greater covert

On its wings, its greater coverts are near black.

The secondaries and greater coverts have chestnut bars or spots.

In flight the underwing lining is dark and the greater coverts are black.

Females differ from males in being browner above, more buff-toned below, and often lacking the white greater covert patch.

Close inspection of the wing reveals darker centres to both the greater coverts and tertial feathers.

The wings are grey-brown with buff-tipped greater coverts and glossy black secondaries with buff tips.

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Shoulders and greater coverts are chestnut, and its median coverts are black at the base with white at the tips.

The greater coverts and tertial feathers have broad yellow fringes that create a narrow, if conspicuous, wingbar when the wing is folded.

The upperside is unstreaked, pale buff with the tail quills, outer greater coverts and wing quills being a contrasting dark brown.

In flight they look not unlike the Dalmatian Pelican but the tertials and inner secondaries are darker and a pale band runs along the greater coverts.

Wings are brown; greater coverts are broadly tipped and narrowly edged with buff or grayish white, forming a wing bar variously described as fairly conspicuous to indistinct.

Juveniles are duller green, tinged brownish-buff on upperparts, with duller rump, buff fringes to greater coverts and paler or heavily streaked underparts.

Overall, the male is black above and white below, but also with a white supercilium (sometimes absent), half-collar, and greater covert patch, and a variable-sized orange patch on the breast.

The primary and greater coverts as well as the secondaries are a fulvous-brown edged in rufous, while the primaries are a dark brown with the longest feathers being tipped in black.

The wings and tail appear mostly greenish, with distinct pale yellowish tips to median coverts and broad pale yellowish tips to greater coverts, forming two prominent wing-bars.

Juvenile - Juveniles are similar to adults with a brown back, feathers with buffy tips and darker brown central streaks, greater coverts edged with white, and light streaking on breast and throat.

The primaries, the tips of secondaries, the alula, the tip of the tail, and the edges of upper tail coverts are all black and the greater coverts droop into explosive plumes.

Grey adult females have a pinkish-buff or buff background to the barring and neck sides, and sometimes small rufous spots on the median and greater coverts and the outer webs of the secondary feathers.

To determine a bird's wing formula, the distance between the tip of the most distal primary and the tip of its greater covert (the longest of the feathers that cover and protect the shaft of that primary) is measured in millimeters.

The male in breeding plumage has blackish face mask almost encircled by a strong white supercilium and malar stripe, a bright orange-buff throat and breast, and small white wing patches on the greater coverts and inner median coverts.

Confusion of wintering birds is possible with the winter Lapland Longspur (Calcarius lapponicus) but that species is much shorter-tailed with white outer rectrices, has rich rufous in greater coverts, and is strictly terrestrial on open ground.

It also has prominent double wing bars formed by yellowish-white tips to the wing covert feathers (a long bar on the greater coverts and a short bar on the median coverts), yellow-margined tertial feathers, and long yellow supercilium.

The race S. s. capitanea is similar but the underparts are generally paler olive without any of the dark olive centers to the feathers, it also has yellow on sides of the base of the tail and on the tips of the median and greater coverts.

Within each group of wing coverts, the rows of feathers overlap each other like roof tiles (the greater coverts are overlain by the median coverts, which in turn are overlain by the outermost row of lesser coverts, and so on).