Feathers

The day is done, and the darkness 

Falls from the wings of Night, 

As a feather is wafted downward 

From an eagle in his flight. 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I regularly find feathers in the yard and around. It's illegal to hang on to them if they are not a game species (come on, like I would even know?). So I take a photo or two and post them on iNaturalist. Sometimes I know the bird (Blue Jays are pretty easy). But sometimes it's a bit of a mystery.

This week I found these feathers. I knew the jay, but the other...hmmm...

Yeah. It's a Blue Jay

The identification app suggested vulture or wild turkey. That did not seem right so I just put "Bird" as a placeholder.

The mystery feather that has been identified as from an Eastern Screech Owl!

One member suggested "Eastern Screech Owl" - one of my favorite birds. It's even a bird I know by ear! I expressed some skepticism and he replied with a fabulous website that clearly identifies my feather (um, the feather I left on the ground in my yard) as from a screech owl.

Guess I'm going to start a page where I add bird feathers found and identified.

This is it.


NOTES:

The magic website: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eastern+screech+owl+feather&t=ffsb&atb=v72-2&iax=1&ia=images