Marsh Cattail Wren . 7 x 5 inches . amazon parrot secondary wing feathers
Except for feathers from a couple of parrots like macaws tails, birds do not have large colorful feathers. Most colorful feathers are small. When color is on wing feathers, I have noticed that the bright colors are placed where they can be hidden, like on the secondary wing feathers.
The three to five-inch small feathers with a bit of color require compositions of many feathers for my commonly sized pieces of 12 inches or bigger. However, when I have a design idea that use just one or two of these small feathers, the finished piece will have to be smaller.
These amazon parrot secondary flight feathers sport the bright red in this picture that reminded me of the shape of cattails. Cattails are not red of course but if they were, they would pose a fine juxtaposition to the marsh wrens whose colors are so brownly-muted cattail-colored that they are quite difficult to spot. Usually, all I see is a hint of movement, maybe the rustle of a cattail stalk.