blood feathers

This is a blood feather of a barred owl. Blood feathers, also known as pin feathers, are new feathers that grow in birds during a normal molt, or feather loss. When a feather is pulled out or falls out, a new feather is stimulated to grow from the skin’s feather follicle. This new feather has a blood supply running through it, which gives it a deep purple, maroon, bluish-purple, or black color, instead of the usual white or clear color of a fully developed feather. The feather is also encased in a keratin sheath, or feather sheath, to protect it while it develops.  I don’t find many blood feathers, so this was a special find.

barred owl blood feather

Crow Love

Not everyone loves crows. But I do. Crows are part of the corvid family, which includes the Common Raven, American Crow, Western Scrub-Jay, Pinyon Jay, Blue Jay, Steller’s Jay, Gray Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker and Black-billed Magpie. They are known for being bold, beautiful, brainy, and gregarious. And loud. So yes I do love them but on the occasional summer morning, when the young of a brood are calling constantly to their parents, I could wish they would shut up for an hour or two.

two crow feathers in the rain

a summer rainbow

A rainbow selection of common backyard bird feathers. Look at the diversity of color and shape. Some help to fly, some to attract mates, some to keep warm. But each is also just a feather, with a single shaft and barbs. I love to ponder the millennia of miniscule trial and error adaptations it took to get to this panoply.

a collection of colorful songbird feathers

Striped Perfection

I refer to these as wood duck feathers because they tend to litter my yard during fall preening when the wood ducks are gorging themselves on our acorns. But, to be honest, they could also be Canada goose feathers.  Anyone have a positive ID on these downy feathers I only find during preening season?

wood duck feathers

Land of Sky Blue Waters

As I have mentioned before, these blue-flagged feathers are not really blue. They have micro-structures on the barbs that reflect only blue light. I had to turn this composition around and around until the light hit it just-so in order to make the blue pop. It’s easy to understand why blue would be a good color for a wading duck in the land of sky blue waters*.

mallard duck feathers

*My dad worked for Hamm’s brewery all of his adult life. Bonus points to anyone who read “land of sky blue waters” to the tune of the famous Hamm’s beer jingle.