Feather: Noun; any of the flat appendages growing from a bird’s skin and forming its plumage, consisting of a partly hollow horny shaft fringed with vanes of barbs (Oxford Dictionary).
I often come across discarded feathers when I’m out walking and try to guess which birds they’ve come from, though, unless they’re very distinctively patterned, that can be virtually impossible. Sometimes the feather just has to come home with me … like these three below. I think the bottom one’s probably from a Pheasant – not sure about the other two.
Senecio squalidus (Oxford ragwort) translates as ‘dirty old man’ and Primula vulgaris (Primrose) is ‘first common girl’. There are names derived from fiction: Yoda purpurata, a genus of deep-sea acorn worms, is so named because the large lips on the sides of its head are reminiscent of Yoda’s ears; and, under the influence of the Harry Potter books, a dragon-like dinosaur is named Dracorex hogwartsia, dragon king of Hogwarts. There’s a midge named after a rock band: Dicrotendipes thanatogratus translates to Grateful Dead; and a land snail named after Australian zookeeper and conservationist Steven Irwin: Crikey steveirwini. There are carabid beetles named Agra vate and Agra vation (say them out loud), and there’s a horsefly with ‘a perfectly round and golden rear end’ called Scaptia beyonceae. Enough … check out the book for more.
