i always find feathers on this trail, i said to my friend kristin today, as we set off from the vadnais lake parking lot. so many feathers, in fact, that i sometimes bring a bag with me, because feathers are hard to pinch between your fingers in a way that is both firm enough to keep them from slipping free and fluttering to the ground behind you, and delicate enough not to tear up their delicate barbs. today, i did not bring a bag with me, and was rewarded for my lack of presumption with a particularly awkward double-pinched-semi-armload of feathers both detached from, and still attached to, their owners. i carried them gingerly back to the car, and then carefully into my bedroom, and sort of let them all fall onto a sheet of white tagboard, and they fell just exactly like this. well, that’s actually quite beautiful, i said to myself. and went to find my camera.

wild turkey feathers, one owl feather, and a sparrow

vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota