Fabulous Feathers

November 4, 2026 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 2 Comments

Feathers are miracles.

Let’s face it — everything about birds is pretty miraculous — but I find myself thinking a lot about their feathers in the fall — the post-moulting season for our local crows and ravens.

They go from this …

Fred in late August, well into the moulting process. Note that his head feathers were so sparse that you could see his ear cavity peeking out behind his eye.

Fred this morning, November 3

To this in a few short weeks …

Following those difficult weeks of loss and regrowth, they are returned to their former feathery glory, just in time for protection against the wintry weather. Imagine being able to grow your own rain gear every season!

The loss of feathers, apart from being itchy and uncomfortable, seems to affect their self-esteem. Fred stops his tail-pulling games with the dog while he’s moulting, but is back to boundless confidence as soon as his feathers have regained their fabulosity.

Fully Fabulous Fred

Each feather on a crow or raven is a miracle of fit-for-purpose engineering, from the strong, waterproof outer feathers designed to keep the bird warm and dry, to the fluffy layer of downy feathers hidden underneath to keep everything nice and cozy

Fred adjusting his winter woollies

This close-up of young Lou shows the tiny patch of white feathers on the back of his head which sets him apart from other young crows — but also some of the amazing facial feather formations shared by all crows — the nifty nasal bristles covering and protecting the upper beak, the whisker-like rictal bristles at the base of the beak, and the little fan-shaped arrangement of feathers that covers the ear cavity behind and below the eye — just to name a few.

And then there is the topic of the colour of those feathers.

At first glance, crows and ravens are black birds, emphatically writing their stories in inky brushstrokes against the sky.

But when the sun catches them, a more complicated chromatic sub-plot emerges.
Crow (and raven) feathers actually contain a world of colours.

I try to capture some of their intricate detail and colour variations in my photography.

Such detail is beyond my capability to replicate in my woollen needle-felted crows. Instead, I use this medium to try and capture the quirkiness and beauty of crow and raven character by other means — expression, hats, rainbows, flowers, etc

I do give a nod to their magnificent colour complexity in the wings. For these, I mix a special shade of multiple hues.

You’d be surprised how many colours it takes to get this final look.

Here are just some of the colours I start out with …

They are hand-carded together to blend the colours to the shade I’m looking for …

Finally ending up something like this …

I’m aiming for a woollen folk-art representation of reality’s intricate beauty.

I also find mixing the colours quite meditative and relaxing, thinking all the time about the magic I’m trying to capture.

Below is a new addition to my wool collection. This character, along with a few other Party Crows and Ravens, will be available on my website at 11 am Pacific time tomorrow (November 5, 2026.)

Those hidden feather colours could be seen as a metaphor for the rainbow of personality, humour, and intelligence tucked away in these ubiquitous black birds, if we just take a little time to look closely every day.

Looking through my archives, I see I have been feather-obsessed for years!
Here are a few older feather-related blog posts you might enjoy:

© junehunterimages, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Small Joys And A Surprise Return

October 23, 2026October 22, 2026 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

You may remember last year’s post about Lou, one of Mavis and Marvin’s 2025 fledglings. I always had a special spot in my heart for this little one, and hoped he’d stick around for a while.

He did stay around all winter, but disappeared around the start of this spring’s nesting season.

In many ways, I wasn’t surprised if Mom and Dad had encouraged him to move on. Their previous stay-at-home fledgling, Lucky, remained with them for almost three years. While he or she was a well-loved family member and handy reinforcement in the frequent territorial disputes with rival neighbours, Norman and Nancy, s/he wasn’t a very effective nest helper, with no new fledglings born during the “Lucky” years.

Norman & Nancy being yelled at by Marvin, Mavis & Lucky

Below is one of my all time favourite videos, showing Marvin (left) encouraging Lucky (middle) to put more oomph into his partisan cawing during one of many verbal battles with the neighbours.
It’s not the greatest video, technically, but I love the family dynamic it captures.

After two springs with no fledglings, it was time for Lucky to move on. Lesson learned, it would seem that Marvin and Mavis allowed Lou one winter with the family, before urging him to head off and see the world.

Alas, even without a “teenager” at home, Marvin and Mavis had no luck in the 2026 nesting sweepstakes.

Marvin and Mavis guarding their territory on a breezy summer day.

At one point in the summer they had a brief visit from a crow that I suspected was Lou coming home to check in on the folks. The mystery crow acted very much like Lou, but I couldn’t get a good enough look to be sure — and then they were gone again.

But, on September 23, he was definitely back.

Lou’s personality is enough to provide a strong clue to his identity all by itself— something about his general bounciness, his insatiable curiosity and constant motion. He’s prone to adopting a bowing posture, like his dad, and often scans the sky for danger — a good trait for self-preservation in any young crow.

But the gold standard of Lou-identification has always been the tiny little patch of white feather on the left side of his head.

I had assumed that he’d lose that tell-tale patch after moulting season, but it’s still there! He was still moulting a little in September, so the patch was a little harder to spot amid the scruffy plumage — but definitely visible.

You can see some of his personality, and the little white mark, in this video, taken shortly after he returned in September

By October 1, he was mostly past the moulting phase and his feather marking was much clearer.

Family group, Marvin back right, Mavis back left and Lou in foreground

Mom and Dad seem happy to have Lou move back in with them for the winter, and I am certainly happy to see three of my favourite crows back together again.

Marvin and Mavis are the crows I’ve known the longest now, with handsome Marvin chosen as the 2027 City Crow Calendar cover. His is the crow story and portrait for January, with Mavis featured in May, and Lou rounding out the year in December.

Fluffy Marvin at the start of moulting season

Marvin earlier this week

Mavis on the same day

The degree to which seeing Lou every day brightens my day is kind of ridiculous, but there it is …

Which reminds me of a blog post I’ve been bouncing around in my brain for year: “Crows and Wealth Management.”

The concept relies upon the simple formula of Joy = Wealth

It’s a simple equation, yet one we often get reversed; sometimes it just takes a young crow chasing seeds in a parking lot to help us get it right.

For more on Marvin, Mavis and Lou:

Neil Young, The Crow

August 21, 2026August 20, 2026 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 4 Comments

Neil and his companion, Nellie, are new to the neighbourhood, and their story is one of a young couple in a highly competitive real estate market.

This may be a familiar tale to many.

I first noticed them this spring, when they seemed all set to start a new family in an area that was once a very desirable crow property, close to Fearless Fred and Florence’s block.

So, how did Neil and Nellie come to command such a sought-after piece of territory?

This is a two-part puzzle.

PART ONE — THE REAL ESTATE SITUATION

Good crow breeding areas in Vancouver are highly sought after — by crows, mostly.

The history of Neil and Nellie’s territory is a tale as old as real estate — a once-sought-after area fallen on hard times.

It’s a venerable crow neighbourhood, once favoured by now-departed local celebrities such as the Wings and and the Walkers, with lots of big leafy trees and friendly human neighbours who leave bowls of water out in the dry season. Property values, however, took a tumble when the local hawks decided to nest in the adjoining block.

Cooper’s Hawks have always lived and nested in this general area, but this year they built their nest very close by. As you can imagine, hawks are on the crows’ perpetual “undesirable neighbours” list because they consider crow eggs and fledglings to be on the grocery list for their own babies.

I often imagine a “crow’s-eye-view” overlay on urban maps. Such a map would survey the landscape from a purely corvid perspective, highlighting features that we, as humans, might not notice, but which would be “make or break” factors for crow house-hunters.

Imaginary Crow real estate listing:

Luxurious Crow Dwelling Opportunity with Beak-Dropping Amenities
Don’t miss out on this tranquil, crow-friendly East Vancouver territory, featuring storybook tree cover for tranquil nest building and secure fledgling concealment, plus meticulously human-tended lawns for grub and worm opportunities. Only a short waddle to the restaurant dumpster with the ill-fitting lid of your dreams for year-round family dining.
Low maintenance and move-in-ready!

PART TWO — YOUNG COUPLES STARTING OUT

Much like their human counterparts, young crow couples often have to start their real estate journey in less-than-ideal circumstances.

And, Neil and Nellie appear to be very young crows. They’re smaller than average, with the duller, brownish feathers of immature birds. I would guess that Neil is about two years old and Nellie about the same.

The pair built a nest in April, and Nellie exhibited all the signs of a female crow about to go and sit on eggs — begging for food from the male to remind him he’d be responsible for regular food deliveries while she’d be on incubation duty and confined to the nest.

Except that Neil seemed to have absolutely no interest in sharing his food finds with Nellie …

Time and time again, I’d see Nellie trying to get Neil to put food in her beak, only to have to give up and go get it herself.

This continued well into the time she should have been sitting quietly on the nest, and I began to think that these two, while close companions, were not really serious about parenthood. They seemed to be just playing at the whole nesting business, a bit like kids playing “house.”

Whether their hesitation has more to do with their youth, or the hawk’s proximity, remains a small mystery.

Meanwhile, having Fred and Flo as neighbours has it’s pros and cons for Neil and Nellie.

While Fred’s fearlessness is handy for moving the hawks along, his young neighbours can also bear the brunt of his mettlesome personality. This may explain Neil’s perpetually worried look.

Neil Young Crow

Just to keep things confusing, sometimes Fred and Florence are friendlier, allowing Neil and Nellie to come close and hang out with the family, leading me to wonder if perhaps they are related. Could Neil or Nellie be one of Fred and Flo’s kids from a previous year? As always, more questions than answers …

I guess only time will tell if Neil and Nellie will stick around until next year. Maybe, by then, the hawks will have moved their nest to a new block, and our intrepid young couple will have lucked into some prime territory in which to have many babies and live long and happy crow lives. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, Neil has already been the model for two of my new crow prints: Neil Young Crow and News Crow (above.)
It’s unclear whether Neil just likes to keep abreast of current affairs, or if he’s considering the newspaper box as a potential emergency shelter from fierce neighbours.