Saturday, April 26, 2008

Answer to Friday Feathers

NCMountainWoman (who really needs a blog, BTW) was correct. And I guess I need to give her a jewelry prize. Kathi just got one of my necklaces and a pair of earrings, so the prize goes to ncmountainwoman. Send me your address and I'll send you some bling! I guess it wasn't that easy....sorry. Maybe next week I will give pithy clues.

Speaking of that....Kitt and Mel didn't send any addresses...still want jewelry?

From Hummingbird.Net:

The brilliant, iridescent colors of hummingbird plumage are caused by the refraction of incident light by the structures of certain feathers. Like any diffraction grating or prism, these structures split light into its component colors, and only certain frequencies are refracted back to the viewer. The apparent color of any particular part of a feather depends upon the distance between the microscopic ridges in its grid-like structure. The resulting colors are much more vivid and iridescent than those of birds with only pigmented feathers. Not all hummer colors are due to feather structure, however; the duller, rusty browns of Allen's and Rufous Hummingbirds are the result of pigmentation. Iridescent hummingbird colors actually result from a combination of refraction and pigmentation, since the diffraction structures themselves are made of melanin, a pigment.

So, the pretty epithet "Flying Jewels" isn't too far off.

7 comments:

Kitt said...

Oh! I sent an email that very day, to capricorn at cinci dot rr dot com. I'll resend.

Susan Gets Native said...

Kitt:
It's capricorn1273@cinci.rr.com

Kitt said...

Oh! That was the address in the "We Have a Weiner" post. That's probably why you didn't hear from Mel either. I will re-resend!

Mary said...

I've been on ncmountainwoman to start a blog, too :o) She's very cool.

Hummingbird feathers...hmmmm.

They have been slow arriving in Charlotte, Susan. The other day I saw two females at the feeder, followed by a male. But I don't see them often.

These new word verif fonts are really driving me crazy.

Kitt said...

Aren't they obnoxious, Mary? I am having to retype them several times just to get my comments to go.

Susan, did you get my email this time?

dguzman said...

I agree on the word verifs. Annoying! I'm thinking of NO'ing that option on my blog. These new fonts are too hard to read.

Mel said...

I don't think you got my e-mail :(
Will try again!! ;)