A Strange Moment

Broad daylight. About 10am. Overcast but bright. No wind. Me taking a leak against the currant bush, as is my wont.
Something catches my eye. Falling from the sky, about twenty feet up and twenty feet from me, is a large feather. It looks like a flight feather from a pigeon, say. Quill type rather than down type. I would guess it was about five to eight inches long, and of a greyish colour. I couldn't really see against the grey sky, but it wasn't brightly coloured.
It is tipping and spinning a little, and generally falling to earth the way you would expect a feather of that size to.
However, there are no birds in the sky, and the speed the feather is falling at, plus its closeness to the ground makes it surprising to me that no semi-nude bird is visible.
'Well that's odd,' I think, and continue blessing the bush.
Then I go to find the feather, which had landed in/on a patch of calf-high grass about fifteen feet away.
No sign of it. I hunt carefully and systematically. No feather. It had definitely landed in that area. But still no feather.
'That's still odd,' I think, and indeed confide as much to the apple tree. Then
I go and have a cup of tea.