When outstretched in flight, the hooks cause the whole wing-assembly to form a continuous sheet to catch the wind. The whole feather is a cohesive, elastic and light structure, well designed to function as an air-resistant surface. Sensory receptors record its precise position. Over both wings they effect the continuous variations and fine adjustments of more than ten thousand tiny muscles attached to the base of the feathers. Behold the parts of a precision instrument of aerospace, unparalleled in design and workmanship by human technology.
Feathers are in no way frayed or modified scales.
They even arise from a different layer of skin cells. In the latter colours are laid down in the oviduct, in whose walls no pigment has been found.