Physical Description
The Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, as its name implies, is a glossy black bird with a small yellow humeral patch around its "shoulders" outlined by a white margin. Immature individuals possess a duller coloration and a brown abdomen. Although plumage coloration is indistinguishable between the sexes, sexual dimorphism is present in this species with males being larger than females. Plumage abnormality is rare in this species. Adult individuals measure from 20–23 cm (7.9–9.1 in); on average, males weigh 41 g (1.4 oz) and females weigh 35 g (1.2 oz). Sexual categorization may also be made by measurement of the wings, with males' being 1.1 times larger and having a mean length of 102 cm (40 in), while females' wings have an average length of 93.3 cm (36.7 in).
Read more about this topic: Yellow-shouldered Blackbird
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or description:
“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)