Dartmoor National Park Authority
The colour of a bird's plumage is produced either from a pigment called melanin (usually the black, brown or grey shades) or from food such as berries and insects eaten by the bird (shades of red and yellow ). The brilliant blues and greens are produced in an entirely different way by a sort of 'trick of the light' when special ridged feathers refract the light just as raindrops produce a rainbow.
Look at these photographs of some wing feathers from a Jay : when the light is falling on them they appear a brilliant blue, but when the light shines through them the colour almost vanishes!
Colour is important to a bird whether in attracting a mate, scaring off a rival or avoiding detection by predators when used as camouflage.
Here are some Fascinating Feather Facts :
1. Humming Birds have the least amount of feathers (around 1000) and Swans have the most (around 25,000)
2. The longest feather – 10.6 metres – came from the tail of a Japanese fowl.
3. Owls have soft, velvety fringes along their primary feathers to enable silent flight, allowing them to catch mice and voles without an approach warning .
4. Snipe use their tail feathers to produce a loud quavering sound over their territory – this is known as 'drumming'.
5. When the longbow was the standard weapon of the English army, huge numbers of goose feathers were needed to make arrows. In 1417, King Henry V ordered that six feathers from every goose in the land were to be delivered to the Tower of London – one million,one hundred and ninety thousand feathers!
