Sunday, October 11, 2009

Found Objects III: Multi-coloured Feather


Bird feather

One day in late August I picked up this feather in the Don Valley. I kept it because it has such an unusual colouration. However, I put it away and only recently remembered it.

The feather has a white tip, long black feathers on one side and short blue-black feathers on the other side. Its length from tip to tip is 9.5cm. I am no expert on bird physiology but my guess is that the short blue-black feathers are the ones that show up on the outside of the bird's body with the black feathers lining its skin.

I did some searching but couldn't find any good source on how to identify birds based on feathers. Anybody out there who knows what type of bird it belongs to?

3 comments:

Samaelsmith said...

That would be a blue jay.

Steve S said...

A blue jay.

Donwatcher said...

Well that makes sense. Although not as exotic as I imagined. Thanks for your insights.