Portraits of the flock

The girls are all coming through the moult although I am still picking up some feathers each day. I have noticed that their feather colours change slightly with each moult.

Spangle is the most changed of all but the other girls have subtly changed. Spangle started out with a brown (spangled) pattern on her back and the brown feathers have disappeared with each moult until now they are almost completely gone. She has gone from lots of brown to almost just white.

Sugar has gone the other way. Sugar was mostly plain white and has gradually got more colour. It started as very faint and fine and now she has delicate salmon coloured feathers throughout especially on her neck.

I think that Salmon’s colouring is paler than it used to be. Smoke had gradually developed white feathers on her head and now has dark, almost black, patches behind her wings.

Shadow doesn’t seem to have changed although I think that she may possibly have more grey and Flame hasn’t changed but her tail hasn’t fully grown in at the moment.

Spot is also dropping small feathers but still has her stained wing and tail feathers. We won’t be able to see her true colour for a while.

Sugar
Close up showing some, fine, salmon coloured feathers
Shadow
Salmon
Spangle
Smoke with a few dark squares at the base of her tail
Flame with a partial tail
Spot
Spot facing the other way

It is interesting seeing the changes in the girls feathers. I think they have all grown more beautiful as they have matured.

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6 Responses to Portraits of the flock

  1. marion says:

    They are beautiful girls.

  2. David says:

    What a lovely set of photos.

    • Carol says:

      Thank you. Smoke went broody yesterday. She has done well this time with fourteen eggs in three weeks. I wasn’t certain at the time I wrote the post because she was getting her last egg laid but she returned to the nest box for the rest of the day.

  3. Sophie says:

    They are all really lovely! Sugar looks very much like Blanche who I lost last year. xx

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