As light as a feather

Probably a magpie's feather since there have been some pecking around the lawn.  Apparently feathers have evolved from the scales of reptiles!  I suppose that makes sense when one thinks of those reptilian bird fossils.  There are also several different types of feather: flight and contour feathers, down feathers, bristle feathers, filoplumes and semiplumes.  They all engineer flight and insulation of a bird.  Leonardo da Vinci's technical drawings suddenly come to mind.   One learns something every day!!