Let's Talk About Tail Molt!

Darner the American kestrel graciously agreed to be the model and teacher today for a lesson on tail molt!

Raptors have 12 tail feathers - six on each side.  When they molt, which is the process to replace these and other feathers due to wear, they will ideally molt symmetrically.  So - if you think of the tail as six feathers on the left side, and six feathers on the right, then the tail molt should happen with the 6's on the left and right molting at the same time.

You can see from the photo that this is true.  While some feathers were hidden a bit when Darner was on the glove after lunch and a spritz water bath, you can see very clearly that both of Darner's number 6's and number 4's are coming in nicely.