#feathursday

A Flightless Feathersday

If you have never seen a photograph of a harpy eagle, find one now. This illustration doesn't even begin to cover it.

From: Robert Merry's museum. Boston : Bradbury, Soden & Co.

Today we grace your digital screens with a lovely pair of European dippers, also known as Water Crows or Pyets (the Scottish name). 

The Naturalist’s Library praises the beauty of the song of Cinclus aquaticus and describes its curious adaptations to living alongside human-made machinery: 

“It may often be seen perched on the inner spokes of the mill-wheel, singing its low melody; and we have known it to breed within the passage of the torrent which drove it … They sport about the banks of the stream, flying short distances, and during flight utter their single monotonous alarm or call note. When about to alight they drop or splash into the pools or stream, and almost never at once settle on the stones or rocks. They are one of our most pleasing songsters, though from the lowness of the note it is not often observed; but to the angler, who plies his rod at all hours, and in the most sequestered scenes, it is a well-known and welcome strain… 

Their breeding places are chosen near to the brook or river, and often in curious situations. The nest is generally constructed under some brow or overhanging rocks, or among the matted roots of a tree; at other times under some fall, which is projected over a space hollow, and comparatively dry within, or beneath the dam or weir which serves to turn off the water to supply machinery; and we have once or twice observed it under the very sluice of the millwheel.”

Image from:

HDSL Feathursday

We always enjoy the posts by @uwmspeccoll so we were thrilled to come across a little something for our own Feathursday! 

This little gem was found in an 18th century work by Johann Arndt, a Lutheran theologian influential in the Pietist movement.

For more great posts that feature birds not just feathers, check out their Feathursday archive here.

These migratory scaup, or broadbill, ducks are passing through for #Feathursday today. The  birds seen here were illustrated in 1917 for the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company’s Our American Game Birds series.

Learned canary birds perform the most astonishing feats! 

We would especially like to see Grandpapa standing on his head, and Grandma sitting in her chair. 

 Sig'r Blitz, the stage name for Antonio van Zandt, was a British ventriloquist and magician who moved to Philadelphia in 1834.  During the Civil War, Blitz performed what he estimated to be 132 shows to 63,000 soldiers recuperating at various Civil War hospitals in Philadelphia. 

This is a broadside playbill from a benefit show in 1863. Sig. Blitz, The Great Magician and Ventriloquist with his Learned Canary Birds, (Philadelphia, 1863).