A Tale of Icy Tail

Written by Marilyn K. McCune

Click photos to
view larger image.

Imagine that it is a stormy night. A cold rain is coming down. You’ve found a perch for the night as the temperature drops. You fluff up and brace yourself for what has become a wind driven ice and snow storm. When dawn arrives you fly out from your bough protected perch to a higher open tree branch and wait for the sun… but, wait, something is missing.

This winter season (2007-08) here in the Tehachapi Mountains we’ve had a variety of storms. It makes one appreciate why the Eskimos have so many words for snow. Here on the mountainside at elevation 4900’ we’ve seen tail-less birds at the feeders: a House Finch, a California Towhee and a Western Scrub Jay. Could their tail loss be only due to molting, or maybe predator attack, or is it elemental?

Perhaps the answer is all three of the above. I like to imagine that somewhere on a tree branch under a layer of snow and ice one might find an inadvertent cache of a bird’s tail feathers.