Imped

Yesterday for work I was present at a surgical procedure on a bird. A black-crowned night-heron had gotten snagged in some fishing line and was found in December, dangling from a tree, with its left wing flight feathers severely damaged.

Feathers grow back, but you have to wait for a new moult, which can take months, always to be avoided with wildlife. So the vets decided to undertake an “imping” on the bird, a transplant where donor feathers are grafted onto the trimmed existing shafts using bamboo skewers and five-minute epoxy glue. No blood involved: this is all dead tissue.

This night-heron had nine feathers imped yesterday.

Wondering where the term came from (the vet who did the surgery didn’t know, but he knew it was a very old falconry technique), I asked Language Hat. Right person:

“You’ve come to the right place! The Oxford English Dictionary says it’s from a (rare) Old English verb impian, which is related to various other Germanic verbs (like German impfen) but its earlier history is obscure, though it’s presumably ultimately derived from Greek emphuteuein ‘to implant, engraft.’ Its earliest meaning was ‘to (en)graft,’ which goes back to around the year 1000; what you want is definition 4:

4. Falconry. To engraft feathers in the wing of a bird, so as to make good losses or deficiencies, and thus restore or improve the powers of flight; hence, allusively, with reference to ‘taking higher flights’, enlarging one’s powers, and the like. In various constructions: a. To imp feathers into or in a wing, etc. Obs. 1477 Paston Lett. III. No. 794. 185 Like as the fawcon Which is alofte, tellith scorne to loke a down On hym that wont was her feders to pyke and ympe. 1580 LYLY Euphues (Arb.) 249 Ymping a fether to make me flye, when thou oughtest rather to cut my wing for feare f soaring. 1589 NASHE Pasquil & Marf. 11 Such an Eccho, as ultiplies euery word..and ympes so many feathers vnto euery tale, that it flyes with all speede into euery corner of the Realme. 1641 ROME Joviall Crew II. Wks. 1873 III. 374 To see a swallow..with a hite feather imp’d in her tail. 1706 PHILLIPS, To Imp a Feather in a awk’s Wing (among Falconers), to add a new piece from an old roken stump.”

etc.

The bird was expected to stay in an aviary for a week or two while it strengthened its flight muscles. By nightfall yesterday, though, it was was flying around and generally freaking out. It was released this morning after a band had been put on its leg; flew up into a tree where it stayed for 20 minutes, and then headed off into the Suisun Marsh.