The US Fish & Wildlife Service has a feather atlas to help people ID North American birds.

It’s not perfect as they may only have feathers from one or two individuals, and like people birds of the same species aren’t all identical. But it’s still a good resource. Plus it has an Identify My Feather feature that’s fun and interesting to use.

I wonder if it’s a Gaillardia species or something related to an oxeye daisy - the leaf clasping a “branch” as it shoots off the stem reminds me of them

Did you buy it as seeds or a plant, or did it come up on its own? You are right, this don’t appear to be an Asclepias species, which typically have single leaves that come directly off the stem.

I didn’t mind the projectile part, probably because they never got me. It is pretty acidic and eventually stains an area no matter how much you clean.

When dry the feathers feel smooth, but not really oily. If you’ve ever pet a duck it’s pretty similar.

I did have an African penguin almost knock me into the pool once. It was nesting season and he tried to take my radio’s antenna. While it was clipped on my belt and I was crouched down scrubbing the edge of the pool. Luckily I regained my balance and he found a real stick to take instead.

Yeah they definitely look worse for the wear during the molt. Also, having taken care of penguins before, they have waaay more feathers than you think they would.

Not owl-specific, but interestingly penguins go through what’s called a “catastrophic molt” where they replace all their feathers in a short period of time (a few weeks to a month).

This is because they need their feathers to insulate them in the water. Typical bird molting, which lets most birds replace feathers without losing their ability to fly, would be like swimming with a leaky wetsuit for the penguins. This would force the penguins to burn too many calories just to stay warm. Instead they eat extra food leading up to the molt, then mostly stay on land and live off their fat reserves until the molt is finished.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my bird nerd tangent lol

It’s like an i spy book

I find the school’s claim to be a lazy cop-out. My child’s school is K-12, and I recently had to go through a whole paperwork process to give my 3rd grader permission to check out middle school level books.

Yeah it really stuck with me. When people think of smart birds it’s usually parrot and crow families, and definitely not pigeons.

Keep it to 4 letter words and pigeons might join in

Not as good as your awesome shot, but this guy showed up for the first time this year and tried to eat from the hummingbird feeder

Those eyes 🥺

I’m sorry you found that. It must’ve been hard to read it and feel that betrayal. And I’m sorry your parents weren’t able to recognize your depression and instead made it into a character flaw.

It’s similar to a pretty normal human walking pace, more a “walking up to a restaurant to meet your friends inside” speed than “slowly strolling through a museum looking at art.” If that makes sense? Fast enough I’d have to step quickly to get away when I’d see the one tortoise who liked to use my pants as her napkin heading toward me with bits of food stuck to her face.

Having worked with several large tortoise species, this is true. They can be much quicker than you expect, especially when they notice you have their favorite food.

It looks like either a Galapagos or Aldabra but I can’t tell for certain.

Congratulations! Some well-deserved rest

Thank you for this detailed response. I now have some new shows to watch.

Aww, love the floppy muppets

Vultures are some of my favorite animals (right up there with owls). I find them to be rather clever. One rehab place I worked at had child-proof locks on the cabinets because a resident (non-releasable) turkey vulture liked to break into them and “rearrange” the items.

I never worked with bats but I was always on alert when cleaning bird areas with the birds roosting above me. The parrot family especially, some of them seemed to be aiming for me lol.

Good on ya for recognizing a passion and taking steps to involve it in your life. Any rehab place would be lucky to have you.

If you have a wildlife rehab place near you, you could volunteer there. You won’t get to be around the animals much until you’ve been there a while but even just observing intakes and exams you could gain more scientific knowledge. Owls suffer car collisions somewhat frequently.

As a side note, yet another reason not to throw your garbage out of your car, even things like apple cores and banana peels - it attracts mice and other rodents, which then draws the owls to hunt along the side of the road.