Description
White-winged Choughs are easily recognised but often mistaken for "crows"—a double mistake, as the birds most frequently called "crows" in Australia are actually ravens (see Australian Raven and Little Raven). The White-winged Chough is a large, black bird—at about 45 cm (18 in) only a little smaller than a raven or a little larger than an Australian Magpie—but has red eyes and a finer, slightly down-curved beak, similar to a European Chough. These red eyes become swollen and brighter in colour when the bird is excited. In flight the large white patches in the wings are immediately obvious, and explain the descriptive part of their common name.
Their calls consist primarily of a grating alarm call and a descending piping call. The latter call is diagnostic for the bird in the wild, being significantly different in timbre and melody to that of other birds sharing their habitat.
Read more about this topic: White-winged Chough
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)