D. August Baertlein - Writer & Ruminator
  • Home
  • My Books
  • Book Reviews
  • Blog
  • About Me
  • Contact

Woodpecker Feathers and Housecat Fur

10/13/2015

Comments

 
Picture
I found a redheaded woodpecker (more accurately, a red-breasted sapsucker) dead on the ground yesterday, which caused me to lament again the senselessness of window-induced loss of bird life.  He (and by his bright red head, I know he was a he) had apparently slammed into the glass even though the curtain was mostly pulled.  

Considering the number of birds around here, it doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s still sad.  I’ve tried stickers on the windows, and I close the curtains as much as I can bear, but still a bird neck or two breaks against the few windows of my tiny house every year.  I can only imagine what damage those huge glass skyscrapers do.

When my mourning was complete, I fell under the spell of his beauty.  His feathers so soft and colorful; the patterns of black and white, red, browns and even yellows so precise and intricate.

Picture
​
I opened a wing to see that each feather was colored in such a way that its placement on the wing contributed to the overall pattern just so.  Were this an art project, the advanced planning to create each individual feather with markings to exactly fit its place in the grand scheme would have been astonishing.

For a furred animal, each hair comes from a localized position on the skin.  So it’s fairly easy to see how a spot or a stripe arises.  My calico cat is awash with stunning swirls of various browns and blacks, but I could paint that by flinging a few coffee and late choices on a canvas with my eyes closed. 

On this bird, long feathers extend out from the skin, and lie against each other in a puzzle of overlapping pieces. And they all fit together to make a recognizable pattern, a pattern so repeatable that I can look it up in my Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds and find my red-breasted sapsucker staring back at me from the woodpecker section.
​
Life is amazing, even in death.

Comments

    Author

    I made a career of writing software by day while scribbling stories by night, a combo made even odder by the fact that I started my adult life as a marine biologist/geneticist. 

    I got my Ph.D. ever so long ago, but I still love science, especially the biological variety. Now I write SciFi and Fantasy that's full of it.  Science, I mean.


    ​Subscribe

    Subscribe


    Blogs I love

    _Nathan Bransford
    Anne R.Allen
    Shrinking Violets Promotions
    Siri Weber Feeney 
    Lynn Becker Books 
    Terry Pierce
    Jean Ann Williams
    CSPerryess
    Goodreads
    Writer's Guide to E-Publishing
    Science News
    Discover Magazine
    Scientific American
    Goodreads with Ronna


    Archives

    September 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    June 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    January 2019
    October 2017
    March 2017
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    January 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from dedhed1950, ScottM70, peru, lili eta marije, erin_everlasting, timparkinson, allspice1