Usually, watchful waiting is an outpatient process and may have a duration of months or years. In contrast, medical observation is usually an inpatient process, often involving frequent or even continuous monitoring and may have a duration of hours or days. 1 Medical uses.
Shearwaters earned their name by their ability to cut - or shear - the water with their wings, although until recently they were known as 'muttonbirds'. This name was given to them by early European settlers, who killed the birds for food and found that their flesh tasted like mutton.
Contour feathers are not uniformly distributed on the skin of the bird except in some groups such as the penguins, ratites and screamers. In most birds the feathers grow from specific tracts of skin called pterylae; between the pterylae there are regions which are free of feathers called apterylae.