A gorgeous bird, and an excellent piece of art, I love it!

Now that's really pretty

It truly stuns me how you paint on feathers, and in such detail!

Amazing work. Is that plain acrylic paint??

Very lovely work, great detail!

Beautyful work oh my this is great!!!

Painting on feathers is pretty fun isn't it? :D I really like this, it reminds me of the great blue heron that visits our pond. I've only seen him once (but I know he's there more, the dropping tells the tale XD). He's huge, and so elegant! I'm tempted to paint one myself sometime *adds to giant to-do list* LOL, great painting!

-scratches his head- I just don't see how you manage to do that. Incredible work.

Turkey tail feather... that's what? 5-6" long and 2" wide?

Unbelievable detail. If I could paint as well on a 2'x3' canvas, I'd be tickled pink.

I might also draw David Hasselhoff, Brian Mulroney, and other epic things, so maybe it's not so bad I can't. ;>

It's a wonderful piece of work :O
It must take you a lot of patience to do those things, but the end result is amazing!

I just wish you had painted that on an actual Great blue heron feather.

Thank you! :3 If it wasn't illegal to paint on great blue heron feathers, let alone own them, then I would have loved to have painted this on one of their feathers. But alas, it's turkey feathers for me :D

What? I understand the base of the idea, preventing people from killing the birds to get feathers, but I mean, the bird molt from time to time no?
I have a few feathers myself that I just picked around while kayaking.

Anyway, Turkey feathers seem to do the trick :D

I think if a person just has a few feathers, it's pretty obvious that they didn't kill a bird for them. You know, common sense. :( Even worse is the fact that molted feathers are essentially a waste product. It's like making owning shed snakeskins illegal, or shed tufts of fur from wolves illegal.

The law is in place because back in the 1800s, many species of birds were being hunted to near extinction for their plumes. The Migratory Bird Act of 1918 was put in place to make it illegal to own the feathers, which makes sense - just because you didn't kill a bird for a feather doesn't mean someone else didn't so they could sell it for your hat. However, if you can prove the source of where you got the feather ("Yes, DEP officer, this red-tailed hawk feather came from this captive educational bird and was moulted naturally."), then I don't think it should be against the law.

Er, clarification on that last sentence -

However, if you can prove the source of where you got the feather ... then I don't think it should be against the law.

- means that my opinion is that it shouldn't be against the law. It still IS against the law, regardless of where you got the feathers.

Great blue herons are one of my favorite birds. They aren't appreciated nearly enough. Very nice feather painting. :)

Wow! That's unique. :D Awesome work!