Bird Alert!

Of the many things that keep me busy, this is one of them:

A bit of thrashing around, and that (now) well-known flap of feathers followed quickly by a howl means, "Look, Ma! Look what I brought for you!"
Even though I heard the ruckus, and they were within 6 feet of me (and my knitting), it took me several minutes to locate this beautiful bird.
Question... how many feathers does a bird have?  Do they all have roughly the same amount?  Bigger birds=bigger feathers?  They must have plenty of extras!
From the above perch, it took off as I approached and ran straight into a window, dropping behind the sofa.  I grabbed the cat and put her outside.  I opened said window, moved the sofa and darn if it didn't get UNDER it.  That's a new one to me.  Most of the birds in the house fly up;  shelves, windows... and unlike the many hummingbirds that I rescued over the summer, this one flies silently. Only when the cat made her way inside (somehow) did I notice that she was now interested in this:

I closed the cat into a room this time, and let little birdie rest.  I waved a red shirt at it, determined to catch it but little birdie is SO smart to land on things that I don't want to break.  It finally landed in my giant ficus tree right next to the door, and eventually headed straight out the door.  Happy ending!  Vacuuming lots (but not all) of the feathers.