Hummingbird feather
I participated in the Audubon Society’s annual Winter Bird Count. Each participating city has a five- mile radius circle where people divide up and count as many kinds of birds as they can. Being almost the darkest day of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere, it was cold, windy, and rainy. I thought the birds would, like me, want to get to a warm cozy place. But then I looked closely and saw that their feathers were sheltering them. The curved body feathers were fluffed up. They were shedding the rain, and keeping the wind out. So elegant and cozy. When I went home, I took off my cumbersome and relatively ineffective clothes—my outdoor feathers. I sat under the roof inside my house by a warm fire—my indoor feathers.