Bad weather affects feathers

[Pajarita]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 141736.htm

[Wolf]

Ok, weather can and does have an effect on a birds feathers, this is to be expected, I think, do you have any thought about this?

[Pajarita]

Actually, this caught me by complete surprise! I would have never thought that weather would have that kind of an effect on plumage... I figured (erroneously, of course) that bad weather was something that wild birds were maybe not necessarily completely nonchalant about it but not something that would stress them so seriously as to affect the feathers.

[Wolf]

Many years ago I lived in Nebraska and had some empty sheds and an old empty barn on the property and while fixing up the place I had noticed that when we were going to get some really bad weather that a lot of the wild birds would go into the empty sheds and the barn. I noticed that they only did this when big storms were approaching, so I always thought it would have some sort of bad effect on them. It was not until recently after my first parrot arrived and I started learning about them that I began to have any idea as to how the weather could affect them and that we could probably tell by their feathers, since they are affected by stress.