Description
The Brown Thrasher is bright reddish-brown above with thin, dark streaks on its buffy underparts. It has a whitish-colored chest with distinguished teardrop-shaped markings on its chest. Its long, rufous tail is rounded with paler corners, and eyes are a brilliant yellow. Its bill is brownish, long, and curves downward. Both male and females are similar in appearance. The juvenile appearance of the Brown Thrasher from the adult is not remarkably different, except for plumage texture, indiscreet upper part markings, and the irises having an olive color.
Adults measure around 23.5 to 30.5 cm (9.3 to 12.0 in) long with a wingspan of 29 to 33 cm (11 to 13 in), and weigh 61 to 89 g (2.2 to 3.1 oz), with an average of 68 g (2.4 oz). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 9.5 to 11.5 cm (3.7 to 4.5 in), the tail is 10.9 to 14.1 cm (4.3 to 5.6 in), the culmen is 2.2 to 2.9 cm (0.87 to 1.1 in) and the tarsus is 3.2 to 3.6 cm (1.3 to 1.4 in). There are two subspecies: the 'Brown Thrasher' (T. rufum rufum), which lies in the eastern half of Canada and the United States, and the 'Western Brown Thrasher' (T. rufum longicauda), which resides in the central United States east of the Rocky Mountains and southern central Canada. The Western Brown Thrasher is distinguished by a more cinnamon upper part and whiter wing bars than T.rufum rufum.
The lifespan of the Brown Thrasher depends on a year-to-year basis, as the rate of survival the first year is 35%, 50% in between the second and third year, and 75% between the third and fourth year. Disease and exposure to cold weather are among contributing factors for the limits of the lifespan. However, the longest lived Thrasher in the wild is 12 years, and relatively the same for ones in captivity.
Read more about this topic: Brown Thrasher
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)