Great Bustard

Great Bustard

Otis late
ES: Avutarda común

Description

L: 75-105cm; W: 190-260cm;

It is the heaviest bird in Europe, very large with a gray head and neck; back brown with fine dark barring; white underparts; wing with white coverts and black and white flight feathers. Male in breeding plumage with large white ochretertiary “beards” and pectoral band with black margins at the tip, the innermost with black and tan bars; long white whiskers on the sides of the chin. In non-breeding plumage, both sexes similar without mustaches or pectoral band, if anything with whiter tertials and a more intense cinnamon back, female smaller than male. Juveniles with dark crown; back and lesser and median coverts with tan bars, narrower and duller than adult; narrow, buff-yellow tail feathers with two black bars; flight feathers narrower and less intensely black than in adult; primaries with more white at base and pale buff tip; secondaries tipped white; alula similar in color to primaries