Hi! My name is Amanda. I’m a birder, amateur photographer, and aspiring forensic ornithologist. I live and birdwatch mostly in the eastern United States. Recently, I interned with the Delaware Museum of Natural History to develop and implement public programming focusing on birds and their feathers. I also helped catalogue their education collection, gaining hands-on experience with the museum’s specimens and sharing them with the public.

I’ve been an animal lover my whole life, but only recently have I started to “specialize” in birds. Since the summer of 2016, I’ve independently studied feathers, from their overall structure to the differences between the feathers of different species. It’s a terrifically interesting hobby, for sure, as feathers are both cleverly engineered and beautiful. In my opinion, feather identification is a sorely underappreciated and underdeveloped way to birdwatch! I hope I can help and encourage people to attempt identification of found feathers.
If you have any feather-related questions, feel free to send me a message or @recruit me, and I’ll do my best to help.

I also publish a blog at foundfeathers.org about my experiences with ornithology with a focus on feathers.