Pied Currawong - Description

Description

The Pied Currawong is generally a black bird with white in the wing, undertail coverts, the base of the tail and most visibly, the tip of the tail. It has yellow eyes. Adult birds are 44–50 cm (17–19 in) in length, with an average of around 48 cm (19 in); the wingspan varies from 56 to 77 cm (22–31 in), averaging around 69 cm (27 in). Adult males average around 320 g (11 oz), females 280 g (10 oz). The wings are long and broad. The long and heavy bill is about one and a half times as long as the head and is hooked at the end. Juvenile birds have similar markings to adults but have softer and brownish plumage overall, although the white band on the tail is narrower. The upperparts are darker brown with scallops and streaks over the head and neck, and the underparts lighter brown. The eyes are dark brown and the bill dark with a yellow tip. The gape is a prominent yellow. Older birds grow darker until adult plumage is achieved, but juvenile tail markings only change to adult late in development. Birds appear to moult once a year in late summer after breeding. The Pied Currawong can live for over 20 years in the wild.

Read more about this topic:  Pied Currawong

Famous quotes containing the word description:

    Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
    Horace Walpole (1717–1797)