Blue Feather, Boulder, photo by Harold Davis. View this photo larger.

I found this beautiful blue feather on a rather grubby street corner of Boulder, Colorado. Across from the ritzy hotel where our publisher put us up, this street corner seemed to be the kind of place that homeless people would congregate. But probably Boulder doesn’t have homeless people, it seems very white-bread and homogenous. (Boulderites reading this, please feel free to correct my impression. If anyone can identify the bird from the feather, I’d also appreciate that!)

The ambient light on the feather was great just where it was, so I got down on the sidewalk with my tripod and macro rig and started photographing. Passersby looked at my oddly, but the only technical hitch was that the feather kept wanting to blow away.

This feather was so beautiful that I decided to take it home, and put it in my luggage. Unfortunately, the FAA went thoroughly through my suitcase. In the process, my beautiful feather must have fluttered away, to grace some security station in Albuquerque or Denver airports forever.

Someone commented about my Horsetail Falls photos that in thumbnail they look like feathers. Well, here’s a real feather to match!