Perched
there, the robin shook her tail and fluffed up her body feathers before letting
everything settle back into place. Then she began to preen, turning and dipping
her beak to lift and comb individual quills and vanes, like a fussy housekeeper
arranging and rearranging the furniture. I smiled, but who could begrudge her
perfectionism? Those feathers impacted every aspect of her life. They protected
her from the weather, warding off the sun, wind, rain, and cold. They helped
her find a mate, broadcasting her femininity to any male in the neighborhood.
They kept out thorns, thwarting insects, and, above all, gave her the skies,
allowing a flight so casually efficient that our greatest machines seem clumsy
in caparison. Abruptly satisfied with her plumes, the robin dropped from the
branch and set off over the field, wings parting the air in quick, certain
strokes. I lowered my binoculars, far behind the Audubon group now, but glad to
have been reminded of a natural miracle, feathers, as common around us as a
robin preening and taking flight.
-Thor Hanson, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
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