Into the Woods with Curio: Found Feathers
Doug Smith
“You were taught, ABOUT your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
The middle of summer is a good time to find bird feathers while out on a walk or hike. A small blue feather from a blue jay, a long, dark brown feather from a Canada goose, or a cryptically coloured feather from a turkey. It’s always fun to pick them up and try to work out which part of the bird they came from – is it a secondary flight feather from the left wing, a tail feather, or a smaller covert feather?
These lost feathers aren’t random. They are the result of the annual moult that many birds go through at this time of year when they lose their old, worn feathers and grow new ones to replace them. For most songbirds, this takes place over a one to two-month period. It takes that long simply because birds need to keep flying, so they only lose a few feathers at a time. Larger birds, such as ravens and turkey vultures, take up to six months to complete their moult. They start in late spring by losing one flight feather at a time from each wing, which is noticeable when they fly over. Other birds, such as ducks and geese, go through their moult in a shorter time – about one month -- temporarily losing the power of flight during that time.
Moulting is a complicated process for birds. Some go through a complete change of feathers, while others go through only a partial moult. Other birds delay their moult until after the nesting season but still complete it in time for their fall migration. Moulting also takes a lot of energy and requires a lot of protein. Feathers are made from the protein keratin, which also explains why most birds feed insect protein to their nestlings, so they leave the nest with strong feathers.
Once a bird’s moult is over and it has a new set of feathers it’s ready for the fall migration, or for winter’s cold weather. Goldfinches have up to 1000 more feathers in their winter coat compared to their summer garb.
Other animals besides birds change their coats with the seasons. Foxes and many other fur-bearers shed their long winter coats for shorter summer coats. Snowshoe hares and weasels even change their colour to brown in the summer, and back to white in the winter, for camouflage. Snakes regularly shed their skins as they grow. It’s always exciting to find the papery, shed skin from a snake. Even insects shed their skins. A dragonfly larva sheds its larval shell when it changes into its adult form. The same is true of cicadas. Because caterpillars grow incredibly fast, they shed their skin 4 or 5 times before forming their final chrysalis or cocoon to metamorphize into a butterfly or moth.
These changes of skin or coats are a reminder -- have I shed my old ‘skin’? that is, my old nature? God’s Word encourages me to ‘put on the new self’, and to be constantly growing spiritually.