at bulbuls, buntings, falcons, and sandpipers).
- Cultural Notes have been expanded a little (they are more tidbits than full cultural explanations) and extended to a total of 25 families. Moving material to the Cultural Notes has helped clear away some clutter in the main pages. The floating menu has also been updated to point to Cultural Notes.
15 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued cleaning up pages. Added a section of 'Cultural notes' at some families, with miscellaneous items on the place of birds in local culture, for instance, their use as 'season words' in Japanese haiku, etc. Just a few more days.
8 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued cleaning up pages.
7 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued cleaning up pages.
6 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued cleaning up pages. Quite a bit of messy code in there.
5 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued uploading cleaned up pages.
4 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode. Am also deleting width and height specifications inserted in the past by Dreamweaver, in preparation for conversion to characters in Unicode. However, new problems caused by Dreamweaver's faulty 'find and replace' now have to be fixed up ('ignore whitespace differences' seems to be the culprit). The updating will take at least another week.
2 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode.
1 July 2005 (Macau)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode.
30 June 2005 (Macau)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode.
29 June 2005 (Macau)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode.
28 June 2005 (Beijing)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode. The going is slow.
27 June 2005 (Beijing)
- Continued converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode.
- Started converting pinyin and Japanese romanisation to Unicode, at the same time implementing cascading styles sheets. Also corrected some errors and rewrote some small sections. This will be gradually completed over the next few weeks. This is a painstaking job due to the incredibly messy code originally generated by Dreamweaver. (Version changes over time only made the situation worse). Plus a legitimate find and replace resulted in the unintentional deletion of many scattered sections of content, which is taking weeks to fix.
6 June 2005 (Macau)
- Changed letters on Vietnamese home page to accord with Unicode (unlike previous Mac-generated mess). Fixed up a few errors in the Vietnamese home page (incorrect links). Rectified some navigation to provide better navigation experience for users of non-English home pages (i.e., Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Japanese, and Vietnamese home pages).
8 May 2005 (Beijing)
- Added a few more Chinese alternative names and one Japanese alternative name.
7 May 2005 (Beijing)
- Added a few Chinese alternative names.
9 February 2005 (Macau)
- Basically completed the work of updating and adding photo links. Fixed a few errors. Removed a few references to Cheng where not necessary (since the list no longer takes Cheng as standard).
8 February 2005 (Chinese New Year's Eve) (Macau)
- Added and corrected more photo links. Removed some deep links to one site which, on reflection, could be regarded as 'illegal'.
6 February 2005 (Macau)
- Added and corrected more photo links.
3 February 2005 (Macau)
- Corrected and added a few more photo links.
2 February 2005 (Macau)
- Added a few more photo links and made a few changes to the State of Standardisation of Bird Names (mainly with reference to Vietnamese).
1 February 2005 (Macau)
- A few more photo links added.
30 January 2005 (Macau)
- Continued adding photo links.
29 January 2005 (Macau)
- Continued adding photo links, including the restoration of some links to Mike Danzenbaker's site.
28 January 2005 (Macau)
- Added photo links to Garrulacinae.
26 January 2005 (Macau)
- Restored and added photo links to Ibises.
23 January 2005 (Macau)
- Restored a few more links to Mike Danzenbaker's site of bird photos (especially Ardeidae) and added a few other links.
22 January 2005 (Macau)
- Restored a few more links to Mike Danzenbaker's site of bird photos (especially Fringillinae, Larinae, and Muscicapinae). Also redirected a few links to point to the Oriental bird photos site and made a few small changes elsewhere.
3 January 2005 (Macau)
- Continued restoring direct links to photos on Mike Danzenbaker's site of bird photos.
2 January 2005 (Macau)
- Started restoring direct links to photos on Mike Danzenbaker's site of bird photos (with Mike's permission).
28 December 2004 (Macau)
- Made a few changes to larks.
5 December 2004 (Beijing)
- The Milonic Javascript menu at the index page has been expanded to provide access to the entire subsite.
30 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Fixed up some faulty menu items.
24 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Fixed up table of species split from Otus bakkamoena (Strigidae).
6 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Finished revising Bird names. Chinese common names now take the Zheng Guangmei list as standard rather than the older Cheng Tso-Hsin list.
- Added missing Japanese common names taking Japanese Wikipedia as the source. Japanese Wikipedia has bird lists for Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
- Fixed a few errors as well. As I have thought many times before, the glossary is now 'complete'.
5 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Continued revising Chinese bird names with Zheng Guangmei's world list of birds as standard.
4 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Continued converting bird names to ZGM as standard Chinese name.
3 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Continued converting to ZGM as the source of standard Chinese names.
2 November 2004 (Beijing)
- More pages changed to take ZGM as standard. A few minor corrections to format.
- Added Howard & Moore 2003 to Sources (at long last). Also added a note at the Main Page and the Sources page indicating the ongoing changeover from Cheng to ZGM as the source of standard Chinese common names.
1 November 2004 (Beijing)
- Continued modifying Bird Names to take the ZGM list as standard for Chinese names. A few errors corrected.
31 October 2004 (Beijing)
- Started modifying Bird Names to make Zheng Guangmei's world list of birds (4) standard for Chinese common names. Until now I have used Cheng Tso-hsin's list as the standard but splits cause problems. Zheng Guangmei's list solves most of these, although in some cases it has its own innovations. At the same time, I have again corrected a number of errors. Pages taking ZGM as standard are marked as such in the explanation above each table.
30 October 2004 (Beijing)
- Finished updating to incorporate information from Howard & Moore 2003. This mainly involved changing the English common names, but some information on species splits, new species etc. has been added and a few errors corrected.
23 October 2004 (Beijing)
- Updated kingfishers (alcedin and ceryle) to conform with Howard-Moore 2003.
- Implemented a completely new navigation system (based on Javascript licensed from Milonic).
- At the same time, updated much of the Bird Names to confirm with Howard-Moore 2003, corrected some errors, and edited a few passages.
- Removed deep links to Mike Danzenbaker's site of bird photos at Mike's request.
21 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Made a few corrections to Phylloscopus in the Acrocephalinae (Warblers).
9 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Added further photo links for Sylviinae.
8 September 2004 (Beijing)
- Added photo links for Cinclidae, Malaconotinae, and some of Sylviinae. Corrected some errors and layout.
23 August 2004 (Macau)
- Improved navigation so that returning to the home page from the Passerines will return you to the passerine section of the index.
- Linked to photos of the Estrildinae (munias, mannikins, etc.), Ploceinae (weavers), Prunellinae (accentors) and Pittidae (pittas) on the Internet. Fixed up a few small errors.
20 August 2004 (Macau)
- Linked to photos of Emberizinae (buntings) on the web.
18 August 2004 (Macau)
- Added links to publicly-available photos of the Eurylaimidae (broadbills) and Sturnidae (starlings, mynahs, etc.)
17 August 2004 (Macau)
- Added links to photos of the Glareolidae (pratincoles), Centropodidae (coucals), and Megalurinae.
28 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Added links to photos on the web for Nectariniidae 1 (sunbirds) and corrected some errors in the section.
26 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Added links to photos of kingfishers.
23 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Revised Pycnonotidae (bulbuls) to reflect Howard & Moore 2003.
- Added links to photos of Caprimulgidae (nightjars), Laniidae (shrikes), and Psittaculidae (parrots) on the Internet. Also fixed up leftover table and navigation problem in Scolopacidae.
- Replaced an offending 'beak' with the more acceptable 'bill' at a few places.
22 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Revised Sylviinae (babblers, etc.) to reflect Howard & Moore 2003 and fixed up a couple of errors.
- Added links to photos of Paridae (tits), Falconidae (falcons), and Pycnonotidae (bulbuls) on the web.
21 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Revised Alcinae, Apodidae, Phalacrocoracidae, and Pardalotidae to reflect Howard & Moore 2003.
20 July 2004 (Hainan)
- Tentatively revised the Alaudidae (larks) based on Howard & Moore 2003. Given that the Alaudidae are somewhat confused, more clarification may be needed.
- Added links to photos of Alcinae (auks, murrelets, puffins, etc) and Apodidae (swifts), Corvidae (crows), Pardalotidae (Yellow-bellied gerygone is the only representative in Asia), and Phalacrocoracidae (cormorants).
19 July 2004 (Hainan)
I am finally starting to update the site again after a month of dramatic life-changes. The first order at the moment is to revise the Bird List to reflect the latest Howard and Moore checklist of birds of the world, published in 2003, which I recently got hold of.
- Revised Phasianidae, Podicipedidae, Sulidae, Threskiornithidae, Ciconiidae, Phalacrocoracidae, and Megalaimidae in the light of Howard and Moore 2003.
23 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Split the 2 overlong Tringinae pages into 4 shorter pages.
21 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added photo links to Hirundinidae (swallows), Anatidae (ducks), and a few others (leafbirds, longtailed tits, etc.)
18 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Cleaned up the mess after adding links.
17 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added links to Tzung-Su Ding's site on the distribution range of breeding bird species in East Asia.
16 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added more links to photos of birds (Sylviinae, etc).
15 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added additional links to photos of birds (plovers and many more)
14 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added external links to bird photos on the net (whistling ducks, woodpeckers, rails, gulls, nuthatches, etc).
10 June 2004 (Hainan)
- The revision of bird names based on the Atlas of Birds of China has been completed and a few more random errors corrected.
9 June 2004 (Hainan)
- The revision of bird names based on the Atlas of Birds of China is almost complete. Mainly finches to go.
8 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Further considerable revision of bird names based on the Atlas of Birds of China.
7 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Further changes to the bird list based on the Atlas of Birds of China.
6 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Revisions to woodpeckers based on the Atlas of Birds of China.
4 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Further revisions based on the Atlas of Birds of China.
3 June 2004 (Hainan)
Thanks to prompt action by my host, Unicode and other encodings are now rendering correctly. Now I just have to wait for Google to notice and relist the relevant pages in the index!
- Identification of names used in the Atlas of Birds of China for the Laridae and others.
2 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Added more photo links for the Phasianidae.
- Discovered that my web host no longer appears to support Unicode, Chinese, or Japanese encodings following migration to a new system in May. All pages containing Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese script have been reduced to gibberish (excepting, of course, those pages using graphics). Pages affected include the index to Birds (Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Japanese, Vietnamese). I am hoping that my web host can fix the problem; otherwise I will have to look for a new one. Am still waiting for a response from them.
1 June 2004 (Hainan)
- Continued revising bird lists to show names used in the Atlas of Birds of China.
31 May 2004 (Hainan)
Back in China after a month home in Australia. Finally have a scanner, bought in Hong Kong on the way.
- Added photos of covers of books used as sources for Bird Names, my first use of the new scanner.
- Began adding information on Chinese bird names used in the Atlas of Birds of China where different from those used by Cheng Tso Hsin. (I originally left the book in Australia three years ago, believing it to be out of date and non-mainstream. I have since found that many variants used in the book actually have fairly wide usage.)
- Added a few links to bird photos in Phasianidae.
19 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Altered the index page to make it easier to consult (English put in a separate column from Latin family names).
18 April 2004 (Hainan)
- The update based on Zheng Guangmei's world list of Chinese bird names is virtually complete. (There is always a risk that these are 'famous last words'. A few hours/days/weeks/months after each update I find omissions and horrendous mistakes. Still, the first draft of the update is complete.)
17 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Unfinished business with the Cuculidae (cuckoos). Added alternative Chinese names etc.; split the page in two (with navigation frame).
- Split wagtails/pipits into two pages, also crakes/rails. Fixed up mistakes in woodpeckers.
16 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Some additions to and rewriting of the notes on bird names in CJV, corrections to Columbidae (pigeons and doves).
15 April 2004 (Hainan)
- After Dreamweaver again chewed up the GB Chinese homepage for Bird Names in Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese, I redid it along with the other three versions. Fixed up a few errors.
14 April 2004 (Hainan)
I open the bird lists with great trepidation nowadays for fear of finding more unforgiveable errors. To the people who rely on them for accurate information (and there seem to be more and more of them), I offer my abject apologies. With this going-through, they are finally turning into something to be placed in public view with confidence. But a lot of small things need to be fixed before the glossary will be totally reliable, transparent, and easy to use.
- More additions and corrections to birds. Added Honeyeaters, which I had inadvertantly omitted (represented in East Asia by one species, the highly endangered Bonin Island honeyeater/Bonin white-eye).
13 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Further updates and corrections.
12 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Continued to update and correct the bird glossary based on Zheng Guangmei's list.
10 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Added Chinese names for starlings and kingfishers (all three families) from Zheng Guangmei's world list of birds.
9 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Added more popular Chinese names to sparrows, laughing thrushes, drongos, woodpeckers, etc. from old material that I had downloaded but not used.
5 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Updated Strigidae (owls) in Bird names
3 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Continued the update of Bird Names based on Zheng Guangmei's list of world bird names.
2 April 2004 (Hainan)
- Started updating to include Chinese names from Zheng Guangmei's list of world bird names, which I have finally got hold of (ordered from Beijing). Found and corrected a depressing number of careless errors in the lists.
25 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Added a few alternative Vietnamese names to the bird glossary.
23 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Corrected error in Nuthatches.
10 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Added more Japanese birds recorded in A Field Guide to Birds of Japan as 'new additions' (mostly dating from the 1980s or 90s).
5 March 2004 (Hainan)
- More updating of bird list to include names found in a small Vietnamese book, bought in December 2003, on keeping birds (see Sources) and relatively recent additions to Japanese sightings which were omitted in my original list. Plus correction of miscellanous errors, etc. Not much left to go!
4 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Additional work to update and correct information in the CJV Bird Names list, based on Birds of Hong Kong and South China.
2 March 2004 (Hainan)
- A few changes made to the bird list, including Sources.
1 March 2004 (Hainan)
- Further updates to the bird list based on Birds of Hong Kong and South China.
29 February 2004 (Hainan)
- More work on the bird list to include material from Birds of Hong Kong and South China.
28 February 2004 (Hainan)
- More work on the bird list, including correction of a major error in Frigate birds. Also added Birds of Hong Kong and South China to the sources page.
27 February 2004 (Hainan)
- I've started updating the bird list to include additional information (mainly English common names) from the Chinese version of Birds of Hong Kong and South China (Viney), which I finally managed to get hold of in Hong Kong. In the course of this I've discovered more errors (shudder). The updates will be added gradually, as they are completed. I'm now up to the storm petrels (following the order in the book).
24 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Created link from the Chinese Writing System to 'wren babblers'. Partially rewrote notes on wren babblers.
- Fixed longstanding error in links from Sittidae. Partially rewrote section on nuthatches. Also fixed up some missing links between subfamilies and families in Fringillidae, Sylviidae, and Laridae.
- Added some photo links to Accipitrinae.
23 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Added a few photo links for sparrows, bulbuls, sibias, etc., plus correction to Japanese name of Long-tailed sibia. Made slight changes to pheasants.
22 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Added some links to photos for species of pheasants.
21 December 2003 (Hainan)
- Corrected an error whereby the index at Birds had been incorrectly replaced with the general CJV home page (one of those inexplicable mistakes that sometimes occur).
Oct, Nov, Dec 2003:
The main changes during these three months have been:
- Section on Bird names has been given a new look, expanding the pink colour scheme. Mistakes in some sections (notably sunbirds and woodpeckers) have been corrected and some sections partially rewritten. I've also begun providing links to photos of individual species (in progress).