Description
The Common Buzzard measures between 40 and 58 cm (16 and 23 in) in length with a 109–136 cm (43–54 in) wingspan and a body mass of 427–1,364 g (0.94–3.01 lb), making it a medium-sized raptor.
This broad-winged raptor has a wide variety of plumages, and in Europe can be confused with the similar Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus) and the only distantly related European Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus), which mimics the Common Buzzard's plumage for a degree of protection from Northern Goshawks. The plumage can vary in Britain from almost pure white to black, but is usually shades of brown, with a pale 'necklace' of feathers.
Read more about this topic: Common Buzzard
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“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)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)