birdsoup

What to do with an old coat? A new coat looks bright and crisp when you first bring it home from the store. But after a full season of wear, it no longer looks new. It starts to look somewhat frayed, slightly worn. Just from daily use. Eventually it looks shabby. You may donate it to Salvation Army and buy a new coat. Bird feathers also suffer from daily use. They show wear, maybe fade in the sunlight, feathers edges become ragged. Individual feathers may be bent or damaged, maybe fall out. Worn feathers are not as effective for insulation or as reliable for flight. But birds can’t go to the store to get a new coat. So they do the next best thing. They create a new coat by getting rid of their old, worn-out feathers and replacing them with new feathers. All North American birds go through the process, call molt, at least once each year. New feathers grow in and push out the old ones. They don’t lose all their old feathers at once. That would make them naked and vulnerable, unable to fly. A complete molt could take weeks. Different sections of feathers are replaced a little at a time. New feathers may give a bird a slightly difference appearance. Consider the male Am. Goldfinch who molts his bright yellow feathers at the end of summer and replaces them with a more drab looking winter coat of feathers. Same bird, but a much different look. Even starlings look different after they molt into new feathers. They appear shinny black with specks of bright gold. As winter weather takes it told and the new feathers become old and worn. The specks wear off leaving the black iridescent starling that we are all familiar with.