By Louie Ferrera

The hike I went on today was all about feathers. It seemed like everywhere I looked, there they were: A 12 inch long, steel-grey wing feather from a Great Blue heron, a tail feather from a crow; coal-black and broadly rounded at the end in two heart-shaped humps. I saw a turkey feather and one from a jay, bits of down from who knows what and a jumble of feathers from all parts of a quail’s body marking the spot where this bird met its end.

I’m not sure if there just happened to be a lot of feathers lying around or if I was just tuned into them, probably a little of both. Either way once I began noticing feathers they seemed to be everywhere. I wore the crow feather in the back of my Giants cap which elicited smiles from folks I passed along the trail. My favorite finds of the day were the trio that accompanies this story. The black one with spots is from a hairy (or downy, I can never tell the two apart) woodpecker. The multi-hued one was found along the rocky shore of a river so I think it belonged to a spotted sandpiper, a small shorebird that I had seen before at that spot. I’d have to consult an ornithologist to ID the solid grey feather.

The perfect, beautiful symmetry of a bird feather is a true wonder of nature. I love the way the individual parts of a feather radiate out from the central rib and sweep upwards to a taper at the end. When I hold a feather in my hand I can feel the energy of the bird it was once attached to. If there are gaps in a feather it can be restored to its previously unbroken state simply by running your fingers along its length, I think that is just so cool!

Throughout human history bird feathers have been prized and in some cultures thought to bestow magical powers on those who wore them. In Native American culture, eagle feathers represent courage, strength and healing. Colorful feathers have been particularly sought after, leading to extinctions or near extinctions of many birds as they’ve literally been hunted to death. One such bird is the quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. Quetzals are extremely rare and confined to isolated pockets of undisturbed jungle in Central America. On our family trip to Costa Rica in 2018 we were fortunate enough to see a Resplendent Quetzal while on a guided hike through the Monteverde Forest Preserve. It was a brief but memorable glimpse, the quetzal’s ruby red breast flashing in the sun, its nearly one meter-long emerald green tail feathers trailing behind it as it flew from the tree tops. My favorite bird feathers can be seen a little closer to home: the dazzling, iridescence of the hummingbird. With the right combination of sun and light our year-round resident, the Anna’s Hummingbird, lights up like a jewel in a yuletide display of crimson and emerald.

For me, finding and identifying feathers is one way to deepen the nature experience. Seeing a bird through my binoculars is one thing, finding its feather is to hold a little piece of that bird in my hand. Today I was a collector, other days I’ll just observe and leave them for someone else to find. It’s a good policy to spread the wonder around.