I took these photos a couple of days ago and I am intrigued by what appears to be "fingers" or claws on the female wrens wing. Am I just seeing an odd feather arrangement during her grooming? .... or do they have little remnant digits under the feathers?
I thought birds had one remaining finger, inside the wing, but this sure looks strange!
RogerM, an excellent depiction of what you were talking about.
Did you see this bird in flight? It almost appears that it has a genetic deformity & would be incapable of flight. Or is it a juvenile with undeveloped wings?
I doubt that it has remnant digits under the feathers. It's not a feature of the superb fairy wren or any other bird that I'm aware of but I'm happy to be informed to the contrary.
It could fly perfectly well, but its so fast you can't see anything. I think it was probably just a tiny clump of feathers pulled up as she preened herself. It looked so strange I just thought I would show you all and ask.
Here is a photo taken just beforehand.
I don't see anything weird in that photo.
Are you referring to the shadow cast by the bill?
- soakes
soakes
Olinda, Victoria, Australia
Maybe that's all it is, but I'm still not sure. Guess it doesn't really matter!
Looks ok to me also.
The really zoomed in photo shows the long primary feathers, with preening of the smaller secondary flight feathers I would say...
Cheers,
Scott.
Thanks for everyone's comments, I think we have all angles covered. I appreciate the interest in what was probably a dumb question. Stay tuned - I have another one coming up under the "Identifications" section. Regards, Roger
A couple of weeks ago, my wife was startled by a Cuckoo Shrike which she thought was "swooping" her. When I came out to see what was happening, the bird came into our outside barbecue area and appeared to be trying to communicate, chattering away and further startling my wife with its close approach.
I offered the bird my finger to stand on (which it did) and carried it a few metres away, putting it down on the trellis near our doorway while I went inside the house to find it some food.
I still occasionally see a pair of Cuckoo Shrikes around our yard, but they have not made such a close approach since.
This is the closest approach of any bird so far. Magpies in the area often come begging, but the boldest of these maintain a distance of at least a metre.
I wonder whether other members have experienced anything similar.
.Hi, while you might have some nice experiences with birds coming close, I would like to encourage you to read some of numerous publications about feeding bread, and other foods, to wild birds. Don't take my word for it, make up your own mind.
Please reconsider.
Many people think that it is a good thing to feed bread to birds. While it makes folk feel better to do so, it does the birds no good, in fact in most cases it is bad for the birds.
The reason being is that there is hardly any nutritional value in bread for birds and whilst the bird may feel satisfied at the time, the bread provides no real nutritional benefit.
If a small bird fills up with bread on a cold winters evening it may not survive till morning as it will not have gained enough energy from the bread to fend of the cold.
It can also be potentially dangerous if too much bread been eaten by a bird as their digestive tracts were not designed to cope with bread, and dry bread in particular can swell up inside a bird and cause blockages preventing them from absorbing much needed nutrients. These blockages can sometimes be fatal.
M-L