{"id":9104,"date":"2011-03-05T10:40:54","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T18:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/?p=9104"},"modified":"2011-03-05T10:40:54","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T18:40:54","slug":"i-preen-therefore-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=9104","title":{"rendered":"I Preen, Therefore I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9105\" style=\"width: 760px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Mallard-Preen.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9105\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Mallard-Preen.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Mallard Preening Closeup\" width=\"750\" height=\"560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9105\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9105\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mallard Drake, Preening Closeup - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If you know birds, you know that preening isn&#8217;t cosmetic fluff. It&#8217;s a meticulous cleaning and placement of the bird&#8217;s survival gear: feathers. Feathers need to be pristine for flight and for insulation. During <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/2009\/07\/the-three-u-rule\/\">oil spills<\/a>, the analogy used about feathers is that a spot of oil on a bird&#8217;s plumage is like a hole in a wetsuit. A substance like oil breaks the seal of the perfectly hooked barbules of the feather, making it impossible for a bird to insulate and thermoregulate. Any compromise in plumage integrity can lead to dire consequences for birds. So, preening truly is a manifestation of existence for feathered beings.<\/p>\n<p><i>A short primer on feather anatomy: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.earthlife.net\/birds\/feathers.html\">The Wonder of Bird Feathers<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>Related posts:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/2010\/02\/birds-bathing\/\">Bird Bath Bliss<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/2010\/12\/canada-goose-bathing\/\">Goose + Water<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you know birds, you know that preening isn&#8217;t cosmetic fluff. It&#8217;s a meticulous cleaning and placement of the bird&#8217;s survival gear: feathers. Feathers need to be pristine for flight and for insulation. During oil spills, the analogy used about feathers is that a spot of oil on a bird&#8217;s plumage is like a hole in a wetsuit. A substance like oil breaks the seal of the perfectly hooked barbules of the feather, making it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=9104\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,84,505],"class_list":["post-9104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-behavior","tag-ducks","tag-mallards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}