All-weather feathers...

Recently, on a rainy day, I had gone to Safa Park and Al Warsan Lake to see how the birds were coping with the downpour.

While the collared and laughing doves, common mynas, sparrows, bulbuls, Asian pied starlings, house crows, migratory wagtails, grey francolins, hoopoes, etc could not be spotted, I saw mallards and gulls happily playing in the water.

Most birds have a mechanism to protect their feathers from getting wet as their bodies are fitted with an oil gland. They can oil their feathers and make them nearly impervious to water.

The feathers have a stalk called quill that passes through the centre dividing it into two vanes. From the side of the quill there appear barbs that form the vanes. These barbs are again divided into barbules that have hooks, which again have grooves on either side.

Birds often lock and unlock the hooks and grooves to keep these tiny structures healthy, airtight and watertight.