- This topic has 15 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 16 years, 5 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
Could anyone tell me what kind of raptor this feather belongs to? My youngest brother found it out in the yard today while he was mowing the grass, and in a rare display of thoughtfulness (for a 16-yr-old, anyway) brought it in to me instead of chopping it up. I’ve looked online but so far I can’t find any good pages showing the different birds of prey in Indiana, let alone clear pictures of their feathers 😕 I’m thinking maybe a hawk? Owl? There are a lot of both around here. Anyway, it is a lovely feather and I’d like to keep it, but I’d also like to get a positive ID on it first.
Here’s a pic of the feather by itself, and one with a curlie for size comparison. The colors are true, light brown/grey stripes against cream.
It’s familiar. *taps head thoughtfully*
I think it’s probably some kind of owl. But I can’t remember which one, but it looks like an owl feather.
Those do look similar, BDW. We’re supposed to have lots of owls around here, but I haven’t seen one in years and I sleep too hard to hear them calling at night 🙄
The flight feathers of large owls usually have a couple of identifiers. The upper surface of the feather often appears “furry” when you look at it closely. Also, sometimes the leading edge is sawtoothed rather than smooth. Both of these are features that make the owl a silent flyer. If you whisk an owl feather through the air, it usually makes no sound, while a hawk feather will whisper.
This looks a lot like a great horned owl feather, although I’ve seen a few barn owl feathers that looked similar. It’s in nice condition, too. Great find! 8)
Barrdwing wrote:The flight feathers of large owls usually have a couple of identifiers. The upper surface of the feather often appears “furry” when you look at it closely. Also, sometimes the leading edge is sawtoothed rather than smooth. Both of these are features that make the owl a silent flyer. If you whisk an owl feather through the air, it usually makes no sound, while a hawk feather will whisper.
This looks a lot like a great horned owl feather, although I’ve seen a few barn owl feathers that looked similar. It’s in nice condition, too. Great find! 8)
Thanks for the info! 😀 I looked at it with a magnifying glass and the top surface is indeed fuzzy. It also made no noise at all when I whisked it around.
So owl it appears to be 8) Maybe we have one living nearby. I feel lucky!
You seem to have a Great Horned Owl flight feather!
Migratory birds, with few exceptions, are protected within the USA and without special permits their feathers are illegal to own. Raptors (predatory birds such as owls, falcons, hawks…) are absolutely protected.
What I’m saying is that I didn’t hear a word about keeping the feather, and your future plans for it should be mum. 😉
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comstarbreeze wrote:What are you supposed to do with a feather if you find one? What use would it be to anyone? 😕
Legally, you should leave it alone.
The reason the law is there is that game wardens cannot tell the difference between feathers that are lost by wild birds naturally then collected, and feathers that are plucked from illegally shot and killed birds. Though it seems strange, there is a ‘back market’ for animal parts such as this and many raptors are poached and needlessly killed. Though it’s not fair to people that just want to keep a feather they find, the law is in place to try and protect the birds.
If you keep a feather you find I didn’t hear it… just be careful who you tell, is what I’m saying. 🙂 I had a friend post about a find she had in her personal journal online and a game warden was alerted and was knocking on her door the next day with a $5,000 fine….
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comWow!!! 😯 Well, the only feathers I ever find belong to bluejays. I have my own flock. They like to eat the peanuts I put out for the squirrels. 😆
starbreeze wrote:What are you supposed to do with a feather if you find one? What use would it be to anyone? 😕
Well, that’s just it. So long as they’re considered to be of no real use or value, the birds are safer. If owning a raptor feather became some kind of status symbol, then you’d have a market springing up and there would be some jerks who instead of waiting for a feather to drop, would instead go out with a gun and shot a whole bird so they could pull the feathers and sell them. The Great Egret was almost wiped out decades ago because of a fashion for decorating Victorian ladies’ hats with egret feathers. 😡
By making it illegal to own a raptor feather, Fish & Game is just trying to make it really, really hard for anyone to make a profit off of selling raptor feathers. That’s pretty much it. That doesn’t stop someone from picking up a fallen feather and keeping it. Many wardens probably don’t care about that kind of collecting on principle. But if they actually find one in someone’s possession, then they have to take action because it’s hard to prove that that feather was freely molted by the bird. And the severity of the action will probably vary from warden to warden, and depend on circumstances. I suspect that most wardens would really rather not know how many thousands of kids have a red-tailed hawk feather or similar innocently tucked away in a treasure box. 😛
People of Native American descent are legally permitted to own raptor feathers under certain circumstances, because of the cultural and religious role raptors play for them. I don’t know the specifics of the law here, and I’m sure it’s complicated. :/
You have to be able to produce proof of a tribal affiliation to have anything like feathers and the like legally.
We have several kinds of raptors here near my place, from Red Shouldered Hawks to Barred Owls. My guess on that feather would have been Red Tailed Hawk, but……
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
