I discovered a new website today.? New to me anyway.? It's the US Fish & Wildlife Service's feather atlas of North American birds.? http://lab.fws.gov/featheratlas.?


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According to the site, it's "a new web-based resource from the Forensics Lab for the identification of wing and tail feathers. These feathers are often encountered by OLE investigators in wildlife products or associated with bird remains, but can be very difficult to identify with bird field guides. The website?currently contains high-resolution scanned images of the flight feathers of 64 species, including all widespread North American hawks and eagles, falcons, vultures, owls, and doves, as well as roadrunner and other cuckoos and flickers and other woodpeckers. Of particular value to investigators will be the extensive series of scans illustrating the appearance of the wing and tail feathers at various ages in both Bald and Golden Eagles.


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This is an ongoing project that will continually add new species. Efforts are currently under way to scan the feathers of gamebirds (grouse, ptarmigan, and quail) for which specimens are available in the Forensics Lab collection. We solicit the donation of specimens for this project. If a species from one the families currently covered on the website is not represented, that means we need a specimen from that species. Examples include Swallow-tailed Kite, Zone-tailed Hawk, Gyrfalcon, White-winged Dove, and Common Ground-Dove. We are also interested in obtaining examples of unusual plumage types, such as very dark or very pale Red-tailed Hawks."


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Check it out.? It's pretty amazing.?


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Georgia Conti


West Seattle


antep9 at aol.com


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