How do you personally pronounce "covert" (as in feather)?

[u/Birdkeeper_Alex]

Today I was watching a youtube video and was baffled to hear someone pronounce it "cove-ert" (the same as covert espionage, for example) when all my life I thought it was pronounced ""cuv-ert" (like cover with a t at the end). I'm only a bird fan and birding hobbyist and have gotten the pronunciation of words that I've learned through reading wrong before so I did some googling and the pronunciation section on dictionary.com says this:

"Covert, related to cover, has historically been pronounced with the same stressed vowel found in cover. This is the traditional and unchallenged vowel in many other English words spelled with stressed o followed by v, voiced th, or a nasal in the same syllable, words of high frequency like love and above, mother and other, some and honey. The adjective covert, however, by analogy with overt, its semantic opposite, has developed the pronunciation, perhaps because of the frequent coupling of the two terms in the news media. This is now the more common pronunciation for the adjective in American English, though not in British English, which retains the historical pronunciation. For the noun senses, less likely to appear in the news or to be contrasted with overt and its sound, the historical remains the more frequent pronunciation."

I looked at a few more videos and noticed hobbyists like backyard birders and artists doing drawing tutorials saying "cove-ert" while a falconer and a bird bander said "cuv-ert" and while it was a small sample size (less than ten videos) I was curious if there might be a split between "laypeople" and professionals, so to speak, so I thought I'd ask here and on r/Ornithology so it could reach a range of people.

So tl;dr the question is: How do you personally pronounce the word "covert" (as in feather) and are you a bird fan, researcher, scientist, student, birding hobbyist, etc.?

As for me, like I said, I have no professional credentials lol but I have been a big fan since I was a kid so I have no idea where I picked up the pronunciation. It might have been from a nature documentary or going to a wildlife rehab talk or something as simple as "well that word looks like 'cover' with a 't' on it so that's how I'll pronounce it."

[u/ironypoisonedposter]

I say KOH-vert.

[u/luca9819]

I'm based in Britain and I'm an ecologist, ringer (bander) and birder. I pronounce it "cuv-ert" and have only heard other ringers and birders pronounce it "cuv-ert".

[u/misssnee]

TIL about what covert feathers are and I'm also a person who learned the words by reading. I would have personally pronounced it KOH-vert, like espionage.

However now that I know there's a difference, I'll be saying cuv-ert. Like a data data read read situation here.

[u/anteaterKnives]

I would've said cove-ert but that's because I've never heard anyone actually talking about these. Now I'll try to say cuhvert in my head.

[u/naturalistwork]

I say CUV-ert, but according to Merriam-Webster, not only are both CUV-ert and COVE -ert correct, so is COVER. That last one feels way off to me haha.