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Enjoyed this puzzle a lot. Nice tight cluing. I’m not the world’s greatest cold solver, and managed about half the answers at which point there was enough to start grid filling and the checked letters rapidly got me the rest of the way. Very neat, especially the way the first part of the endgame enabled the second.

I had one clue query, which has already been addressed here, and the only thing left, which might just be me being dim, is that I haven’t yet spotted the significance of the title. Can anyone nudge me to that final piece of a splendid puzzle?

Chambers or Wikipedia (or both) the first word of the title; the disambiguation should be clear.

Not to me, no. I must be missing something here. BRB tells me that a keel is the bottom of a boat, synecdochically a whole boat, figuratively a prominent ridge, and also a kind of barge, an alternative spelling of “cool”, or to rub with red ochre. I’m not spotting a connection to the theme or the puzzle generally. Which sense should I be thinking about here?

Apols. My bad.

Look at the paragraph below the first illustration in the link.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keel_(bird_anatomy)

A - indeed *the* - thematic word is highlighted.

hw7

Ah, yes, I see — and now you mention it I notice that the definition of the thematic word (or the adjective which is the nearest form it lists) in BRB explicitly mentions this feature, or lack thereof. I was too busy reading the next bit to get the needed examples 🤣 Many thanks, that does make sense now :-)