Trying to think what species of birds would yield a rainbow of wings, in England. Robins, blue-tits and finches, perhaps.
‘But when she looked again there was nothing to be seen except the tangled briars and all the lovely little birds with their rainbow-coloured wings.’
Source: Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse, illus. C. Walter Hodges (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011 (1946)), p. 96