it’s quite amazing what you learn about feathers when you try to put one together. for one thing, they look as if they are shaped like christmas trees, but they are not shaped like that.  they are much longer and slimmer than that. my first effort, with each ascending layer of feathers laid out wider than the one before, was on its way to looking like a wedge, not a feather, before i started over, and actually paid attention to real life feather construction, rather than the imagined feather in my head i was trying to imitate.

found feathers: turkey, owl, eagle, egret, hawk, crow, goose, chicken, pintade, flicker, mallard, woodpecker, cardinal, blue jay

mostly found in minnesota, with a few from southwest france