Read About Bird Feathers

Bird feathers aren't just for collecting or for using as a writing quill, they serve legitimate purposes for the birds they protect. Here's everything you need to know about bird feathers.

They're beautiful

Not to state the obvious, but aren't bird feathers beautiful? Birds have beautiful feathers because, quite simply, it attracts the opposite sex. Everyone's seen the male peacock at the zoo that spreads its beautiful plume to as a means to attract a female peacock.

Bird feathers are attractive because birds have great vision and naturally turn their heads to attractive colors. The color in the upper layer of their feathers is created by the pigmentation in the protein that makes up their feathers.

Some bird feathers are beautiful, but they're also deceptive. Take the blue jay. A blue jay got its name because it has vibrant, blue feathers. However, upon closer look, it's been observed that the blue jay doesn't actually have blue feathers. In fact, if you find a blue jay feather on the ground, it's not blue. Birds that have blue, green and violet feathers are often subjected to the prism effect. The prism effect is a light trick that makes iridescent colors, such as the "blue" on a blue jay, appear dark and vibrant in color when the feather itself is actually just reflecting and interacting with other colors and cell membranes.

They're functional

We've learned that bird feathers are beautiful because birds need to attract each other for mating purposes. Attraction is not the only function of bird feathers. Bird feathers are also used to keep the bird warm and aid it in flight.

Bird feathers keep the warm bird because they are waterproof and they consist of several layers. Birds secrete an oil that keep their feathers waterproof. If they didn't have waterproof feathers, they would have a very hard time surviving in cold weather because they would get sick.

Birds also have a layer of bird feathers called down feathers. You might be familiar with the term because humans often stuff their coats, pillows and comforters with down. Down is incredibly warm. A bird's down feathers are underneath the other layer of feathers. These feathers are soft and fluffy and they do a fabulous job of keeping the bird insulated. Down feathers are not the only kind of bird feathers that a bird has. Birds actually have about four different kinds of bird feathers.

Bird feathers also help birds fly because they are lightweight and help the bird catch the wind.