1y ago

Little Big Wings

One of the people on the RaptorCAM Facebook group grabbed some shots of the babies doing some practice flaps that I missed capturing the other day. It's hard to believe their wings are so huge!

They're up and about more and more, and soon they will do some branch hopping before they actually learn to fly.

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First sign of plumicorns
Flappy birbs!
- The flappiest!
Practice flaps! Omg my heart ❤️
Those spiky little wingtip feathers just look so uncomfortable. Growing sucks.
- My reading says the growing itself doesn't hurt, but the parts that look like porcupine quills are a keratin coating around the developing feather. As the feather grows, blood vessels retract and the coating will flake off until just the feather remains.
  The follicle that the whole thing grows out of has nerve endings, so if that sheath gets pushed around the wrong way, it sounds like it can cause discomfort or irritation.
  They will preen the krusty keratin off themselves and each other.
  The little stretches and flaps are very cute! They want to flap and fly, but it's wobbly like a toddler's legs when they're learning to walk.

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