Last week, when it wasn’t snowing, I found these feathers lying in the street close to my house. I can’t work out what bird they might belong to.
They don’t belong to the Egyptian Geese, which had been my first thought.
Then I wondered whether they’d come from the Red Kite that I often see circling above the houses. That seems more likely – if he’d tried to prey on something that had fought back, he could easily have lost a few feathers in the process.
Does anybody else have any ideas?
Could they be partridge feathers? Not the long elegant ones you see put into hats, but some of the shorter ones? I’ve seen a few of these spread around, normally unfortunetely the remains of car strikes on quiet country roads, the ‘remains’ are usually carried some way off- if you have birds of prey around could also be the remains of a meal? I guess it depends how rural it is where you are
Hi Glenn,
I’d have thought the feathers were too big to have come from a partridge (the one in the centre of the picture is about 12cm long), but this photo of a partridge feather is a pretty good match for the one on the right!
We definitely have birds of prey around, and lots of foxes, so this could be the answer. Thanks!