Each creature is specially engineered

I found a blue jay tail feather on the ground today.

 

Its color and size identified what bird it came from. The white tip made it clear it was a tailfeather.

 

Ever since I interviewed Waseca artist Dean Dykema, who paints on turkey feathers, I have had an increased appreciation for the engineering feathers represent. 

 

Recently, one of my sons was driving through Janesville and noticed a Martin house, complete with pole, lying next to the curb free for the taking.

 

He remembered my personal appreciation for Martins, who don’t inhabit birdhouses, but rather bird apartment complexes. Structures built to attract them have many small compartments each with their own entries and are mounted high in the air in an open area, rather than in or next to a tree.

 

He somehow lodged the pole extending out one of the windows of his small sedan and came by with his surprise. We immediately opened up the “apartment complex” to clean it out.

 

What we found also heightened my appreciation for birds.

 

The interior compartments were probably eight inches in all three dimensions. The manufacturer of the structure had included a smooth, circular indentation at the bottom which did a nice job of hinting at the everyday conception of a bird’s nest–a charming little bowl-like thing just the right size for nestling in.

 

Apparently, martins take the idea of nestling to new heights.

 

Packed into each of the tiny “rooms” was so much dried grass on all sides that the remaining space was more a “cave” than it was a nest. It looked as if the adult bird could come in through the entry hole and would then have to squeeze into itself in order to be able to even turn around.

 

Along with the grass was an astounding variety of feathers. I don’t mean feathers accidentally dropped by the residents, I mean collected specimens in every color, size and pattern. 

 

They were not in the bottom of the nesting area as though they were meant to make a soft bed, they were simply jammed helter skelter in among the grass. There were so many in each of the compartments, though, it was perfectly clear they were not there by accident.

 

Just like the blue jay feather I found lying on the ground, each one was distinctive. Given all they must have gone through both to arrive in the nest and then to serve as part of it, most were in impressively good shape–there’s that engineering again. Not only is each strand connected to a central shaft, the strands have “barbules” which cause them to link to one another, creating the flat surface needed to provide aerodynamics or warmth or waterproofing, or all of the above.

 

To me, every detail speaks loudly of the Chief Engineer who took the time to shape each component of each creature in a way that serves it best.