weird tail

This bird had the weirdest tail ever.
Those white-looking feathers in this picture? Upside down.

And not "ready-to-fall-out" upside down either, but stuck in well. We could tell it had a weird tail before we caught it. Our best hypothesis, some kind of trauma to the follicle as a nestling. This is an imm. red tail, and is regrowing in a few adult feathers (the red ones) that had been lost. When an immature bird loses feathers they will replace them with adult feathers.
Wild bird in hand at banding station