Perfect

I picked the feather up from the woodland floor where we picnicked a few days ago. There was just the one. I could see it was special and exquisite as if delicately painted with a brushful of subtle pigments and perfectly shaped for its purpose, whatever that was. I wondered what bird it belonged to: could anyone possibly know?

A Facebook bird group offered a single response: red kite. A wild guess?  The feather's  provenance in a protected ancient woodland in West Wales would be a strong pointer to be sure but from one tiny feather indicate its origin with such certainty?

Far from it: turns out it is indeed possible to identify single feathers as I discovered  when I found the website Featherbase:

"a working group of German feather scientists and other collectors worldwide who came together with their personal collections and created the biggest and most comprehensive online feather library in the world. Using our website, it is possible to identify feathers from hundreds of different species, compare similarities between them, work out gender or age-specific characteristics and look at the statistics of countless feather measurements. In contrast to the conventional work of museums, Featherbase is much more oriented towards the general public, allowing not just enrolled scientists the opportunity to gain access to the collection, but anyone with an interest in studying birds and their feathers."

 And here, along the top, you can see 'my' feather  (surely it must be the same?)

The plumage on Featherbase appears to have come from a bird that was killed on the road. (Red kites being scavengers are attracted to road kill and frequently become it too.) However I think I can safely assume that the bird from which my feather fell is still contently gliding over the woodland and the hill tops not far away.
 We even see red kites flying over the house occasionally.