Explore how the vulturine guinea fowl’s striking blue and white feathers serve more than beauty. From structural coloration ...

“Birds of a feather flock together.” You’ve heard this phrase hundreds, or maybe even thousands of times — but do you know what it means? Do birds of a feather really flock together in nature, or is ...

A Fork-tailed Flycatcher. Credit: Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Field Museum Bird feathers have many different functions. Softer down keeps a bird warm and stiffer wing feathers are used for flight.

Birds boast some of the most vibrant colors among terrestrial animals. Our pretty avian friends have inspired our Democrat and Chronicle photographers for years and captured the imaginations of many ...

It is common to say that something is as light as a feather in order to mean that something doesn’t weigh much at all. A group of researchers, however, has found that while all feathers are pretty ...

Each Canada goose that you see flying around in formation around Lancaster County these days has between 20,000 and 25,000 feathers, most hidden from sight. A typical songbird at your backyard feeder ...

Lined with endless rows of white cabinets, Harvard’s Ornithology Collection is imposing — even mausoleum-like — upon first glance; it’s only after opening the drawers that the true colors of the ...

It doesn’t get top billing at the North Museum of Nature and Science in Lancaster. But venture into the basement and behold a world-class bird collection whose origins are full of intrigue and ...

Because birds live outdoors, there's an assumption that they're dirty and harbor many insect pests among their feathers. But this is very wide of the mark: Birds are as clean as cats, spending almost ...

Many feathered dinosaurs couldn’t fly — at least, not like birds do today. But the reptiles’ feathers may have been more birdlike than scientists thought. Yet fossilization can change feather proteins ...

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 prohibits possessing native North American bird feathers without a permit. The law, punishable by fines and imprisonment, aims to prevent the killing and ...

A Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher takes flight on the front cover of the new chapbook "Words of a Feather" with poems inspired by Kansas birds. Many of us have been spending more time outside during the ...