Last time I posted about algae and my final microscope image (the edge of Feather Boa kelp) gave me inspiration for my next search…actual feathers!

On Friday the 13th…ooo, spooky….I was able to get to my favorite place on Earth, the beach!  I visited Del Monte Beach in Monterey, CA, and as usual, I saw my gull friends.  And what do gulls have?  Feathers!  I saw plenty of them scattered in the sand.  I did not have access to a Smartphone that day, but I decided to try to look at the feathers using my foldscope anyways.  I decided to pick up a variety to see if I noticed any differences in the feathers.  Here is a picture of the feathers I selected to view.

I do not own a Smartphone and I was enjoying my me time at the beach, but I did have my daughter’s Canon Powershot Elph camera.  I decided to try to take photos with it.  Here is the result:

It is a great little camera, but I haven’t quite figured out how to adjust it where it will focus on something that is close-up.  You can however, see the feathers magnified in some of the pictures.  The great thing about feathers is that they have barbules with little “hooklets” that will lock the barbs (or the side branches of a feather) together.  That is what I was attempting to take a picture of.  As you can see in the picture of all the feathers, I tried to unzip the feathers to better my chances of seeing the barbules and “hooklets”.  When birds preen, they are cleaning their feathers, removing dust and mites and realigning or zipping their feathers back together.

I will try again another day.  Until then…