The past few weeks we have been noticing in our neighborhood, a crow with no tail. It’s an odd sight when you see it overhead. Your brain tries in that first half-second to make sense of what it is — a muddy softball with wings? Then, after a few seconds of processing time, you realize it is a crow, especially when it calls and when it is hanging around with other crows.

How this crow could have lost all of its tail feathers is an interesting mystery, one that started us thinking about the various ways that tail feathers are important to birds. The most obvious function of a bird’s tail that came to our mind was its use in flight. It may be our imagination, but every time we see that poor crow flying over without its tail, it strikes us that it looks a bit wobbly. Certainly tails help birds steer and maintain stability in flight, as anyone who has watched a soaring hawk can attest. Flying without one might be a bit like sailing without a rudder.

But tail feathers have many more roles in the lives of birds. The likable little dark-eyed junco that many of us entertain at our backyard bird feeders (usually, juncos feed on the ground under the feeders) has a tail that conspicuously flashes white edges when it takes off and lands. Many birds have white tail edges, tips, or corners. One theory for these flashes of white in the tail is that it can confuse a predator, startling or distracting it by the flash of white that appears mid-strike, increasing the likelihood of a miss due to “bad aim.” Better for the prey critter to lose its tail feathers than its life.

Another theory for white flashes in tails is that they are used in breeding displays to attract females, and the males with the flashiest and best performed display will be chosen by the female. “Fancy” tails for the purposes of wooing females can be taken to extremes in the bird world. If you have ever watched a male peacock fanning its massive tail, you have seen a particularly eye-popping example. But even right here in Maine, we have some birds with pretty extreme tails. And all winter long flocks of long-tailed ducks can be seen bobbing in the waters off our coast. As the name describes, the males of the species have a dramatically long, thin tail that is used in mating displays here on its wintering grounds before heading north to Arctic Canada and Alaska where it nests.

And who can forget the sight of a male wild turkey fanning its massive tail in display for his harem of females? Although few people get to see the ruffed grouse fanning its beautiful tail for the ladies, its distinctive low-pitched drumming (like the sound of a tractor starting in the distance) is often heard in April and May throughout Maine. If you happen to hear that sound, imagine him on a log strutting with his tail pronounced, unaware of the plight of his less fortunate cousins, like our neighborhood crow.