Most recent research on character evolution attempts to identify either (1) homology or homoplasy (systematic use of the term character), or (2) the adaptive function or selective regime underlying the origin of a character (“adaptationist” use of the term character). There have been relatively few serious considerations or examples of neutral character evolution above the molecular level. Wing feather taxis in birds, the presence or absence of the fifth secondary feather, provides an intriguing possible example of nonadaptive character evolution. We examine the phylogenetic pattern of wing feather taxis among birds to (1) determine its polarity in modern birds (Neornithes), (2) hypothesize the frequency and taxonomic locations of changes in the taxic state, (3) test whether taxis is relatively labile or inert phylogenetically, and (4) allow preliminary consideration of whether adaptive or selectively neutral processes have produced those patterns. Minimum tree length necessary to explain the distribution of wing feather taxis was calculated at the family level using Sibley and Ahlquist's DNA–DNA hybridization tree (1990). Parsimony analysis indicates that the eutaxic condition (fifth secondary present) is ancestral in modern birds, and that diastataxy (fifth secondary absent) has originated independently at least 7 times and reversed to the eutaxic condition on at least 13 occasions within modern birds. Despite multiple independent origins and reversals, wing feather taxis is extremely conserved throughout the tree, such that one or the other state completely characterizes many large multiordinal or multifamilial clades. Lack of obvious correlations with morphological and ecological traits suggest that no single adaptive scenario will explain the evolution of wing feather taxis. Instead, the biological details and phylogenetic patterns make nonadaptive, or selectively neutral evolutionary processes, such as genetic drift, an equally if not more plausible explanation for the distribution of wing feather taxis.